BMC Software rolls out cloud-focused lifecycle management solution

Cloud computing is more than just a buzzword, yet it’s not quite mainstream. With its just-released Cloud Lifecycle Management offering, BMC Software is one of the companies working to bridge that gap and deliver on the promise of the managed cloud.

Cloud Lifecycle Management aims to help IT admins deliver and integrate cloud computing strategies more efficiently. It’s an IT management platform that promises more control and visibility in the cloud. And it’s seeing traction among some of the biggest names in high-tech, including Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, NetApp, EMA, Red Hat and Blackbaud. Altogether, Houston-based BMC has inked more than $100 million in cloud foundation technology deals so far, the company says.

Next-gen cloud services

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management not only aims to help enterprises build and operate private clouds more efficiently, it also offers opportunities to leverage external public cloud resources and makes way for service providers to develop and deliver cloud services. With so many tech industry heavy-hitters as partners and customers, it’s worth a closer look.

Here’s what BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management includes: a policy-driven service catalog that personalizes the list of available service offerings and customizations based on a user's role, a self-service Web portal for requesting and controlling private and public cloud resources, and dynamic provisioning of the entire service stack across heterogeneous infrastructures. The platform also offers out-of-the-box cloud management workflows that automate the assignment of compliance policies and performance monitoring tools, along with pre-built IT service management (ITSM) integration for ITIL process interaction and compliance.

eWeek notes that BMC Software was an original partner of Cisco System in the Unified Computing System initiative in 2009. eWeek continues:

In the original UCS partnership scheme, BMC provided the provisioning, change management and configuration software in the stack. Cisco, of course, provided the networking and a new central server.

EMC and NetApp provided the storage capacity, VMware and Microsoft added their virtualization layers—depending upon the choice of the customer—and Accenture shaped the individual product deployments for customers.

Since then, UCS has added vBlocks, smaller modules of some of the aforementioned components, which can be integrated on a smaller scale and are not as daunting as a full-blown forklift overhaul to existing midrange and enterprise IT systems. vBlocks, too, include BMC middleware.

During all this iteration, BMC has been taking copious notes and has come up with its own new cloud-computing layer, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, which works with just about all data center-system-maker components, not just the UCS.

BriefingsDirect contributor Jennifer LeClaire provided editorial assistance and research on this post. She can be reached at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jleclaire and http://www.jenniferleclaire.com.

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