New services also help IT managers speed change-approval processes, automate software distribution, and adopt ITIL best practices HP on Monday announced it has upgraded products in its service management portfolio to help customers expedite changes, automate software distribution and align IT processes with the best practices of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).At its HP Software Universe conference in Las Vegas, the company announced updated software and services that it says will help reduce manual error and maintain more good configurations across distributed systems. The company also introduced a product, HP Change Control Management Software, which incorporates a change advisory board — recommended in ITIL — into software. The software, built on technology acquired with Mercury Interactive, helps automate approvals processes and reduces the need for multiple change advisory meetings to push changes out to systems, industry watchers say.“This product can eliminate tasks that a change advisory board would typically have to do,” says Evelyn Hubbert, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. Because the software incorporates Mercury technology with HP’s focus on service management and ITIL best practices, Hubbert says, “HP has done more work than it has in the past at working across different divisions. The product is a significant step forward in integration.” HP also announced upgrades to its HP Configuration Management Software, also built on acquired technology from Novadigm. This product picks up where the change-control product leaves off, HP says, by pushing out changes approved by the change advisory board to production systems.The vendor also says this software can help with rolling out virtualization software and migrating systems to Vista. Forrester’s Hubbert says the product “closes the loop on rolling out changes” for customers and reveals HP’s product plans to “trickle out” more automation in its software.“It is a real pain point for clients to see a change from initiation to conclusion. HP is offering another proof point in automation, but also addressing that pain point,” Hubbert says. “The company is also doing a better job of aligning their products and building a better implementation road map.” Last, HP announced its Best Practices for Service Center services, which help organizations accelerate the adoption of HP Service Center software and align internal IT-management processes with those if ITIL Version 2 as well as Version 3 of the best-practice framework.The software and services are available. HP did not disclose pricing information. Software Development