Fiorina touts Web services management

Kissimmee, Fla. – Hewlett-Packard is positioning its HP OpenView systems management software as a platform for managing Web services, with the unveiling of several programs at the BEA eWorld conference here on Monday.

HP chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, in a keynote presentation at the conference, stressed the criticality of management and noted that the company has been working with BEA and others through the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I).

“Collectively, we want to make sure Web services don’t fall victim to the proprietary fiefdoms that make life difficult for all our customers,” Fiorina said.

She provided details on new HP programs intended to overcome the Web services management barrier:

* Contribution of a Web services management framework to the OASIS Distributed Management organization within the next three months.

* Establishment of a dedicated management association for Web services, consisting of HP OpenView technology engineers.

* A dedicated Web services management and deployment practice, created by HP and BEA, for the J2EE platform. This practice is being set up in HP’s services group.

* A suite of HP OpenView Web services management components, to manage Web services requests and actively manage Web services.

* The HP OpenView Web Services Management Engine, which allows customers to intercept Web services requests and actively manage the service as opposed to the platform where it resides.

* HP offers the HP OpenView Transaction Analyzer, which uses APIs, co-developed with BEA, to monitor application transactions.

* In addition, HP has an HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for monitoring and managing BEA WebLogic Servers.

“I think what these initiatives demonstrate is that “HP is committed to working with BEA, other partners and many of you to make Web services management a reality. It’s not something we’re doing because it’s the next best thing, it’s something we’re doing because it will help customers achieve more cost-effective IT, more responsive IT, more integrated IT,” and yield a better return on investment, Fiorina said.

Fiorina stressed HP is committed to open standards along with BEA, and criticized IBM for what she said was support of vertically integrated, monolithic technology stacks.