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Novell updates Operations Centre network software for cloud support

But company faces battle for relevance against industry big guns, say analysts

  • Iain Thomson
  • Iain Thomson
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Novell has upgraded its network management software for better cloud deployment and improved data handling with the release of Operations Centre 5.0.

This latest update adds the ability to monitor and measure cloud network operations, thanks to integration with Amazon's EC2 cloud offering and the company's cloud management software.

Operations Centre 5.0 also has an updated configuration management system that automatically synchronises with data outside the company to avoid outdated or duplicated information.

Novell has added community management software, allowing multiple parties to use the software to identify bottlenecks and smooth out network problems.

"Without a true end-to-end view of the services their IT environments are deploying, managing the systems and applications that support business objectives is near impossible," said Michele Hudnall, solutions marketing manager at Novell.

"Novell Operations Centre brings together the available information about infrastructure state and service performance in an intuitive, business-centric presentation."

Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told V3.co.uk that the software had some interesting new features, notably Amazon EC2 integration, which could prove very attractive to some customers, particularly in the open source community. However, he warned that it will not solve Novell's central problem.

"So far as the Novell update goes, consider it an exercise in relevance creation by a company headed for the knackers," he said.

"The problem for Novell and other management software vendors is that they are in danger of being ploughed under by increasingly muscular management packages from traditional systems vendors like IBM, operating system giants including Microsoft and virtualisation specialists, particularly VMware.

"Relevance is the biggest target for Novell today, but over time I expect mere survival to become a far larger issue."

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