First an introduction

First of all let me introduce myself.



My name is Charles Crouchman and I'm the CTO for the leading independent provider of IT Process Automation software, Opalis. I've been designing and building software for a bit more than two decades and I've spent the last decade or so building commercial data center automation solutions that are now used in many of the largest and most advanced data centers in the world. And so not surprisingly my intent for this blog is to write about what I know best and that is (you guessed it!) data center automation.

Like many terms in the technology business data center automation is often misused and abused leading to confusion about what it really means. Most vendors will define data center automation as "Whatever it is I happen to be selling." Do a search on the term and you'll see what I mean. The definition that I like best is the one from Evelyn Hubbert from Forrester:

"Data center automation combines methods that enable hardware, software, and processes to work together, streamlining IT operations. It automates highly manual processes, which assists both the IT operations and IT service management teams in delivering services from design to operations and maintenance. Data center automation sits conceptually between the IT service operation and IT service management processes and reduces work for members of the IT service operation team, resulting in improved efficiency and reduced human error."

Evelyn Hubbert, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research
Data Center Automation Defined, February 26, 2008

But the best part of her definition is that she goes on to explicitly define the four product categories that are subcomponents of data center automation. These are:

1. Automatic discovery of IT infrastructure components.


2. Change and configuration management.


3. IT process automation.


4. Audit and control.

I tend to agree with Evelyn that when using the term "Data Center Automation" most people are referring to one or several of these four areas.

Now because I happen to spend most of my days (and far too many of my nights) thinking about and delivering IT Process Automation solutions this is where I intend to spend most of my time in future blog posts. I hope you find them useful.