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Opsware Intros Fully Extensible IT Automation System

Opsware Inc, a provider of IT automation and utility computing software, announced Opsware System 4.5 and the Opsware Extension Builder, which together provide the industry's first fully extensible data center automation product. In addition to the Opsware System's extensive out-of-the-box automation capabilities, the new Extension Builder now allows IT to automate any process and any technology, and to integrate with any existing IT management system in their environment.

"All customers interested in automating their environments have unique process and integration needs that must be addressed to gain the full benefit of automation. This new extensibility addresses those needs," said Tim Howes, CTO and executive vice president of development for Opsware. "As IT organizations become more complex, with initiatives underway such as offshoring, consolidation, technology upgrade and security policy enforcement, the ability to adapt a data center automation product becomes even more critical."

Using Opsware System 4.5 and the Opsware Extension Builder, enterprises, service providers and government agencies can extend Opsware's already rich out-of-the-box functionality to meet their most complex automation needs. The Extension Builder will allow customers to build additional automation modules, known as Extensions, to quickly and easily conform to their own custom processes, integrate with all the other IT systems in their environment, automate all their existing technologies, and generate any kind of report they desire, based on their particular needs.

For instance, using Opsware System 4.5 and the Extension Builder, IT can create their own custom automation Extension that would enable patches to be categorized according to severity levels using a customer's own classification model and automatically applied to servers based on the customer's own change management windows. As another example, IT can build a custom automation Extension to provision dynamically based on servers reaching maximum capacity or failing. In addition, customers can use the Extension Builder to integrate with other reporting systems for custom report generation, integrate with other IT management systems or automate specific hardware, operating systems or software infrastructure that is not already supported out-of-the-box.

"When selecting an IT automation system, we looked for a solution that could be customized to meet our specific requirements and provide the flexibility to meet our future needs as we adopt new technologies," said Steve Hammond, program manager for the Adaptive Infrastructure Initiative at Allmerica Financial. "The ability to extend Opsware's automation capabilities, particularly to automate further security management on our Linux servers, has significantly reduced the cost and time it takes us to manage our Linux servers and keep them secure."

The Opsware System puts a wide range of customization capabilities at the fingertips of its customers. Developers can write four distinct types of customer IT automation applications, enabling IT to:

Opsware System 4.5 provides the enabling technology to support custom automation applications built with the Opsware Extension Builder. The Opsware Extension Builder product includes APIs, developer documentation, sample code and reference applications -- everything IT needs to quickly develop and upload their own IT automation applications into the Opsware System. The Extension Builder will be provided at no cost to Opsware customers and partners, and is included as part of the Opsware System 4.5 software license. Both products will be generally available in August. Also included in Opsware System 4.5 is the recently announced Opsware Satellite technology that enables IT to automate small numbers of servers hosted at remote locations such a company's satellite offices or a retailer's retail outlets.