Open Source to Shake-Up Systems Management Vendors Says Report

New York – The 451 Group has found that the 'Big Four' systems management vendors (BMC, HP, IBM and CA) are ripe for a shake-up from open source systems management players. In the past 18 months, open source options in the systems management space have grown to include a new set of vendors, backing open source systems management projects with commercial-grade support offerings. This combination of open source with enterprise services will have an impact on the proprietary systems management vendors.

"Open source is breathing new competitive life into systems management, ultimately forcing the established vendors to respond in their products, pricing and strategies," said Raven Zachary, the Open Source Research Director at The 451 Group. "Open source could give potential challengers the cost and ease-of-implementation advantages they need to take on such formidable opponents. Yet open source systems management vendors still face an uphill battle against entrenched players with their existing integrated suites and established customers."

These findings are discussed in a new report by The 451 Group, a New York-based technology-industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation. The report is part of the 451 Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) Research Service, which investigates both user experiences and vendor strategies as enterprise customers begin to deploy open source software. This fourth 451 CAOS report delves deeper into key themes uncovered in the previous report, 'Going Open.'

Analysts at The 451 Group found the open source systems management category is mostly dominated by systems monitoring, configuration, provisioning and patching components. Open source systems management offerings lack, however, the full feature set provided by the leading proprietary systems management vendors. Still, these core features represent the primary demands from IT end users. The cost savings and flexibility can make open source worth trying, particularly when monitoring, configuration and other tasks are easier to swap than comprehensive systems management suites.

"What is clear from interactions with end users is that open source is now deeply entrenched in the software infrastructure of many organizations. End-user organizations that have seen benefits from open source software at the lower level of the infrastructure stack are now contemplating opportunities for open source software in systems management," said Jay Lyman, Analyst with The 451 Group.

This 60-page report, “Managing in the Open: The Next Wave of Systems Management,” was written by Jay Lyman and Raven Zachary. This 451 CAOS Report looks at the emergence of a number of open source systems management vendors and the disruptive impact they are having on proprietary systems management vendors. It reviews the existing open source systems management players, and articulates the similarities and differences among these offerings. It also explores the noncommercial angle and leading open source systems management projects that are being rapidly adopted in the enterprise. The report includes a set of recommendations for end users with regard to open source systems management, as well as recent survey data on the topic.

Key Companies Covered
The report includes in-depth competitive assessments of the following companies (although this is not a complete list of companies covered in various sections of the report): Alterpoint, GroundWork Open Source, Hyperic, Open Country, The OpenNMS Group, Qlusters and Zenoss.