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Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a Hybrid Cloud and Virtualization Management Solution, 2015–16

Publication Date: 28 Jul 2015 | Product code: IT0022-000410

Roy Illsley


Summary

CatalystThe role and purpose of IT in an organization is undergoing significant change, driven by the need for

businesses to become more agile and have greater control over the cost levers when it comes to

technology. This transformation of IT involves many different aspects, not all of which are technology

related, but the one thing they have in common is that IT modernization is about changing to meet the

current and future demands of business. This report provides a side-by-side comparison of leading

virtualization and hybrid cloud management solutions, looking at IT modernization from a data center

infrastructure perspective, with the findings delivered as the Ovum Decision Matrix (ODM). It

considers the significance of management in the virtualization and hybrid cloud environments and

how this influences how technology is deployed, used, and controlled.

Ovum viewOne of the major benefits associated with virtualization and cloud is their ability to accommodate a

flexible approach to workload management and service availability. However, this flexibility comes at a

price: virtualization effectively adds a layer of indirection that increases the complexity of managing

the delivery of these services dynamically. The market is still evolving, and is characterized by

proprietary technologies that have only a rudimentary ability to support cross-platform interoperability.

Ovum believes that managing the delivery of IT services today requires three key capabilities.

The first is the ability to manage highly virtualized environments. An often overlooked aspect of

managing virtual environments is the need for any management tool to operate at a more granular

level than its physical environment counterpart. This more granular approach is further complicated by

the need to holistically manage the server, network, client, user, and storage elements. In Ovum's

opinion the virtualization concept has far-reaching implications for all aspects of infrastructure

management, even without taking into account the extensions of the technology beyond the simple

server consolidation entry ramp most organizations use to justify the move to virtual environments.

Areas such as network performance and memory management are often overlooked, but it is our view

that the storage implications of virtualization remain the single most significant aspect that

organizations fail to understand, or manage, before embarking on their virtualization journey.

Complete infrastructure management must cover all aspects, and be able to link activities and events

so that IT and business managers can see the operational performance, cost, and service levels the

IT infrastructure is delivering at a glance.

The second capability relates to the emergence of software-defined technologies, mobile, containers,

and application and desktop virtualization that have created a new challenge for IT departments. The

issues of management discussed above are amplified when data center managers become entirely

responsible for the delivery of services from desktops to mainframes. These teams have traditionally

been separate, and not just because the devices were not co-located, but also because the skills,

working practices, and technologies employed are at different levels of management maturity and

come under different levels of end-user scrutiny and pressure. The software-defined movement is

challenging this segmentation of roles and responsibilities and creating the conditions under which IT

transformation can be initiated.

© Ovum. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.


The third element causing massive disruption is the rise of "shadow IT" and the use of public cloud

solutions such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The challenge for the CIO is to

understand the extent to which shadow IT is present so they can begin to understand the real

enterprise spend on IT. The management of these public cloud solutions when integrated with

on-premise management provides a powerful combination of capabilities that allow CIOs to

understand where lines of business are using technology, and for what purpose.

Ovum suggests that one of the principal roles of virtualization and cloud management is to mitigate

the risks involved in deploying these new technologies. This responsibility now extends beyond the

confines of the data center. Although management alone cannot solve the problems new technologies

introduce, by treating the entire IT infrastructure as a single entity and addressing its concerns,

organizations can reduce the incompatibility issues new technologies are susceptible to.

Key findings VMware is the clear market leader with an average score of nearly 8 out of 10 over all three

dimensions. It is one of only two vendors to average more than 9 out of 10 for the technology

dimension.

BMC, CA Technologies, Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, and VMware are classified as market

leaders.

BMC ranks second overall. It is the second vendor to score more than 9 out of 10 for the

technology dimension, and is one of the leaders on the execution dimension.

Dell is the leader on the market impact dimension.

The three new entrants to this year's ODM, CSC, SaltStack, and VMTurbo, all recorded at

least one category-leading score on the technology dimension, demonstrating their disruptive

influence in this market.

The market challengers were tightly grouped, with less than one point separating all of them

in terms of overall normalized average score.

The gap between the market followers and challengers has closed considerably since the

2013–14 ODM. The followers recorded scores of less than 3 out of 10 in two categories on

the technology dimension, compared to one category for the challengers.

Vendor solution selection

Inclusion criteriaThere are many vendors in the IT management market offering solutions to customers of all sizes.

However, the criteria for inclusion in this ODM are based on the ability to offer solutions specifically for

the virtualization and cloud management aspects of data center management. HP was unable to

provide any resources to verify the data and findings in this report, so the assessments and analysis

were conducted using only publicly available data. All the other vendors have verified the accuracy of

the data.

The criteria for inclusion of a vendor in the ODM for virtualization and hybrid cloud management,

2015–16 are as follows:



The vendor must be a global vendor with customers in all of three regions: Asia-Pacific,

EMEA, and North America.

A solutions vendor must offer virtualization and cloud management capabilities that enable

management of platforms/infrastructure other than its own technology.

A software vendor's solution must be capable of managing more than just server

virtualization. It must cover at least three of the four main areas (server, storage, network, and

client/desktop).

The vendor must have at least 500 customers, and they must be a mix of mid-sized

enterprises (1,000–4,999 employees) and large enterprises (5,000+ employees).

Exclusion criteriaThe virtualization and cloud management market is considered a sub-category of the wider

infrastructure management market, and although Ovum accepts this is how some vendors have

entered the market, it is not universally the case. Vendors and products excluded from the analysis

are determined according to the following criteria:

The vendor's solution is only applicable to five of 10 different classifications in the technical

dimension (performance monitoring, virtualization management, cloud management,

infrastructure modeling and analysis, financial management, delivery scale and

manageability, security and backup, provisioning and automation, lifecycle management, and

reporting and integration).

More than 50% of the vendor's solution is made up from partner solutions or third-party

solutions.

The vendor has no direct contact with the end customer; everything is done through channel

partners.

MethodologyTechnology assessment

In this assessment dimension Ovum developed a series of features and functionality that would reveal

differentiation between the leading solutions in the marketplace. The criteria for virtualization and

hybrid cloud management are as follows:

Performance monitoring: This looks at a solution's ability to monitor resource usage and its

impact on performance. In the 2015–16 report, monitoring is extended to mobile and

containers technologies.

Virtualization management: The ability to manage all aspects of the infrastructure delivery

chain from server, network, storage, endpoint, to I/O.

Cloud management: How well the solutions integrate with other cloud solutions, and not only

allow visibility into resource usage, but control and management of those environments.

Infrastructure modeling and analysis: One of the biggest challenges for any CIO is being

able to predict future resource needs by type and delivery method. This section looks at how

well the solutions allow for modeling and support "what-if" analysis.

Financial management: An increasingly important, if underrepresented, capability is that of

managing the cost and financial aspects of delivering services to line-of-business customers.



In this section the capabilities of how the solutions surface costs and associate them to

services are evaluated.

Delivery scale and manageability: The ability to manage at scale across different

geographies and technologies.

Security and backup: The ability to secure and protect data should be implicit in any

solution. Although these solutions are primarily seen as backup and recovery solutions, they

must be able to perform basic data protection and support security integrations.

Provisioning and automation: The need to automate as many operational activities as

possible aligns with the CIO's need to reduce costs. This section looks at how the solutions

enable different levels of automation.

Lifecycle management: The rise of DevOps has changed how the IT operations function

thinks about the management of applications. This section focuses on how well the solutions

support the concept of lifecycle management and align with any DevOps approach.

Reporting and integration: The final capability is the need to produce more than the

standard weekly resource usage report. This section evaluates the solutions' ease of

integration with other data sources and how user-friendly their reporting capabilities are.

Execution

In this dimension, Ovum reviewed the capability of the solution around the following key areas:

Maturity: The stage that the product/service is currently at in the maturity lifecycle is

assessed here, relating to the maturity of the overall technology/service area.

Interoperability: This element assesses how easily the solution/service can be integrated

into the organization's operations, relative to the demand for integration for the project.

Innovation: Innovation can be a key differentiator in the value that an enterprise achieves

from a software or services implementation.

Deployment: Referring to a combination of assessed criteria and points of information, Ovum

provides detail on various deployment issues, including time, industries, services, and

support.

Scalability: Points of information are provided to show the scalability of the solution across

different scenarios.

Enterprise fit: The alignment of the solution is assessed in this dimension, and the potential

ROI period identified.

Market impact

The global market impact of a solution is assessed in this dimension. Market impact is measured

across five categories, each of which has a maximum score of 10.

Revenue: Each solution's global virtualization and hybrid cloud management revenues are

calculated as a percentage of the market leader's. This percentage is then multiplied by a

market maturity value and rounded to the nearest integer. Overall global revenue carries the

highest weighting in the market impact dimension.

Revenue growth: Each solution's revenue growth estimate for the next 12 months is

calculated as a percentage of the growth rate of the fastest-growing solution in the market.

The percentage is then multiplied by 10 and rounded to the nearest integer.



Geographical penetration: Ovum determines each solution's revenues in three regions: the

Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific. These revenues are

calculated as a percentage of the market-leading solution's revenues in each region,

multiplied by 10, and then rounded to the nearest integer. The solution's overall geographical

reach score is the average of these three values.

Vertical penetration: Ovum determines each solution's revenues in the following verticals:

energy and utilities; financial services; healthcare; life sciences; manufacturing; media and

entertainment; professional services; public sector; retail; wholesale and distribution;

telecommunications; and travel, transportation, logistics, and hospitality. These revenues are

calculated as a percentage of the market leader's revenues in each vertical, multiplied by 10,

then rounded to the nearest integer. The solution's overall vertical penetration score is the

average of these three values.

Size-band coverage: Ovum determines each solution's revenues in three company size

bands: large enterprises (5,000 employees and above), medium-sized enterprises

(1,000–4,999 employees), and small enterprises (fewer than 1,000 employees). These

revenues are calculated as a percentage of the revenues of the market leader in each region,

multiplied by 10, and then rounded to the nearest integer. The vendor's overall company

size-band score is the average of these three values.

Ovum ratings Market leader: This category represents the leading solutions Ovum believes are worthy of a

place on most technology selection shortlists. The vendor has established a commanding

market position with a product that is widely accepted as best-of-breed.

Market challenger: The vendors in this category have a good market positioning and are

selling and marketing the product well. The products offer competitive functionality and a good

price-performance proposition, and should be considered as part of the technology selection.

Market follower: Solutions in this category are typically aimed at meeting the requirements of

a particular kind of customer. As a tier-one offering, they should be explored as part of the

technology selection.

Ovum Decision Matrix InteractiveThe Interactive Decision Matrix for virtualization and hybrid cloud management – an online interactive

tool that provides the technology features that Ovum believes are crucial differentiators for leading

solutions in this area – will soon be available to download from the Ovum Knowledge Center.

Market and solution analysis

Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16The hybrid cloud and virtualization management market is evolving rapidly and the vendors in this

space mostly have a traditional infrastructure or systems management heritage. However, in this

second ODM on the topic Ovum sees these traditional vendors being challenged by newer entrants



with approaches that were developed in the cloud era. These challengers are driving some innovative

solutions designed to deal with the challenges of operating in a heterogeneous and bimodal IT service

delivery environment.

The traditional vendors dominate the ODM from a leadership perspective, mainly due to the breadth

of coverage their solutions have, and the fact that they provide a bridge between the traditional and

new eras in computing. However, the new entrants are highly disruptive; all of them have recorded at

least one category-leading score on the technology dimension. This demonstrates a shift taking place

in the market, and the traditional vendors not in the market leader category are reinventing their

solutions for the cloud era.

Ovum believes the software-defined movement will be the next technology to create vendor disruption

in this market. This will bring increased speed of change and levels of automation that must be

integrated with best practice processes and procedures. Ovum believes those vendors that have

embraced heterogeneity must now embrace automated control and machine-to-machine (M2M)

learning.

Figure 1: Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16

Source: Ovum



Figure 2: Expanded view of Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16

Source: Ovum

Table 1: Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16

Market leaders Market challengers Market followers

BMC Citrix NetIQ

CA Technologies CSC

Dell Red Hat

IBM SaltStack

HP VMTurbo

Microsoft

VMware

Source: Ovum

Market leaders: BMC, CA Technologies, Dell, IBM, HP, Microsoft, and VMwareThe market leaders all scored an average of at least 6.70 out of 10 across all three dimensions.

However, VMware is the clear leader overall with an average score of 8.09 out of 10. BMC, HP, and

IBM rank second, third, and fourth, respectively, with average scores of 7.56, 7.40, and 7.14 out of 10.

CA Technologies, Dell, and Microsoft are some way behind the top three market leaders, with average

scores of less than 7 out of 10.

The market leaders are distinguished by the breadth and depth of their solutions, and by the maturity

of their offerings in the market. One defining feature of the market leaders is their consistency across

the different categories; their overall weighted normalized scores are above average, compared to the

below average scores of the challengers and followers.



This consistency demonstrates that their solutions are designed to address the future challenges of

managing in cloud environments, and not just current needs. Another distinguishing factor among the

market leaders is that they have developed a pedigree in the management space and are recognized

as being technology-agnostic. Only one, BMC, can be categorized as being a truly independent

vendor, but all of these vendors now provide cross-platform capabilities.

Market challengers: Citrix, CSC, Red Hat, SaltStack, and VMTurboThe market challengers include a wide range of vendors, from established management vendors like

Red Hat and Citrix that are in the process of redeveloping/expanding their solutions for the new hybrid

cloud world, to newer vendors such as CSC, SaltStack, and VMTurbo, whose solutions are disrupting

the market. The single distinguishing characteristic of these market challengers is that they all have

low scores (less than 4 out of 10) in one technology category.

The overall grouping of these vendors is very close; the overall average scores of all six were within

one point of each other, in a range from 5.33 to 6.36 out of 10. There is a wide variety of scores within

each dimension, however. For example, on a technical level CSC and SaltStack score higher than at

least one of the market leaders, whereas Red Hat ranks below the followers. On the execution

dimension these performances are transposed, with Red Hat scoring in line with the market leaders,

and CSC and SaltStack being more in line with the followers. The other vendors' scores are

consistently just below the average for that dimension.

Ovum believes that for any of these vendors to move up to the market leader category, they would

need to improve consistency by improving in the areas identified as specific weaknesses. All of these

vendors have the potential to become market leaders.

Market followers: NetIQThe sole vendor in the market followers category, NetIQ, has an average normalized score of nearly 5

out of 10 across all three dimensions of the ODM. The main differentiator between those in the

followers and challengers categories is that this follower is weak in 2 of the 10 sections of the

technology dimension, scoring less than 3 out of 10; this compares with the challengers, which score

low in only one section. However, the gap between this market follower and the market challengers

has narrowed significantly since the 2013–14 ODM. Ovum considers the vendor to have good

solutions that provide breadth of coverage but lack some deeper domain-specific capabilities.

NetIQ has scored poorly in the virtualization managementand financial management categories on the

technical dimension. Its score is consistent across all three dimensions, and it has improved in terms

of consistency since the 2013–14 ODM. Ovum believes this vendor has the potential to progress to

the market challenger category.

Emerging vendorsThe ODM compares management capabilities in a hybrid cloud and virtualized environment. However,

the adjacent technology area of monitoring may be more appropriate for some customers that do not

want complete management functionality, but want to gain visibility into these environments first.

Although the following vendors (see Table 2) do not have all the management capabilities required for

inclusion in the ODM, they are capable of monitoring virtual and hybrid cloud environments, and



Ovum considers these vendors worthy of consideration if monitoring is required compared to full

management.

Table 2: Emerging vendors: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16

CliQr CliQr is a provider of application-defined cloud management solutions. Cofounded in 2010 by former VMware engineers Gaurav Manglik (CEO) and Tenry Fu (CTO), the company offers full application lifecycle management delivered in a single, intuitive packaged platform.

Fluke Networks Fluke Networks has long been known for its on-premise monitoring offering that provides a range of monitoring capabilities, from application performance monitoring to network performance monitoring. Fluke Networks has extended this to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that monitors SaaS applications and public/hybrid cloud environments.

ManageEngine ManageEngine delivers real-time IT management tools designed to enable IT teams to meet organizational needs for real-time services and support. Its products are used by established and emerging enterprises worldwide, including more than 60% of the Fortune 500, to allow optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops, and more.

Source: Ovum

CliQrCliQr's patented and patent-pending technology and its global partners help dozens of leading brands

in the healthcare, manufacturing, and technology markets manage their cloud application lifecycles

over 10 different cloud types. With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and locations in Canada,

India, and the Czech Republic, CliQr sells directly and through a global network of reseller partners,

including Net One Systems (Japan), Presidio, Trace3, and Tech Mahindra. Customers include

Motorola, NTT, Baylor College of Medicine, and Pratt & Miller, among others. CliQr recently closed a

Series C funding round led by Polaris Partners with participation from Foundation Capital, Google

Ventures, and TransLink Capital, bringing total funding raised to date to $38m.

CliQr CloudCenter enables businesses to easily and efficiently model, migrate, and manage one to

many applications, users, and clouds. CloudCenter's application-defined technology decouples

applications from the complexity of hybrid cloud environments, rather than the traditional approach of

manually forcing applications to conform to a variety of changing physical, virtual, and cloud

environments. The platform automates the dynamic provisioning of optimal infrastructure, enabling

resources and settings based on application needs, which leads to new levels of operational efficiency

and security.

CliQr has partnered with several technology vendors to deliver seamless integration that extends the

capabilities of each tool. CloudCenter delivers full lifecycle management, cloud independence,

enterprise-class scalability, multi-tenancy, and security. Its intuitive platform offers the added benefit of

a short time to value.

Key capabilities of CliQr's CloudCenter

CloudCenter allows enterprises to

rapidly onboard applications



benchmark any application on any cloud to select the best execution environment for the

desired cost and performance requirements

deploy applications with one click

enforce governance through policies that span applications, clouds, and users

secure data at rest and in transit, including network isolation, key management and vaulting,

audit logging, etc.

migrate applications easily to different clouds when the cloud service provider or application

requirement situation changes

manage the lifecycles of all applications via a single dashboard, delivering true

IT-as-a-service.

Fluke NetworksFluke Networks has long been known for its on-premise monitoring capability with Visual TruView

appliances. These cover a range of monitoring capabilities, from application performance monitoring

to network performance monitoring, in a single unit. Fluke Networks added to this on-premise

capability in 2015 with TruView Live, a SaaS offering that monitors SaaS applications and

public/hybrid cloud environments. The key to Fluke Networks' success is the way the information is

visualized so that complex technical information can be displayed in a clear and concise way. This

information helps system administrators identify services and applications that are unavailable,

performing poorly, and/or are in danger of going out of SLA. Fluke Networks' TruView suite of

solutions does not manage these environments, but provides in-depth visibility. Fluke Networks'

TruView solutions offer capabilities including the following:

Application performance monitoring – anywhere

Ovum believes the key to the combined power of Visual TruView and TruView Live is the ability to

monitor and diagnose network and application performance issues in hybrid cloud enterprise

architectures with a single suite of products. Although Visual TruView's specialty is on-premise deep

analysis, the addition of TruView Live gives customers unprecedented and total visibility into the entire

enterprise, including SaaS, private cloud, and data center-hosted applications. TruView Live provides

application availability, performance reporting, and alerting 24/7, using asset-light hardware,

on-premise, or virtual instrumentation that can be deployed virtually anywhere.

Network monitoring

In highly distributed environments, the WAN becomes the critical component in delivering services

within SLA to customers and users alike. Visual TruView and TruView Live simplify how this complex

information is displayed through the use of different utilization bands, providing problem domain

isolation, clearly showing the links that are in the congested state and require deeper investigation.

VoIP monitoring

There is a fast-growing need for the ability to monitor the VoIP services used by enterprise customers,

from soft telephone to online meetings. The TruView suite also offers the ability to monitor call

availability and performance, and to drill down into the individual VoIP session(s) for further analysis.



ManageEngineManageEngine, part of Zoho Corporation, provides a suite of no-frills products designed to manage

and monitor data center environments. This no-frills approach means it does not offer some of the

capabilities included in the ODM. Ovum considers ManageEngine worthy of inclusion in the adjacent

technologies section because it does cover a greater breadth of management and monitoring

capabilities aimed at mid-market customers.

Application and system monitoring

ManageEngine's design was born out of a belief that server management is not enough, and that

organizations must monitor all tiers of the application stack to be effective. The approach taken by

many of ManageEngine's competitors is to focus on domain-specific monitoring, such as network,

storage, database, and server, with separate tools for separate teams. However, the landscape is

changing and new tools that enable a cross-technology approach to monitoring are required.

Transaction monitoring

One of the big "black holes" for many organizations is the monitoring of database activity.

ManageEngine provides a simple yet effective solution that allows transactions to be traced. This

approach works for web applications and traditional on-premise applications.

Real user experience

Ovum considers the ability to monitor what the user is experiencing to be a significant strength of

ManageEngine. It uses synthetic transactions to perform this end-user experience monitoring. The

process involves recording the required URL sequences and actions a typical end user would access.

These actions are recorded as webscripts. The end user monitoring (EUM) agent executes the

associated webscript by invoking the Internet Explorer browser. The recorded actions are replayed in

the browser at regular time intervals that are specified by the user. Once the playback is complete, the

EUM agent will update the results of the playback such as response time and response code.

Fault management

It is crucial for operational teams to be able to identify and deal with the root cause of any problems as

quickly as possible. ManageEngine supports a range of actions based on events; it can raise a

service desk ticket, alert a service agent via a number of channels, or execute a script to take

automatic action.

Virtualization and cloud monitoring

ManageEngine uses VMware VI Webservice to discover VMware virtual infrastructure. The entire

virtual infrastructure can automatically be discovered and modeled the same as in vCenter. In addition

to virtual machine discovery, ManageEngine also discovers data stores and network interfaces linked

to the ESX servers, etc. Ovum commends its ability to gather performance metrics and configuration

data, such as CPU, memory, disk I/O, and networks. ManageEngine does not work in the same way

with Microsoft Hyper-V; it discovers the virtual infrastructure using WMI protocol and identifies all

virtual machines, clusters, etc. by connecting through WMI and passing the necessary credentials.

ManageEngine uses the XenAPI to gather performance metrics of Citrix XenServer and the virtual

machines associated with each server. It also recently introduced performance monitoring for VMware

Horizon View, VMware's desktop virtualization offering. This enables users to gain end-to-end



performance visibility into the entire VMware virtualized data center – including virtual desktops,

hypervisors, VMs, applications running on the VMs, servers, and storage hardware.

Market leaders

Market leaders: TechnologyFigure 3: Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16 –technology

Source: Ovum

BMC and VMware are the clear technology market leaders; they are the only two vendors to score

more than 9 out of 10 on average for all categories within the technology dimension, with scores of

9.02 and 9.08, respectively. These vendors also have the leading scores for five categories, with four

maximum 10 out of 10 scores. VMware accounts for three of these maximum scores, and BMC for

one, with CSC being the only other vendor to record a maximum score – although VMTurbo comes

close with a score of 9.92 for performance monitoring. The difference between BMC and VMware and

the other vendors is demonstrated by the fact the third-placed vendor (HP) scores just over 8 out of

10 on average, with a score of 8.08. The next three vendors after HP score more than 7 out of 10,

with a gap of less than one point between the sixth and seventh (7.67 and 6.87, respectively). This

spread shows that in terms of technology, VMware, BMC, and HP have a clear lead across all

categories.

The most interesting finding from the technology dimension is that all three new entrants to this ODM

(CSC, SaltStack, and VMTurbo) have at least one category-leading score. VMTurbo comes top in

terms of performance monitoring; SaltStack is the leader in delivery scale and manageability; and

CSC is the leader in reporting and integration, sharing the category leader position in security and

backup with VMware. The only other vendors with a category-leading score are CA Technologies for

infrastructure modeling and analysis, and IBM and Dell for provisioning and automation.



Market leaders: ExecutionFigure 4: Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16 – execution

Source: Ovum

Scores on the execution dimension show less differentiation. HP and VMware lead the pack, with

Microsoft, Dell, CA Technologies, and BMC close behind. VMWare and Dell each have two

category-leading scores.

Dell, VMware, and Red Hat are the leaders in the enterprise fit category, having demonstrated the

best ROI. VMware also leads in terms of maturity of solution, having spent many years developing its

management capabilities. Microsoft and IBM, having the widest coverage, are the leaders in terms of

interoperability, and HP is the leader in terms of innovation. Dell and CA Technologies complete the

category leader board; Dell and BMC have the highest score for deployment, and CA for scalability.



Market leaders: Market impactFigure 5: Ovum Decision Matrix: hybrid cloud and virtualization management, 2015–16 – market impact

Source: Ovum

The market impact dimension is dominated by the large, well-known vendors. Dell is the clear leader

with an average score of more than 7.70 out of 10; VMware, Microsoft, and Red Hat are the only other

vendors to have scored an average of more than 7 out of 10. As expected, those vendors with leading

scores for revenue (VMware, Microsoft, HP, IBM, and Dell) differ to those leading the revenue growth

category (VMTurbo, SaltStack, and Red Hat). Dell and Microsoft are the leaders in the size-band

coverage category, due to their wide use in all different size bands, but with particular strength in the

mid-market segment. CA Technologies, Red Hat, and NetIQ have the top scores in terms of vertical

penetration, with a good spread over all the leading verticals.



Vendor analysis

BMC (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 6: BMC radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

Cloud Lifecycle Management (CLM) v4.5

Ovum ODM analysis

BMC is categorized as a market leader in the ODM; it ranks second overall and has recorded four

category-leading scores. BMC is one of only two vendors to score over 9 out of 10 in the technology

dimension, and is one of several to score an average of nearly 7 out of 10 in the execution dimension.

BMC's main weakness is on the market impact dimension, on which its score is below average across

all but two categories. However, its larger rivals have traditionally performed particularly well on this

dimension. Ovum believes BMC's position will improve as it continues to grow and build its reputation

as a technical innovator in the hybrid cloud and virtualization management space.

Ovum SWOT assessment

Strengths

Uses Service Blueprints to accelerate deployment



CLM's Service Blueprints can accelerate deployment and reduce the administrative overhead

associated with deploying new services in cloud environments by capturing all configuration and best

practice information. They lower the bar for offering new services or variants to users and increase the

benefit of IT.

Provides wide support for operating systems and cloud platforms

Ovum feels the key to cloud management is the ability to support the breadth of different platforms

and operating systems available. This will eventually be reduced to a smaller number of more popular

cloud platforms, although this natural selection will take between five and 10 years, so any current

cloud management solution must support as many of these as is feasible.

Delivers automated governance and compliance processes

The need to manage IT risk across traditional environments and new cloud platforms is at the

forefront of CIOs' minds, so the ability to extend IT processes to cloud management is essential. CLM

has built-in integration for change approvals, CMDB updates, and regulatory and operational

compliance policies. Importantly, this IT process integration is automated within the service

provisioning process so that the required levels of compliance and governance can be applied across

all platforms, without affecting IT agility.

Weaknesses

CloudStack and Google support is missing

BMC offers one of the largest selections of different cloud platforms of any cloud management

solution on the market, with two notable exceptions: CloudStack, a viable open standards-based

approach alternative to OpenStack, and Google Cloud. The latter is currently a minor omission,

although it could become a major one in the future given Google's strategic intent.

Opportunities

Filling the cloud orchestration market gap

Ovum believes that given the broad range of platforms supported by BMC CLM, it could become a

leading solution in the nascent cloud orchestration market. However, to achieve this it needs some

workload migration capability, or to at least integrate with one of the emerging technologies on the

market. Ovum recognizes that BMC is addressing this with CLM's Cloud Foundry integration.

Developing a version of the solution for telco service providers

CLM is currently used by both enterprises and service providers. It holds specific appeal to the latter,

however; it can operate a service provider's cloud infrastructure as it does for the enterprise customer,

and can also underpin providers' own public cloud offerings, giving customers visibility into the cloud

and allowing management of workloads, with infrastructure management retained by the service

provider. Ovum would like to see this extended to the telcos entering the enterprise IT market that are

less mature than existing service providers.

Threats

Docker implementations change the market

The cloud and virtualization markets have been evolving for the past 10 years, and the technologies

that have emerged are broadly complementary. However, Docker could potentially be a disruptive

influence on this ecosystem; if it gains significant momentum it could transform the cloud orchestration



market. BMC's stated direction with respect to container support will become even more critical

should this occur.

Competition from SaaS vendors offering similar heterogeneous management solutions

Ovum research in 2013 discovered that most IT departments operate at least seven different cloud

management solutions, with CIOs looking to reduce this number to as few as practically possible. The

threat for BMC is that if new software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors enter this space, competition could

increase. These new vendors cannot currently boast heterogeneity and compliance capabilities

across complex environments at the same scale as CLM, however.

CA Technologies (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 7: CA Technologies radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

CA Technologies Unified Infrastructure Management V8.2

Ovum ODM analysis

CA Technologies has delivered a consistent performance across all three dimensions and is

categorized as a market leader. It has performed above average in terms of technology capability,

with a category-leading score for infrastructure modeling and analysis. It also performed well for

lifecycle management, and for reporting and integration. However, its score is surprisingly low for

provisioning and automation, which must be addressed if CA Technologies is to retain its leadership



status in the 2017–18 ODM. Ovum believes its low score in this category is due to it not including its

automation technologies as an integrated solution.

CA Technologies is strongest in the execution dimension, where it is third overall. It has improved its

market impact position since the previous ODM; it now has more mid-market customers and a more

even spread across the different market verticals, company size bands, and geographies.


Strengths

Comprehensive monitoring of a wide range of technologies

CA Technologies Unified Infrastructure Management (CA UIM) provides the ability to monitor and

manage a wide array of technologies from different operating systems, multiple hypervisors, and the

entire application stack. Ovum believes that if a management tool is going to be of real value to an

organization and replace some existing tools, broad coverage is essential.

Provides a role-based/context-aware approach to problem resolution

Ovum believes that one of the biggest challenges of building and managing a cloud environment is in

the way in which the IT department makes the transition from its current structure and skills base to

that needed in a services-centric economy. CA UIM provides domain experts with a context-aware

GUI from a single unified architecture, and the workflows are role-based, so that existing IT teams can

rapidly identify and resolve issues.

Weaknesses

Some public cloud platforms are not supported

The ability to manage and monitor the leading public cloud platforms is a key aspect of any

management tool. However, the sheer number of different platforms means that vendors have to

select these platforms to develop support based on customer demand. CA Technologies currently has

support for AWS, Rackspace, and Microsoft Azure. The only major public cloud offerings that are not

supported are Google Cloud and IBM SoftLayer.

Does not support containers technology

The rise of the containers approach to virtualization was reignited in 2014, with Docker a particularly

high-profile approach. Currently, like most of the mainstream vendors, CA Technologies does not

support the management and monitoring of containers. However, CA Technologies has indicated that

support for Docker is on the roadmap.

Opportunities

Integrating the use and information from the data in other CA Technologies management tools

Ovum believes that the automatic discovery capabilities of CA UIM via its probe technology represent

a source of information that would be useful to other CA Technologies management tools. The ability

to use CA PPM as the overall IT and business alignment management tool would provide a powerful

solution.

Extending the coverage to mainframe technologies

Much of the debate about cloud is focused on the X86 virtualized infrastructure market. CA UIM

extends this to include Unix systems and other mid-range hardware platforms. Ovum believes that by

extending this further to include z-Linux, CA Technologies would become one of very few tool vendors



to offer the same GUI from X86 to mainframe. CA Technologies has indicated that CA UIM for System

z is on the roadmap.

Threats

Platform-as-a-service vendors are becoming more widely used

Ovum research in 2011/12 discovered that most IT departments operated at least seven different

vendors' management solutions. The research in 2014/15 shows that this number reduced to five

actively used management tools. This reduction in on-premise solutions is in part due to the rise of the

PaaS vendors, such as salesforce.com with its force.com platform, attracting a wider range of new

vendors to develop solutions on the platform. However, CA UIM has MSP partners that provide

customers with options by hosting CA UIM and providing monitoring services.

CA Technologies needs to continue to build its leading reputation in terms of ease of use and

installation

CA Technologies announced in 2013 that it wanted to revolutionize the way in which on-premise

software is supported and maintained. The ambition was to replace the traditional need for application

version upgrades, which are in effect mini-projects for the IT department, with a SaaS-like approach to

application maintenance. This statement was well received by its customer base and beyond, and

supports CA Technologies' stated objective of changing the way software is deployed, and any

deviation from this strategy could impact CA Technologies' reputation. The new releases of CA UIM

and the introduction of CA UIM Snap (free version) are positive steps in that direction, but there is still

some ground to cover.



Citrix (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)Figure 8: Citrix radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

Citrix CloudPlatform 4.5

Ovum ODM analysis

Citrix is classified as a market challenger. Although it has performed consistently across all three

dimensions, it has failed to record any category-leading scores. Its score is average on the technology

and execution dimensions, and just below average on the market impact dimension. Citrix has

performed well on the technology dimension in the core categories of virtualization management

(server, network, storage, endpoint, I/O), security and backup, and cloud management, with above

average scores. Its overall performance has been impacted by its lack of any lifecycle management

solution in the technology dimension, however. Its weakness compared with other vendors on the

market impact dimension is its relatively limited growth in 2013/14. However, Ovum believes it has

addressed these issues in 2014/15 and growth will be improved.


Strengths

Works with multiple different hypervisor technologies

CloudPlatform is designed to work with open source KVM hypervisors as well as enterprise-grade

hypervisors such as Citrix XenServer, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-v, and Oracle VM (OVM).



Ovum believes that the ability to operate on most of the leading hypervisor technologies is a big

strength of the product.

Virtual appliances simplify management

Ovum believes that simplification of the management task is an important aspect of any

cloud-management platform. CloudPlatform internally manages a pool of virtual appliances to support

the cloud itself. These appliances offer services such as firewalling, routing, DHCP, VPN access,

console proxy, storage access, and storage replication. The extensive use of virtual appliances

simplifies the installation, configuration, and ongoing management of a cloud deployment.

Weaknesses

High availability is not initiated if all hosts in a cluster have connectivity issues

CloudPlatform cannot reliably determine if a host is up or down if all the hosts in a cluster go down or

have connectivity issues. In these cases, the host is marked as in "alert" state and high availability

(HA) is not triggered for user VMs or system VMs. These VMs will continue to be marked as being in

"running" state. This is a known issue and Citrix is working on a solution. Ovum considers this a minor

weakness but one that can cause delays for operational teams when identifying issues.

Windows guest VMs memory is displayed incorrectly

When used with dynamic scaling, Windows guest VMs report four times more the amount of RAM.

The problem is caused by the way in which CloudPlatform uses XenServers' dynamic memory control

(DMC) to enable the dynamic scaling of VMs running on XenServer. This approach sets static max

and dynamic max for VMs that are dynamically scalable. The static max parameter refers to the

maximum memory to which the VM can scale. In the case of Windows VMs, XenServer incorrectly

shows the static max memory allocated to the VM in the Windows task manager. Ovum believes that

this is a minor weakness, but also one that demonstrates the challenges of operating cross platform

on solutions designed for another platform.

Opportunities

Working toward a cloud standard

The issue is that from an enterprise user's perspective, each cloud platform may have some features

the enterprise wants, but workloads cannot be moved between different cloud platforms. Like the

browser wars of the 90s, this lack of standardization is restraining greater adoption by enterprise

customers. Citrix says that support for common Amazon APIs, which CloudPlatform excels at, can

simplify transition between AWS and private clouds or any of the many CloudPlatform-powered public

clouds. Ovum does not disagree, but points out that not all cloud platforms can be supported until the

industry standardizes.

Making CloudPlatform the cloud services broker

CloudPlatform operates with a heterogeneous array of infrastructure technologies that enable

organizations to build an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering (private cloud). The missing link is

the ability to act as a broker of cloud services and select the service that best meets users' needs,

irrespective of where and on which platform it executes. However, Citrix offers CloudPortal Business

Manager (CPBM), an aggregation tool for Cloud Services including IaaS from CloudPlatform. CPBM

includes SDKs for connecting any cloud service, and has a small but growing list of partner

integrations including Cloudian and Caringo. Citrix says it will be adding support for other IaaS



platforms and third-party clouds including AWS. So while CloudPlatform is not a services broker,

CloudPortal Business Manager can be considered an emerging one.

Threats

Public cloud destroys the corporate data center

Until a cloud standard is agreed, users have a limited choice of cloud platform. Citrix believes that an

enterprise will leverage both, building a private cloud for applications and data that must remain on

premise, while also leveraging IaaS public clouds for areas such as dev/test, added capacity, backup

and recovery, and web app hosting. Citrix's view may become a reality, but this is not guaranteed

because while the build-it-yourself (inside-out approach) advocates the private cloud based on

corporate data centers, public cloud providers including AWS offer an infrastructure-free operational

expense model only for IT service delivery. Ovum therefore believes that until a cloud standard is

agreed, or a de facto one emerges, the outlook remains changeable and unpredictable.

The cloud bubble bursts

The current analysis indicates that interest in cloud computing remains high, but the movement to a

cloud-only economy looks unlikely. If the promise of cloud computing does not therefore deliver on the

service quality, agility, or cost, then its long-term future could be in doubt.

CSC (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)Figure 9: CSC radar diagrams

Source: Ovum



Products

CSC Agility Platform v9.2

Ovum ODM analysis

CSC joins the ODM as a market challenger. It has performed strongly on the technology dimension,

ranking sixth overall, with an above average score and two category-leading scores. CSC ranks

seventh overall, and can gap the bridge between the market challenger and market leader categories.

Its technology dimension strengths are reporting and integration, and security and backup, for which it

has category-leading scores, but CSC is also a strong performer in cloud management, infrastructure

modeling and analysis, and lifecycle management, with well above average scores. CSC is weaker in

delivery scale and manageability, mainly due to the lack of any large-scale reference deployments. It

has performed in line with the average for the execution dimension, but slightly below average on the

market impact dimension.


Strengths

Supports a wide variety of cloud technologies

One of the biggest challenges for any organization is managing the variety of solutions and

technologies that make up today's cloud environments. While the concept of cloud is universally

understood, there is no single standard and this has led to the current fragmented market. CSC

ServiceMesh supports more than 12 different cloud technologies, which makes it one of the broadest

solutions on the market.

Comes with an integrated governance capability

The governance of cloud computing is still in its infancy in terms of understanding and customer

readiness. The extension of governance beyond the corporate data center is a must-have

requirement for any successful cloud deployment, and CSC has integrated into ServiceMesh Agility

Platform a fully operational capability when it comes to managing governance. Ovum considers this is

one of the key capabilities that organizations should consider when looking at cloud management.

Weaknesses

Does not currently have a solution for containers

The development of ServiceMesh is ongoing. The adapter for OpenStack was redeveloped in 2015 to

extend it to become asynchronous, but the solution does not currently support containers (scheduled

for 4Q15). While the market for containers is relatively immature, Ovum does believe that service

providers are more likely to be rapid early adopters. Therefore, Ovum would like to see CSC leading

the market in terms of technology support for emerging trends, and acknowledges that CSC is actively

engaged in conversations on the topic with its customers.

The CSC private cloud offering is based on one vendor's technology

While BizCloud, CSC's private cloud offering, is an excellent additional service/capability that

complements the ServiceMesh solution, it is currently solely based on VMware's stack. While as a

service offering this would not be considered a major issue, when viewed through the lens of

cross-platform management capability it raises some questions – such as how holistic CSC is. Ovum

does not consider this to be a big problem, but would like to see a second offering of BizCloud on

another technology.



Opportunities

Increase the number of supported cloud platforms to enable customer choice

The fragmented cloud market creates a problem for any management vendor – which technologies

should it support and which should it develop support for next. While CSC has one of the largest

supported ranges of different cloud technologies, it does have some gaps that Ovum believes need to

be filled; for example, OpenStack and Microsoft Azure (although Ovum understands that these two

are on the roadmap for 2015). However, beyond these two cloud technologies (OpenStack and Azure)

there will be other regionally dominant technologies CSC must also consider. CSC does have multiple

private cloud capabilities under the BizCloud umbrella and is working on a series of new offerings in

2015 to add more private cloud providers, including an OpenStack and WebScale offering. CSC also

has a Hybrid Cloud Services Offering that combines both private, AWS, and Azure public cloud

services.

Build on the professional services and managed services that CSC provides to help customers

with cloud adoption

The key difference that CSC brings to the cloud management space is its service credentials, and a

focus on enabling organizations to adopt cloud-based services. The services' SDK being developed

represents an interesting move to help organizations, but Ovum considers that more use of

ready-made services would also help organizations with exploiting the business value that can be

gained from moving to a cloud computing approach.

Threats

The market gets dominated by a single cloud technology

The key capability that CSC and all other vendors in the cloud management space are developing is

the ability to manage across different technologies. This market exists primarily because there is no

standard for cloud computing, so integrating different cloud providers into a single management

platform requires a deep level of technical integration. However, if the market becomes dominated by

one technology or a standard is agreed and adopted then the dynamics and requirements will change.

The services' SDK capability is late being released

The services' SDK is being developed by CSC and represents a significant shift in how organizations

adopt cloud computing – they will be able to design and build specific cloud services themselves. If

CSC does not deliver this capability to the client when promised, then Ovum believes this could

undermine the credibility of this concept and allow other competing approaches to gain credence at

CSC's expense.



Dell (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 10: Dell radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

Dell Active System Manager (ASM) v8.1 and Dell Data Center Manager (DCM) v10

Ovum ODM analysis

Dell has progressed to market leader status since the previous ODM, a move that demonstrates how

becoming a private company has helped Dell focus its development. On the technology dimension

Dell on average scores in line (circa 7 out of 10) with those vendors (CA Technologies and Microsoft)

that are closely clustered together in a small leadership group behind the three leading technology

dimension vendors (BMC, HP, and VMware).

However, Dell is particularly strong in provisioning and automation, where it is the category leader with

IBM. It is also strong in lifecycle management, virtualization management (server, network, storage,

endpoint, I/O), and cloud management. Its only weakness is a below average performance in financial

management. Dell is the clear leader on the market impact dimension with a further two

category-leading scores, and an above average score on the execution dimension, with another two

category-leading scores. Overall, Ovum considers Dell to have an excellent solution that needs to be

strengthened in a couple of technology dimension categories.




Strengths

Uses templates to accelerate deployment

To accelerate the deployment of a service, Dell ASM uses "templates" that capture configuration and

best practice information and codify it in self-documenting form. These templates can then be stored

in libraries and reused as needed. They may be designed for physical infrastructure or for application

infrastructure (i.e. workloads) which may be virtual or physical.

Provides full end-to-end lifecycle management

Dell ASM's lifecycle management approach represents a major strength. Combining this with

end-to-end automation across all layers of the physical and virtual environments for compute, storage,

and network enables efficiency. Automating certain tasks can save the administrator time, facilitating

cost savings and improved customer service.

Open and extensible

Dell ASM supports a variety of third-party infrastructure environments, including Cisco Nexus switches

and UCS servers, Brocade switches, and NetApp storage. Dell's open philosophy and its

incorporation of Open Source Puppet enable a near limitless range of applications and hardware to be

used. Ovum expects further product development from Dell to include a software development kit

(SDK) that will give access to an additional level of application and hardware extensibility.

Weaknesses

Does not provide direct chargeback information for containers

Chargeback and showback have become necessary capabilities for any virtualization and hybrid

cloud management platform. Dell ASM provides visibility into virtual machines and cloud platforms,

but does not currently provide similar financial information for containers. Ovum understands Dell is

developing such a solution, however.

Dell ASM takes advantage of APIs to share chargeback and showback data. Customers can use this

data with existing tools such as Dell Foglight, Dell Cloud Manager, VMware vCenter Chargeback

Manager, Open iT, and Embotics vCommander.

Network monitoring does not provide latency or quality of service information

Dell ASM has only basic capabilities for monitoring network performance and health. Its lack of ability

to monitor network IOPS, latency, or quality of service is a weakness compared to its rivals. Although

Dell has separate monitoring solutions that provide this level of detail, Ovum believes these need to

be integrated with ASM.

Opportunities

Marketing the API management aspects of ASM to a different audience

Ovum believes Dell is missing an opportunity by not exploiting the open API management capabilities

of ASM v8.1. Dell has opened up its platform to enable ASM's full functionality to be accessed

programmatically for integration into customer environments and third-party solutions. This will enable

its channel partners to develop new business opportunities based on Dell's technology.

Developing closer integration between ASM and Dell's Foglight monitoring solution



Dell ASM is currently being used as a software solution for deploying a cloud environment based on

existing infrastructure, or as part of Dell's converged infrastructure cloud-in-a-box solution. Some of

the weaknesses in its monitoring capabilities could be addressed by more closely integrating Foglight,

Dell's specialist monitoring solution.

Threats


Until a cloud standard is agreed, cloud platform choice will be limited. The build-it-yourself or

inside-out approach advocates the private cloud based on corporate data centers, whereas public

cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services offer an operational expense model for IT service

delivery.

New entrants to the hybrid cloud management market become disruptive

Three new entrants were included in the Ovum Interactive Decision Matrix: 2015/16 Virtualization and

Hybrid Cloud, each of which recorded at least one category-leading score in the technology

dimension. This indicates that the market is entering a state of change. Ovum believes that if just one

of these new entrants gains significant traction, the market could be diverted toward that particular

perspective on virtualization and hybrid cloud management.

HP (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 11: HP radar diagrams

Source: Ovum



Products

HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise v9.0

Ovum ODM analysis

HP remains a market leader in this ODM, as it was in 2013–14. This assessment was based on

publicly available data because HP was unable to provide resources to verify the data collection

accuracy. The work taking place behind the scenes to separate HP into two companies has impacted

its performance. While it remains a strong vendor with a consistent above average score on all

dimensions, it has slipped from being technology leader in 2013–14 to ranking third place on the

technology dimension for 2015–16. Ovum believes this is mainly due to HP being outpaced by rivals

in terms of developing solutions. It has recorded two category-leading scores and numerous

second-place category scores. One of its greatest strength lies in financial management, which Ovum

considers to be of growing importance to CIOs.


Strengths

An open and heterogeneous approach to cloud management

The idea that a cloud will be only x86 virtualized is one myth HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise

dispels. It can manage both physical and virtual x86, as well as HP-UX UNIX devices. Ovum believes

the breadth of x86 hypervisor support provided makes HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise one of the

leading solutions for three of the top four hypervisors; VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM.

Only Citrix XenServer is missing.

Enables organizations to take any journey to the cloud that meets their needs

For too long, the ability to implement cloud computing principles has required organizations to

abandon existing infrastructure and adopt newer technologies. HP has created a solution that allows

the journey to the cloud to begin from a number of different starting points, enabling organizations to

transition to a cloud environment from previously virtualized non-cloud environments. It also enables

them to start the journey from scratch.

Takes a lifecycle perspective to cloud management

HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise's powerful workflow engine allows organizations to customize

service deployment and configuration. Ovum considers this ability to integrate with other systems and

perform lifecycle management operations to be critical for the ongoing management of any cloud

environment.

Weaknesses

HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise does not perform workload migration between cloud

providers

A cloud management solution will ideally act as the cloud broker and move workloads to the most

appropriate place. A weakness of HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise is its inability to perform

workload migration between cloud providers; however, no other cloud management solution currently

boasts this capability. Ovum accepts that this function can be performed by other HP modules to

some extent, but it is not fully integrated or comprehensive enough to provide a painless workload

migration solution. However, HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise's support of OpenStack means it can

move workloads from one OpenStack provider to another.



No chargeback capability

HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise does not perform chargeback on the use of system resources. It is

currently limited to reporting the cost of usage, or showback. Although it could be argued that a cloud

management system's role is not to perform the financial aspect of cost recovery, there is also an

argument that it should. HP has chosen to provide the chargeback capability with a different solution;

a module of HP Asset Manager is specifically designed to take the data from HP Helion CloudSystem

for chargeback purposes. HP has not integrated this directly into the product, however, because it

believes that many companies are not yet at the level of maturity to need a chargeback solution.

Ovum believes this should be part of a cloud management solution and has therefore classified this

as a weakness.

Opportunities

No active online community group looking to share best practice

Ovum believes Cloud Maps to be an excellent concept, but there is currently no community sharing

facility for users. The Cloud Maps themselves and best practice advice are published by HP, and

although these can come from users, it is not a true user community.

Linking HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise to some contracts and SLA management tools

HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise currently captures a lot of information that could be used to

validate where a workload executes. Incompatibility issues between cloud providers limit workload

movement, and this information from HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise could be used to evaluate

contracts and service offerings.

Marketing the solution as the best of both worlds

HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise is both an open software solution that transforms existing

infrastructure into a cloud environment, and a "black box" converged infrastructure solution that can

be "plugged in" to deliver a cloud environment. Ovum feels HP is not making the most of this excellent

dual approach in marketing HP Helion.

Threats

Cloud Maps could create a management problem

Anything that is easy to use has the potential to become overused and create a management

overhead. The Cloud Maps concept is one example; it represents a simple way to accelerate

adoption, but unless organizations apply standard principles of IT governance, it can be

counterproductive.

OpenStack could be superseded by another open cloud operating platform

HP has invested heavily in the OpenStack platform, building the entire HP Helion Cloud product

portfolio on an OpenStack technology foundation. CloudSystem includes numerous OpenStack

projects, including Nova, Cinder, Neutron, Keystone, Glance, and Horizon. Ovum cautions that if

OpenStack is superseded by a new open source project, HP will need to re-engineer its solution. This

is unlikely, however.

Users could use the resource-booking capability to bank resources

Ovum likes the idea that workloads can reserve resources for future needs, but there is a risk that

users could take advantage of this by hoarding resources. HP Helion CloudSystem Enterprise reports



these resource hogs, so they can at least be identified. Ovum therefore advocates those adopting HP

Helion CloudSystem to combine its ability to authorize the use of resources with a robust procedure

for requesting resources; how long these resources are needed for, what the business value is, and

the impact of not having them.

IBM (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 12: IBM radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

IBM Cloud Orchestrator v2.4

Ovum ODM analysis

IBM maintains its long-standing position as a market leader in this ODM. Its consistently strong

performance across all dimensions, including three category-leading scores, places the vendor fourth

overall; it ranks fourth for technology, sixth for market impact, and sixth for execution. From a

technology perspective IBM's strengths are provisioning and automation and performance monitoring.

Interoperability is IBM's greatest strength, with a 10 out of 10 category-leading score.


Strengths

Performs comprehensive workload orchestration



The workflow orchestration provided in Cloud Orchestrator supports and provides an end-to-end

capability, and uses the inbuilt pattern engine. Ovum likes the automation features that allow all the

different layers to be optimized independently, but takes a holistic perspective. Ovum also believes

the ability to expand from a single VM to composite applications built on multiple VMs is an added

bonus. In addition, Ovum believes that the fact ICO has strong hybrid cloud support for private (large

number of platforms) and public clouds provides additional strength when it comes to workload

orchestration.

Provides service orchestration

Ovum believes that the ability to manage in a lifecycle approach is a big strength, and IBM Cloud

Orchestrator uses its service orchestration capability to support this. Ovum considers the inclusion of

a business process manager (BPM) and the fact service orchestration mines the CMDB to be

evidence of Orchestrator's deep service-centric perspective. ICO enables rapid service delivery to

consumers while maintaining full adherence to corporate guidelines and regulations. It integrates with

service management tools, such as patch management, monitoring, change management, and

backup and recovery, through workflows.

Weaknesses

Public cloud integration is limited

The only limitation of ICO is that currently it integrates with only two public cloud offerings (SoftLayer

and AWS). Ovum understands that IBM is working to increase the number of integrations, but we

believe, however, that IBM is in line with most of the market by only integrating with a couple of

leading public cloud offerings.

Does not dynamically alter service levels easily

The cost management capabilities of Cloud Orchestrator are well considered and provide useful

information. Ovum believes that as the use of automation increases within the data center, the need to

dynamically adjust service levels to match the budget will become an important feature. Cloud

Orchestrator can do this, but it is not a simple operation and requires some technical involvement.

However, IBM is working with global technical services (GTS) to build a solution on ICO that

automatically looks for policy and suggests the best possible solutions within policy guidelines.

Opportunities

To develop a user community around the blueprint capability

Ovum believes that the blueprint capability in ICO represents an opportunity for IBM to grow a

user-based community. Currently the marketplace for blueprints is not a peer-to-peer arrangement,

but is instead an IBM-controlled/managed offering.

To develop the virtual systems pattern technology

IBM Cloud Orchestrator supports the linking of multiple VMs to form workload patterns in its virtual

systems pattern technology. Ovum believes that this is an excellent capability that is, however,

currently restricted to VMs of the same hypervisor. In Ovum's opinion, a multiple VM and multiple

hypervisor solution would be a market-leading solution providing increased user flexibility.

Threats




Until a cloud standard is agreed, users have a limited choice of cloud platform. The build-it-yourself

(inside-out) approach advocates private cloud based on corporate data centers, whereas the public

cloud providers such as AWS offer an infrastructure-free operational expense model only for IT

service delivery.

OpenStack loses its de facto status as the open standard for the cloud

Ovum considers the current level of support for OpenStack to represent IBM's biggest threat, because

if OpenStack loses its de facto standard for the cloud then IBM must engineer another integration

engine.

Microsoft (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 13: Microsoft radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2

Ovum ODM analysis

Microsoft has demonstrated a consistent performance across all three dimensions, scoring on or

around 7 out of 10 for each. It is weakest in the technology dimension; this could be because this

review focused on just System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) – the other capabilities in

the wider System Center companion solutions family (System Center Operation Manager, System

Center Data Protection Manager, System Center Orchestrator, System Center Configuration Manager,

System Center Endpoint Protection, and System Center Service Manager) were not included.



Microsoft is also in the midst of developing a new release of System Center for 2016, which has not

been considered as part of this ODM. Despite these factors, Microsoft's performance was strong in

the financial management and security and backup categories in the technology dimension, with

scores of over 8 out of 10. It recorded two category-leading scores; one for revenue on the market

impact dimension, and a second for interoperability on the execution dimension. It remains a market

leader, ranking fifth overall, but with the enhancements planned for later this year it is well placed to

close the gap on the other leaders.


Strengths

Designed to work with multiple hypervisor technologies

SCVMM 2012 is designed to work with the leading virtualization platforms, including VMware

VSphere, Citrix XenServer, and Microsoft Hyper-V. Given that organizations typically have more than

one virtualization technology as a result of M&A activity or strategic policy, Ovum considers this to be

a strength.

Integrated with Windows Server 2012

Ovum considers SCVMM's greatest strength to be its close integration with Windows Server 2012.

According to recent research, 70–75% of x86 server workloads execute on a Microsoft Windows

server, so this level of integration allows for better control of resources and an improved customer

experience.

Weaknesses

Unsupported features from a previous release

Unfortunately, the VMM Self-Service Portal and high availability with N_Port ID virtualization (NPIV)

capabilities are no longer supported. Although SCVMM 2012 has two improved offerings for high

availability and user self-service, this may delay deployment in some organizations and is therefore

considered a weakness.

New network virtualization feature is only available on Windows Server 2012 hosts

Network virtualization in SCVMM 2012 enables multiple tenants to create networks that are isolated

from each other. Network virtualization is supported only on hosts running Windows Server 2012, and

not those running Windows Server 2008 R2.

Opportunities

Embracing newer forms of virtual machine automation

The current set of automation capabilities available for virtual environments still relies on manual

setup and definition of expectations, and is linked to current operating procedures. Ovum considers

that the newer, more experimental forms of automation, such as the concept of a virtual currency,

need to be made available as options. If virtualization management is going to be the transformational

agent many believe it will be, it must address some existing challenges in radically new ways.

Making SCVMM the cloud services broker

SCVMM 2012 operates with a heterogeneous array of infrastructure technologies that allow

organizations to build an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering or private cloud. The missing link

is the ability to act as a broker of cloud services and select the service that best meets users' needs,



irrespective of what platform it executes on. Microsoft's approach to the brokering issue is focused on

its partners. Microsoft provides a Windows Azure Pack and System Center cloud that can be

enhanced through partners to connect to other cloud providers (both public and private) in various

ways.

Threats

The growth of converged infrastructure solutions

Interest in converged infrastructure solutions, which generally come with preloaded management

software, is growing. The threat to SCVMM is that if these solutions are preinstalled with a

virtualization management capability, customers may migrate to that platform from SCVMM. Although

Ovum considers this event unlikely, it remains an unknown because the market for converged

infrastructure solutions has not yet been sized accurately. However, Microsoft has a converged

infrastructure solution on the market today, the Cloud Platform System (CPS), and there are also

many reference architectures available through the Microsoft Fast Track program.

NetIQ (Ovum recommendation: Follower)Figure 14: NetIQ radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

Cloud Manager v2.4



Ovum ODM analysis

NetIQ's performance has improved significantly on previous ODMs. Although it is categorized as a

market follower, it has delivered a consistent performance across all dimensions. Its scores are

highest in the performance monitoring and security and backup categories of the technology

dimension. However, its weakness in financial management reduced its average score for the

technology dimension to less than 5 out of 10. Ovum believes its good performance in the execution

dimension (where its score is in line with the average), and the market impact dimension (where its

score is above average), demonstrate that with the correct product development NetIQ could become

a market challenger in the next ODM.


Strengths

Works with multiple different hypervisor technologies

Cloud Manager is designed to work directly with the VMware hypervisor, or can broker for an

OpenStack cloud that can use open source Xen and KVM hypervisors as well as enterprise grade

hypervisors such as Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V (technology preview in version 2.4).

Ovum considers the ability to operate on most of the leading hypervisor technologies is a big strength

of the product. The one noticeable absentee is Oracle.

Exposes the business service costs

Ovum considers that one of the biggest aspects of building and managing a cloud environment is how

the consumers can see the cost of the service. Cloud Manager takes in to account many different

elements including set-up, license, resource, and support costs and presents them as a single

monthly cost that the customer can see before they select to use the service.

Weaknesses

Brokering only available in technology preview mode

The service provider heritage of Cloud Manager provides some excellent features and capabilities

needed for multi-tenant environments. However, the convergence of the enterprise and service

provider needs has exposed some areas of difference. For example, an enterprise customer would

need some form of cloud brokering capability. Brokering is currently available in technology preview

mode only.

Microsoft Hyper-V 3.0 only supported in technology preview mode

Ovum research indicates that Microsoft is a strong number two in the hypervisor market, with an

increasing market share. NetIQ report that support for Hyper-V 3.0 is now available via OpenStack

brokering, which is in technology preview mode in version 2.4.

Opportunities

To exploit its service provider heritage

The market in virtualization and cloud management is relatively new, and as the enterprise market

begins to adopt cloud computing its requirements from a management tool will change; to be able to

manage at scale and heterogeneous environments. Cloud Manager can demonstrate its ability to

operate large scale deployments, and is working on the heterogeneity. Ovum considers NetIQ could

exploit its service provider capabilities.



To integrate with other NetIQ solutions to extend the offering

Cloud Manager currently does not exploit the potential to integrate with Protect for Recovery as a

Service, and with tools like Migrate for automatic migration between hypervisors. Ovum believes

NetIQ has a good range of other solutions that could be used as added value add-ons to Cloud

Manager if they were a simple "plug and play" integration.

Threats

The service provider requirements from a cloud management tool diverge from the

enterprise's requirements

Cloud Manager has its heritage and main customer base in the service provider community. However,

if the needs and requirements of these two groups do not converge as is currently happening then

Cloud Manager would need to separate in to two different product sets. While this would enable NetIQ

to serve its traditional market, it would also make its task of getting a larger share of the enterprise

market more difficult.

The two-layer architecture becomes redundant as newer applications use different delivery

techniques

The current architecture of the Cloud Manager is based on serving the current approach to application

delivery and based on current application development paradigm. While this is not a massive threat, it

must be a consideration for any organization that is looking at adopting new delivery methods.



Red Hat (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)Figure 15: Red Hat radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (RHCI) v5

Ovum ODM analysis

Red Hat remains a market challenger in the 2015–16 ODM. Its weakest performance is on the

technology dimension, although it has scored above average for the execution and market impact

dimensions – it ranks third on the latter. Red Hat also scores well for virtualization management

(server, network, storage, endpoint, I/O), financial management, and provisioning and automation, for

which it scored on or in line with the average. However, Red Hat's weak performance in security and

backup and reporting and integration affects its overall technology dimension score. Ovum believes

that with three category-leading scores, Red Hat can improve its position, and potentially become a

leader, if it can address its technology weaknesses. This would require significant development,

however.


Strengths

Supports the use of different hypervisor technologies in any hybrid cloud



The ability to build and manage a cloud environment that is not based on a single hypervisor

technology represents a significant advance in delivering the ideology of a true cloud environment, in

which workloads constantly move to the most appropriate provider based on organizational rules.

Provides a solution for traditional and cloud-native applications

One of the biggest challenges of managing a hybrid cloud environment is that organizations will have

a mixture of traditional applications and newer cloud-native applications. These applications have

different requirements from the infrastructure and management layers. Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure

enables bare-metal, server virtualization; infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS); and platform-as-a-service

(PaaS) infrastructure-layer technologies to be managed consistently.

Weaknesses

The ability to manage service quality is lacking

The Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure solution does not directly allow service quality to be managed so

that granular decisions can be made regarding resource usage. Ovum does not believe this is

currently a major problem, but as the use of cloud proliferates, it will become a requirement to ensure

optimal value is obtained from any cloud environment.

Containers cannot currently be managed

Although the Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure solution supports the use of the container's technology, the

CloudForms solution currently does not. Red Hat expects to offer container lifecycle management in

CloudForms by the end of the year, however.

Opportunities

Extending the public cloud technologies supported

The fragmented cloud market creates a problem for any management vendor in terms of deciding

which technologies to support. Although Red Hat supports Amazon EC2 (the most popular public

cloud provider), it needs to extend this range. Ovum understands that Red Hat has Microsoft Azure on

the roadmap for 2015, but it needs to consider which public cloud providers to support beyond these

two.

Exploiting its open source credentials

Red Hat is synonymous with open source and the concept of providing freedom of choice for

customers. Ovum believes that as the adoption of cloud computing continues to accelerate, the

question of vendor lock-in will ascend the agendas of many CIOs. Red Hat should continue to

leverage its reputation and heritage to establish a clear and sustainable point of difference.

Threats

If the cloud market becomes too fragmented

Red Hat currently provides a comprehensive solution for the leading cloud-related technologies.

However, if the market becomes too fragmented, no one single vendor will have a capability that

supports the majority of these solutions. In this scenario Ovum expects the market to move to a

different model, where instead of cloud orchestration, the management layer is moved to the services

level – service orchestration. Service orchestration will be driven by how a service is consumed, not

the underlying infrastructure it executes on, in the same way that a consumer might watch TV content

from a single satellite service on multiple devices.



A weak marketing campaign will be detrimental to Red Hat

Compared to its larger rivals, Red Hat has a relatively low profile in the crowded cloud management

and orchestration space. Ovum believes the right messaging will be imperative for Red Hat in terms of

marketing; its biggest threat is that any miscalculation will have a disproportionate impact in

comparison to its rivals. This is not currently the case, however. Red Hat has presented its "open,

hybrid cloud" vision to customers, partners, press, and analysts hundreds of times, resulting in over

300 interviews and articles being published in EMEA alone.

SaltStack (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)Figure 16: SaltStack radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

SaltStack Enterprise v4

Ovum ODM analysis

SaltStack, a new entrant to the ODM, is categorized as a market challenger. Its high score on the

technology dimension, with an average of nearly 8 out of 10, places it fifth overall. It has one

category-leading score in delivery scale and manageability. SaltStack is also strong in performance

monitoring, cloud management, provisioning and automation, and reporting and integration on the

technology dimension, with scores of 9 or more out of 10. However, its execution and market impact

scores are the main reasons for its categorization as a market challenger. Its weaker performance in

terms of market impact is due to its relatively small revenue, although this is offset somewhat by its



category-leading score for percentage revenue growth. Ovum believes SaltStack stands an excellent

chance of becoming a market leader in the 2017–18 ODM.


Strengths

A born in the cloud company tackling cloud management

SaltStack was designed and built in the cloud-era, which means that it meets the requirements

needed to manage any hybrid cloud environment. Unlike many of its rivals, which are migrating an

existing systems management solution designed to manage silos of technology at a technology level,

SaltStack has a focus on the orchestration, automation, and configuration needed to operate across

different technology boundaries. This means that SaltStack chose to build its solution on a data

structure approach, describing the workloads in a form that defines their state. This enables the

automation engine to operate at the state layer, which is a more efficient way to maintain services and

SLAs.

The ability to scale to meet the demands of a cloud-scale architecture

The scale of cloud operations is an order of magnitude greater than managing the data center. The

number of assets and resources expand from the low hundreds in a traditional data center to the tens

of thousands in a hybrid cloud environment. Being able to scale in a non-linear manner is an

important capability. Traditionally, as the assets are increased, the number of IT staff also has to

increase. SaltStack, however, with its use of automation breaks this link, enabling scale to be

achieved with fewer IT staff than using traditional methods.

Weaknesses

Market recognition is low

SaltStack is a relatively new and unknown vendor in a highly competitive market. While it does have a

number of large global customers in general, it does not make many customer shortlists primarily

because of its new, relatively low profile.

Solution designed for system administrators to do things rapidly, not a UI for ease of use

SaltStack was designed to be used by systems administrators and to make their operational lives

easier. However, the weakness with this approach is that less experienced administrators can find

SaltStack less user-friendly than many competitive solutions. Ovum believes that most of the

development work for the next release will be focused on improving the UI and extending the appeal

of SaltStack to a wider IT operations audience.

Opportunities

To become disruptive to established vendors in the service provider space

The market is in transition from the old approach to managing data center technology and is moving

toward a more holistic approach of managing federated sources of IT resources. The opportunity for

SaltStack is to establish itself as providing technology designed and built in the cloud-era for any

cloud challenge. If the company can raise its profile, Ovum believes that SaltStack can become a

disruptive force in the cloud orchestration and configuration management space.

To look to partner with a services company for a services-led do to market



While SaltStack provides a solution to managing in a cloud environment, Ovum research indicates

that many customers need help with making the transition to a cloud approach. We believe that if

SaltStack were to form a partnership with a services-led organization, it could accelerate the adoption

of cloud computing and grow its profile.

Threats

Technology fails to break the established vendors' stranglehold on large enterprise customers

With relatively new companies trying to break the dominance of a cluster of established vendors,

there remains a threat that the technology will be acquired, copied, or bypassed by vendors with

deeper pockets and a large customer base.

The market could be dominated by a single cloud technology

The key capability that SaltStack and all other vendors in the cloud management space are

developing is the ability to manage across different technologies. This market exists primarily because

there is no standard for cloud computing, so integrating different cloud providers into a single

management platform requires a deep level of technical integration. However, if the market becomes

dominated by one technology or a standard is agreed and adopted, the dynamics and requirements

will change.

VMTurbo (Ovum recommendation: Challenger)Figure 17: VMTurbo radar diagrams

Source: Ovum



Products

Operation Manager, v5.2

Ovum ODM analysis

VMTurbo enters its first ODM as a market challenger, although it has two category-leading scores;

one on the technology dimension and one on the market impact dimension. In the technology

dimension VMTurbo performs particularly well in terms of performance monitoring, for which it is the

category leader, as well as for cloud management and financial management. However, its overall

technology score is impacted by its weak performance in security and backup and reporting and

integration. Like smaller vendors in the ODM VMTurbo's results on the market impact dimension are

down to its relatively low revenues, although this is offset by its second category-leading score in the

percentage revenue growth category. Overall we expect VMTurbo to improve its position on the ODM

as it grows as a company, if it can address its areas of weakness in terms of technology with product

development or third-party alliances.


Strengths

Provides a radically new approach to workload management

VMTurbo has developed an economic model to reflect the changes in supply and demand that

workloads place on the infrastructure. This economic model alone would not provide much help to IT

operations, but VMTurbo combined the model with the concept of a virtual currency, where each

element in the service supply chain must be priced and paid for. The whole system is kept in balance

by the business service priority, which is linked to a virtual budget: the most important services have

the highest budget, and at times when the environment is heavily utilized they can afford to garner the

necessary resources to maintain service level guarantees.

Matches business demand with IT supply within a set of service metrics

One of the biggest aspects of building and managing a cloud environment is a consideration of how

consumers can see the cost and quality of the service. VMTurbo enables the business to set its

defined budget and service quality metrics, which are then automatically matched to the IT supply.

Where anomalies exist due to unrealistic expectations these are made clearly visible to all parties,

with recommendations for remedies.

Weaknesses

Challenges current thinking about automation

The strength of VMTurbo is also its biggest weakness: the fact that the adoption of VMTurbo requires

a new way of thinking about how to automate data centers. Ovum believes that once the customer

understands the value and can see how using this approach will benefit the business then the

challenge moves to convincing the operating teams.

Market awareness remains low

VMTurbo has amassed over a 1,000 global customers, yet they remain one of the best kept secrets in

cloud and virtualization workload management. Ovum would like to see more marketing of the value

proposition and case studies with clearly stated benefits.



Opportunities

Exploit the service provider market to extend the awareness of VMTurbo

The market in virtualization and cloud management is relatively new, and as the enterprise market

begins to adopt cloud computing, its requirements from management systems will change to be able

to manage at-scale and heterogeneous environments. VMTurbo demonstrates its ability to operate

large-scale deployments, and is working on the heterogeneity. VMTurbo could exploit these

capabilities by partnering with global service providers.

Integrate with ITSM solutions to extend offering reach and raise awareness

VMTurbo currently does not exploit the potential to integrate with IT service management (ITSM)

practices within organizations. Ovum believes this represents a good route to win new business

through automating parts of the IT operations where change is slowest.

Threats

The virtualization market dynamic changes and opens up the market

Currently 70% of x86 data center servers are virtualized, and of that, VMware has a 70% market

share. However, should a new technology gain momentum and threaten VMware's dominance, it is

the management space that would become the layer to dominate, and this might create a new market

opportunity for new entrants. Even though VMTurbo is a disruptive vendor, it is disruptive in the

current market, and may be challenged by newer more disruptive vendors in a new market.

Neural networks could disrupt the market

The current virtualization and cloud management market is still evolving and as such could be

affected by a radically new approach from the neural network space. Neural network technology

would be very disruptive and completely change the management and automation market, even for a

disruptive vendor like VMTurbo.



VMware (Ovum recommendation: Leader)Figure 18: VMware radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Products

vRealize Operations, v6.0

Ovum ODM analysis

VMware is the clear overall leader of the ODM. It is one of only two vendors to have scored an

average of more than 9 out of 10 on the technology dimension, and it also has the most

category-leading scores (eight in total), with five being the maximum 10 out of 10. VMware leads on

the technology dimension and is second only to Dell on the market impact dimension. It ranks fourth

on the execution dimension. Its specific strengths are too numerous to mention; it has scored at least

8.36 on all technology categories but one. Ovum believes VMware has made significant progress

since the last ODM, in which it was a market leader but ranked lower than a number of its

competitors.


Strengths

Uses the concept of super metrics to simplify the reporting of complex environments

vRealize Operations uses super metrics to aggregate the derived metrics it collects and provide a

simple visual indication of the state of the virtual environment or an individual object. These super

metrics serve as focus points to narrow the scope of a potential problem and provide details about its



cause. Ovum likes the simple concept and believes it enables complex issues to be presented in a

way that allows for rapid problem evaluation.

Uses algorithms and "smart alerts" to identify abnormal behavior

Ovum believes that one of the biggest problems with managing virtual environments is identifying

when services are beginning to exhibit abnormal behavior. The issue is that automated resource

scheduling, workload movement between hosts, and reserved resources, muddy the picture. vRealize

Operations uses algorithms and "smart alerts" to identify the patterns of behavior so that the mean

time to resolve (MTTR) a problem can be reduced. Ovum particularly likes the Action button that

means any issue can be resolved immediately.

Weaknesses

Topology graph widget requires manual refresh to show new objects

When you add a new object to the Topology graph widget provisioned object, the graphical

presentation does not update automatically. VMware says users must manually refresh the page.

Ovum considers this to be a minor weakness, and one that may impact some operations teams that

rely on automatic processes to display an accurate representation.

Custom views and reports are overwritten after upgrade

One of the big benefits of vRealize Operations is the fact it enables organizations to create custom

views and reports based on out-of-the-box views. However, when upgrading to vRealize Operations

v6.0, these custom views can be overwritten if they were created using the same view or report key

as VMware's out-of-the-box view and report key. The recommendation is that to recover the custom

version, an administrator needs to find the corresponding XML that contains the custom view or report

definition, and then change the view or report key and run the "update" command.

Opportunities

To develop market vertical super metrics

Ovum believes that the concept of super metrics is an excellent way to display complex derived

metrics, and we can see that market vertical-specific super metrics would appeal. While the current

use is primarily focused on the technical, these super metrics could be developed to cover things such

as compliance regulations.

Changing the perception that VMware is only a server virtualization solution provider

The days of VMware only being a server virtualization technology vendor are long gone. However,

VMware is struggling to change the perception of customers that management, orchestration, and

control are the key capabilities it now delivers. Ovum considers VMware to have one of the most

comprehensive management capabilities for hybrid cloud and virtualized environments, but it needs to

ensure that customers understand that this management capability is holistic and not just

VMware-centric.

Threats

Organizational maturity acts as a brake on technology adoption

The biggest challenge for organizations is having the maturity of readiness to adopt the new

technology needed to manage a highly virtualized and cloud environments. Managing in these new

environments requires both process change and management software change. VMware provides a



set of solutions that provide comprehensive management capabilities in this space, but has only a

limited influence on the organizational process changes that are needed.

The VMware solution sets become too complex for customers to understand

One of the biggest challenges of having a broad portfolio of solutions is that the integration of these

with other capabilities becomes too complex for customers to understand. While this is not yet the

case for VMware, as the solution set grows it is a potential threat that VMware must not ignore.

Appendix

Methodology Vendors complete an in-depth questionnaire and comprehensive capability matrix that is

analyzed and evaluated.

There is a series of comprehensive, structured meetings, including a demonstration where

appropriate.

Supplemental information is obtained from vendor literature and websites, and from the

results of Ovum surveys, some of which were specifically designed for this report.

The article is peer reviewed and is authored by at least two analysts.

Further readingLicensing Management for Cloud-based and Virtualized Enterprise Infrastructure, IT0018-001460

(January 2015)

2015 Fundamentals of Hybrid Cloud and Virtualization Management, IT0022-000338 (May 2015)

AuthorRoy Illsley, Principal Analyst, Infrastructure Solutions

[email protected]

Ovum ConsultingWe hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you

have further requirements, Ovum’s consulting team may be able to help you. For more information

about Ovum’s consulting capabilities, please contact us directly at [email protected].

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