Opsware Inc. (NASDAQ: OPSW), the leading provider of Data Center Automation software, today announced five key recommendations to help enterprises rapidly prepare for the upcoming change in Daylight Saving Time (DST) requirements. Beginning in 2007, DST will be observed from the second Sunday in March (instead of the first Sunday in April) to the first Sunday in November (instead of the last Sunday in October). By automating the way organizations change or reconfigure infrastructure elements to meet the new time requirements, Opsware can help enterprises avoid a multitude of disastrous consequences, including the potential downtime of mission-critical applications, IT vulnerability and compliance issues, and lost productivity due to time synchronization issues.
The new DST requirement impacts all IT infrastructure elements that rely on timestamps for their operations and logging functions—this includes operating systems and network elements such as routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers. Several enterprise applications are also dependent on middleware or platform components such as JRE/JDK (Java runtime environment, Java development kit), which provide their own time stamps, while other IT applications use custom timing functions. Being out of synch with Daylight Saving Time has the potential to cause unexpected behavior from any such applications.
Five Tips for Dealing with the Change in Daylight Saving Time
Several operating system, network and application vendors have already issued patches or remediation scripts to fix the DST issues. However, applying these patches to all affected systems and applications and keeping track of the status of remediations presents a new set of challenges to any IT organization and can create tremendous complexity, even in the most organized IT organizations. Opsware recommends the following approach to remediating DST issues.
1. Understand what you have: The first step in addressing DST is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of enterprise infrastructure assets. Enterprises need to identify all their IT infrastructure and applications, version numbers, and patching data as well as their domain (geographic, organizational) and realm of control.
Opsware System 6 helps enterprises gain this comprehensive visibility into their IT infrastructure. Once deployed, the Opsware automation suite immediately discovers the servers, software, and network devices in use by each application to identify the devices and applications that are compliant with DST and the infrastructure elements that have to be reconfigured to address the DST changes.
2. Understand the business impact: Once the infrastructure has been completely inventoried and the IT applications identified, the enterprise should evaluate the DST impact to the business. Key questions that need to be answered include:
· How many applications and infrastructure are at risk?
· Which mission critical applications have to be addressed first?
· What is the infrastructure that supports these applications?
Leveraging the detailed infrastructure configuration data provided by Opsware, organizations can quickly assess the impact to their mission-critical applications and organizations to prioritize the remediation process.
3. Plan and execute the remediation process: Once the scope of the problem has been identified, IT needs to take steps to resolve the issue. Several vendors’ DST patches have dependencies on other systems—for example, database vendors have recommended that the database patches be applied only after the OS patches have been applied. IT must ensure they apply patches in the right sequence to completely resolve the DST issues.
The Opsware System can take dependencies of heterogeneous systems into account to help ensure that all infrastructure elements are brought into compliance consistently and correctly.
4. Conduct a post-remediation audit: Once patches are applied, IT must ensure that the reconfiguration and changes have worked as expected and not caused any unintentional issues.
The Opsware System provides a flexible execution framework that enables customers to securely execute custom audit scripts to verify the results of the remediation process.
5. Report and analyze compliance: Finally, IT must provide detailed compliance reports to the business and internal teams on its progress towards meeting the DST requirements.
Opsware provides comprehensive analytics to let IT and business stakeholders report on the progress of the DST remediation process and the degree to which compliance goals have been met.
“Having systems out of synch with the change in Daylight Saving Time could have a devastating effect on an enterprise and, if not addressed immediately, has the potential to significantly impact the bottom line,” said Tim Howes, CTO of Opsware Inc. “By automating data center operations, enterprises can rapidly reconfigure their mission-critical applications to comply with the change in Daylight Saving Time. This is just one of many reasons why companies should automate their IT environment – today’s decision to automate will continue to benefit customers into the future anytime the need to manage widespread changes throughout their IT infrastructure is required.”
Addressing DST Challenges through Opsware System 6
Opsware System 6 is a comprehensive Data Center Automation solution covering the entire application infrastructure across servers and network devices. Opsware addresses DST challenges by rapidly identifying the infrastructure state, understanding the IT and business impact, planning and automating the patching process, auditing the results of changes made, and reporting on DST compliance. By combining change tracking and change automation, Opsware enables enterprises to reduce downtime due to faulty changes, eliminate security holes due to inconsistencies, and improve efficiency by more quickly rolling out changes.
Automation not only plays a critical role in resolving DST issues, but is instrumental in ensuring that data center operations remain efficient and cost-effective. Today’s Web-based business applications are extremely complex, comprising hundreds of interconnected, heterogeneous and cross-tier components. This application architecture has dramatically increased the complexity of managing mission-critical applications. To address the next security, compliance or operational challenge, enterprises are investing in Data Center Automation to improve visibility into the IT environment, and address issues more effectively and at a lower cost.
The new DST requirement impacts all IT infrastructure elements that rely on timestamps for their operations and logging functions—this includes operating systems and network elements such as routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers. Several enterprise applications are also dependent on middleware or platform components such as JRE/JDK (Java runtime environment, Java development kit), which provide their own time stamps, while other IT applications use custom timing functions. Being out of synch with Daylight Saving Time has the potential to cause unexpected behavior from any such applications.
Five Tips for Dealing with the Change in Daylight Saving Time
Several operating system, network and application vendors have already issued patches or remediation scripts to fix the DST issues. However, applying these patches to all affected systems and applications and keeping track of the status of remediations presents a new set of challenges to any IT organization and can create tremendous complexity, even in the most organized IT organizations. Opsware recommends the following approach to remediating DST issues.
1. Understand what you have: The first step in addressing DST is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of enterprise infrastructure assets. Enterprises need to identify all their IT infrastructure and applications, version numbers, and patching data as well as their domain (geographic, organizational) and realm of control.
Opsware System 6 helps enterprises gain this comprehensive visibility into their IT infrastructure. Once deployed, the Opsware automation suite immediately discovers the servers, software, and network devices in use by each application to identify the devices and applications that are compliant with DST and the infrastructure elements that have to be reconfigured to address the DST changes.
2. Understand the business impact: Once the infrastructure has been completely inventoried and the IT applications identified, the enterprise should evaluate the DST impact to the business. Key questions that need to be answered include:
· How many applications and infrastructure are at risk?
· Which mission critical applications have to be addressed first?
· What is the infrastructure that supports these applications?
Leveraging the detailed infrastructure configuration data provided by Opsware, organizations can quickly assess the impact to their mission-critical applications and organizations to prioritize the remediation process.
3. Plan and execute the remediation process: Once the scope of the problem has been identified, IT needs to take steps to resolve the issue. Several vendors’ DST patches have dependencies on other systems—for example, database vendors have recommended that the database patches be applied only after the OS patches have been applied. IT must ensure they apply patches in the right sequence to completely resolve the DST issues.
The Opsware System can take dependencies of heterogeneous systems into account to help ensure that all infrastructure elements are brought into compliance consistently and correctly.
4. Conduct a post-remediation audit: Once patches are applied, IT must ensure that the reconfiguration and changes have worked as expected and not caused any unintentional issues.
The Opsware System provides a flexible execution framework that enables customers to securely execute custom audit scripts to verify the results of the remediation process.
5. Report and analyze compliance: Finally, IT must provide detailed compliance reports to the business and internal teams on its progress towards meeting the DST requirements.
Opsware provides comprehensive analytics to let IT and business stakeholders report on the progress of the DST remediation process and the degree to which compliance goals have been met.
“Having systems out of synch with the change in Daylight Saving Time could have a devastating effect on an enterprise and, if not addressed immediately, has the potential to significantly impact the bottom line,” said Tim Howes, CTO of Opsware Inc. “By automating data center operations, enterprises can rapidly reconfigure their mission-critical applications to comply with the change in Daylight Saving Time. This is just one of many reasons why companies should automate their IT environment – today’s decision to automate will continue to benefit customers into the future anytime the need to manage widespread changes throughout their IT infrastructure is required.”
Addressing DST Challenges through Opsware System 6
Opsware System 6 is a comprehensive Data Center Automation solution covering the entire application infrastructure across servers and network devices. Opsware addresses DST challenges by rapidly identifying the infrastructure state, understanding the IT and business impact, planning and automating the patching process, auditing the results of changes made, and reporting on DST compliance. By combining change tracking and change automation, Opsware enables enterprises to reduce downtime due to faulty changes, eliminate security holes due to inconsistencies, and improve efficiency by more quickly rolling out changes.
Automation not only plays a critical role in resolving DST issues, but is instrumental in ensuring that data center operations remain efficient and cost-effective. Today’s Web-based business applications are extremely complex, comprising hundreds of interconnected, heterogeneous and cross-tier components. This application architecture has dramatically increased the complexity of managing mission-critical applications. To address the next security, compliance or operational challenge, enterprises are investing in Data Center Automation to improve visibility into the IT environment, and address issues more effectively and at a lower cost.
