HP updates dependency mapping software

The new feature announced Monday is what HP calls a collector portal, a Web interface that lists the applications and dependencies the software has uncovered. Customers at the time manually enter which departments and services are using which applications.

Dependency mapping has become more important as clients undertake virtualization and cloud computing projects, which increase complexity and make it easier to overlook dependencies, Augustine said. "We see a lot of clients buying our [DDMA] product exactly for a data center transformation project," he said.

HP releases DDMA updates every three to four months. In June it released Content Pack 9, which added the ability to discover Microsoft Exchange 2010 and IBM AS400 servers, and enhancements for IBM mainframes and Windows PowerShell.

James Niccolai covers data centers and general research news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

James Niccolai is Deputy news editor at IDG News Service and reports on middleware; grid computing; scientific supercomputing.

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