After a 4-5 year long slumber, HP’s network node management tools finally hit the refresh cycle last fall. Now, this month, HP has added tie-ins with a new reporting tool and with the change and configuration management offerings that came through last summer’s Opsware acquisition.

Specifically, the first enhancement is a new reporting add-on to NMMi, the successor to the venerable Network Node Manager (NNM) product around which HP built its OpenView business. Called HP NNM iSPI for Performance, the tool provides a selection of reports that supplements the graphic console readouts that are familiar to NNM users.

But the more interesting piece, however, is integration with the old Opsware [now HP] Network Automation System, where events, problems, or issues regarding network performance or availability can now be correlated with changes to network or device configurations. The key selling point behind the old Opsware offerings, the idea is that problems are typically the result of intended or unintended changes, and often, a change may have cascading impacts that are often unexpected. For instance, a change to a switch that conserves bandwidth might improve availability at the backbone level, but cause some local process to fail or blow service level agreements (SLAs).

Capping the bundle is a piece called AlarmPoint, a third party offering that HP is throwing in gratis that provides the usual text, email, phone, or smoke signal alerts (OK, on the last one we’re kidding) when something bad happens.

HP will offer trial versions of both the new reporting tool and Opsware piece to existing NNM customers who are due for refreshes under their software maintenance agreements.

HP has used the acquisitions of Mercury and Opsware as the linchpin for finally breathing new life into its long-suffering NNM product that somehow, the company never managed to kill off. Over the next year, HP is likely to add new links to some of the Mercury pieces that now fall under Business Technology Optimization, providing more support for ITIL.

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