Now that most of its partners and prospective rivals have been acquired, database tools player Stratavia is adding another piece of the puzzle on its way to a data center automation suite. The new version 5.0 of Data Palette adds in server provisioning and virtualization automated workflows, and provides a jumpstart with templates.

And of course, when you talk server provisioning, you can’t leave out virtualization. According to Mike Puterbaugh, VP marketing, Stratavia shifted course away form provisioning of virtualized containers, because VMware and XenSource (now part of Citrix) already added those capabilities. Instead, they are focusing on root cause analysis and automated problem resolution workflows.

Finally, Stratavia has added an Ajax rich web client, supplementing the existing Eclipse client.

The company, which began life as a managed service provider, spun off the last of the MSP business a couple months ago to focus on being a product company. Beginning life with automation workflows targeted at the DBA, Stratavia provided what it called “strategic” database admin tooling that used expert systems for executing standard procedures when specific conditions occur, such as when tables are outgrowing their allotted disk space. It also provides analytic reports that track database performance trends.

It has gradually extended its footprint, preferring to go deep rather than wide. So while Opsware, for instance, spreads wide across servers, network, storage, and applications, Stratavia as a smaller firm is remaining more specialized. But it claims to go deeper, such as offering better support for legacy platforms; providing more detailed configuration info on software versions; and making its tooling easier to get your arms around, with a single console that is now accessible through a rich Internet client.

But one thing Stratavia doesn't position itself as is a tools provider with an ITIL cast – for instance, its repository is not a CMDB, and would likely be part of a best of breed solution where a critical mass player provides the functionality that would formerly support IT service management processes as described by ITIL.

In the past, Stratavia has positioned itself as complementary to IT infrastructure/ service management providers such as BMC, Veritas (now part of Symantec), Tivoli, CA, HP, Quest Software, and Embarcadero Technologies, and when it was strictly a DBA automation tool provider, had a technology relationship with Opsware. There’s little question that Stratavia has designs on Blade Logic’s, Opalis’s, Opsware’s, and BMC’s RealOps space, although as a relatively modest vendor with recent venture financing, it probably does not yet show up on their radar screens.

When we spoke with CEO Thor Culverhouse back in January, he estimated that existing players in the IT process automation space currently account for only $300 million of what he estimates to be a $9 billion market opportunity.

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