HP has updated several of its automation lines in a bid to improve IT and service management for customers.

The company said that it would be adding new capabilities and features to its Server Automation, Operations Orchestrator, Database and Middleware Automation, and Cloud Service Automation lines. The updates will include new components for managing virtualised servers as well as improved components for the distribution of patching. Additionally, the company will release tools for automating database and middleware.

A fourth platform, Cloud Service Automation, will allow administrators to automate day-to-day tasks associated with running cloud services.

Manoj Raisinghani, senior director of worldwide product marketing for HP cloud automation software and software as a service (SaaS), told V3 that the aim of the platform was to give administrators a single management system for running automation practices and policies.

“IT has started to become a broker of services. There needs to be consistency in the way IT is driving tools to the market,” he said.

Likewise, the update of the Server Automation platform is designed to help companies cope with the heightened demand for server virtualisation and provisioning as well as server lifecycle management. By helping to streamline many of the day-to-day processes associated with server management, HP aims to help administrators better handle growing demand.

“They are taking a 30 to 40 percent virtualisation and going to 80 to 90,” Raisinghani explained. “And the amount of time they are giving themselves is six months to one year.”