Tuesday, November 30, 2010

HP rolls out ALM 11 in Barcelona to expand managed automation for modern applications

Barcelona -- In the midst of what it calls a new wave of application modernization in the enterprise, HP on Tuesday rolled out the latest version of its application lifecycle management (ALM) platform here at the Software Universe conference.

The Application Lifecycle Management 11 platform works to automate application modernization from requirements management through quality and performance. HP sees this as an important innovation in a market where Forrester Consulting predicts 69 percent of IT decision-makers have earmarked 25 percent of their annual IT budget for application modernization—and 30 percent will dedicate over half their budget to the cause. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

“Sixty-seven percent of organizations that have kick-started application modernization projects are failing,” says Jonathan Rende, vice president and general manager of the Applications Solutions business for HP Software & Solutions division. “Application teams that have to build, provision and create new critical business processes can’t keep up because they are relying on the old ways of doing things instead of the new way.”

HP application transformation

The ALM 11 platform and software solutions are part of that “new way.” Components of the HP Application Transformation solutions, these tools work to help enterprises gain control over aging applications and inflexible processes that challenge innovation and agility -- by governing their responsiveness and pace of change. It’s all part of the Instant-On Enterprise that embeds technology into everything it does. ALM 11 essentially automates workflow processes across multiple teams. [See more on HP's new ALM 11 offerings.]

“Applications are central to everything CIOs are doing right now,” Rende says. “It’s literally how companies are differentiating themselves -- and doing so in more efficient and effective ways with more value added. ALM 11 creates a single, unified system that allows business analysts, developers, security professionals, quality professionals and performance professionals to collaborate.”

By establishing this set of criteria, everybody can see what is coming and what the status is, and why there are changes if there are changes.

[Read an interview with HP's Mark Sarbiewski on the uses and benefits of the new ALM portfolio.]

Rende also points to benefits such as risk-based decisions of application releases via ALM Project Planning and Tracking capabilities, rapid application delivery with HP Agile Accelerator 4.0, reduced business risk from application failures, and automatic import of business process models (BPM) into ALM’s Requirements Management to visualize business process flows and augment textual requirements.

Rend notes that HP isn’t working in a vacuum, either. “Everybody has a mix of different applications and environments. Many times they are cobbling them together and integrating because the business processes that are critical cut across many different systems,” Rende says. “Our solution is agnostic to the technologies.”

Release Management

A
nother major focus of ALM 11 is Release Management -- the ability for program and project managers to establish milestones and criteria and measurements in real-time. The module works to answer the questions, “What’s coming?” and “Is it ready?” or “Has it been tested successfully?”

“Many requirements for new apps come from production, and DevOps sit on that line between operations and applications,” Rende says. “By establishing this set of criteria, release milestones, and GANTT charts, everybody can see what is coming and what the status is, and why there are changes if there are changes.”

HP ALM platform also offers new versions of HP Quality Center and Performance Center 11. These solutions work to help simplify and automate application quality and performance validation to lower operational costs, freeing up investments to innovating applications in the delivery phase.
BriefingsDirect contributor Jennifer LeClaire provided editorial assistance and research on this post. She can be reached at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jleclaire and http://www.jenniferleclaire.com.
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