High Hopes - And Lots Of Action - In 2006

With the year still young, Systems Management Pipeline readers seem to be pretty optimistic about what is coming in 2006. Thirty-seven percent of readers say better integrated management suites will be the most significant trend impacting on systems management this year. In recent conversations with IT professionals, I've have been hearing some good things about both the level of integration and the functionality of management suites. This is marked change from previous years where most suites lacked the tight integration businesses needed.The poll results indicate that system administrators expect even more good to come this year. Vendors such as CA are receiving positive reviews on the improved level of data integration and the related increased functionality of their systems management portfolios.

Readers expect lots of other action this year on the management front. Twenty-six percent say that widespread ITIL adoption will be the most significant trend of the year, echoing the sentiments of many industry pundits who say that it will be the use of best practices that will result in significant changes in enterprise management in the near future.

Sixteen percent say that deployment of open source applications will have the biggest impact on management. It is easy to see how open technologies will cause major changes - not just on the software front but also on the hardware side as businesses move to deploy less expensive alternatives to Unix.

And another 11 percent expect the old standby - mergers and acquisitions - to be the most significant factor in systems management this year. Given the number of big acquisitions in the last few weeks, including CA's announcement last week of plans to buy application management vendor Wily Technology, that seems to be a pretty safe prediction for the year.