HP OpenView

HP OpenView
Name	HP OpenView
Developer	Hewlett-Packard
Released	1990s
Latest release	discontinued / integrated into HP software
Operating system	Solaris, Windows, HP-UX, Linux
Genre	Network management, systems management

HP OpenView

HP OpenView was a suite of network and systems management software products originally developed by Hewlett-Packard in the 1990s to monitor, manage, and automate large IT infrastructures. It provided tools for fault management, performance monitoring, configuration management, and service provisioning across heterogeneous environments and was widely adopted by enterprises, telecommunications operators, and government agencies. Over its lifetime OpenView evolved through acquisitions, integrations, and rebranding into broader IT operations management portfolios.

History

OpenView originated within Hewlett-Packard during an era when operators of AT&T networks and MCI backbones required scalable monitoring solutions. Early adoption coincided with the rise of Sun Microsystems servers, IBM mainframes, and the expansion of Cisco Systems routing deployments. During the late 1990s and early 2000s OpenView intersected with acquisitions and partnerships involving Compaq, Aruba Networks, Palo Alto Networks, and other vendors as enterprises pursued consolidated operations. The product line experienced strategic shifts alongside events such as the dot-com bubble and consolidation in the enterprise software market led by companies like Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, and IBM. Later, parts of the suite were merged into broader HP management offerings and aligned with initiatives from HP Enterprise Services and HP Inc..

Products and Components

The OpenView family encompassed distinct modules comparable with suites from BMC Software, CA Technologies, and SolarWinds. Notable components included network management consoles used by operators for SNMP-based polling alongside server management agents akin to those from Microsoft System Center, VMware vCenter, and Red Hat management stacks. OpenView integrations often touched ecosystem products such as EMC Corporation storage arrays, NetApp systems, Juniper Networks routing platforms, and F5 Networks load balancers. Partner and third-party adapters connected to SAP applications, Oracle Database, Microsoft Exchange, and Salesforce-deployed services. The portfolio also paralleled offerings from CA Spectrum, BMC Patrol, IBM Tivoli, and Nagios in specific functional areas.

Architecture and Technology

Architecturally, OpenView used agent-based and agentless approaches to collect telemetry, similar to strategies used by Splunk, LogRhythm, and Elastic NV. Underpinning technologies included SNMP, WMI, and custom APIs to interoperate with devices by Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, and Arista Networks. The design favored centralized consoles and distributed collectors modeled after management platforms from Microsoft and IBM, employing relational backends comparable to Oracle Database and Microsoft SQL Server for performance data. Scalability patterns mirrored those in large service provider deployments from Verizon, AT&T, and British Telecom, using load balancing and clustering practices seen in Apache HTTP Server and NGINX deployments. Security integration aligned with identity providers such as Active Directory and single sign-on systems used by Google and Okta customers.

Features and Functionality

Core capabilities included fault detection, alerting, root-cause analysis, performance trending, capacity planning, and configuration management—features also emphasized by competitors like BMC Software and CA Technologies. Service-level monitoring enabled reporting for SLA metrics similar to suites from ServiceNow and Dynatrace. Event correlation and automation workflows paralleled orchestration initiatives from Ansible, Puppet Labs, and Chef. Visualization consoles provided topology maps and dashboards akin to those in Grafana and Kibana, while reporting modules supported compliance and audit needs comparable to systems used by Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Young for enterprise customers.

Deployment and Integration

Deployments ranged from on-premises datacenters operated by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to carrier networks run by Verizon and NTT Communications. Integration patterns included connectors to ServiceNow incident management, CMDBs used by IBM and BMC, and automation engines from Red Hat and VMware. Migration paths were developed for customers consolidating from legacy tools such as HP Service Manager and towards modern observability platforms like Dynatrace and New Relic. Managed service providers and systems integrators including Accenture, Capgemini, and Infosys offered professional services for large-scale rollouts and cross-vendor interoperability projects.

Market Impact and Competition

OpenView shaped expectations for enterprise network management during the 1990s and 2000s and influenced competitors such as IBM Tivoli, CA Spectrum, and BMC Helix. Its presence accelerated standardization around protocols like SNMP and operational practices used by Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, and China Mobile. The competitive landscape evolved with the entrance of cloud-native observability vendors such as Datadog and Splunk, and with consolidation driven by mergers involving HP and other large vendors. OpenView’s legacy persists in modern IT operations management principles adopted by organizations like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

Category:Network management software