Our industry is undergoing a major transformation as we move from traditional, server-based architectures to modern, more agile, and scalable technologies. A Dell survey on containerization shows that over 50 percent of applications at mid-to-large-sized enterprises are containerized, and 88 percent are deploying containerized third-party applications and services, or developing their own.
BMC Containerization Overview
BMC has embraced the Kubernetes platform and is reaping the benefits of container technology to deliver a modern platform that addresses the needs of a more complex and dynamic world. We have been running the BMC Helix software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for over three years using this modern architecture.
Our scalable, containerized architecture enables you to run our industry-leading IT service and operations management (ITSM/ITOM) solutions anywhere you choose; whether that’s on-premises, public or private cloud, or SaaS. It also offers new capabilities such as ServiceOps, artificial intelligence service management (AISM), BMC Helix Dashboards, BMC Helix Business Workflows, and the next-generation development platform, BMC Helix Innovation Studio, and supports modern ITOM, artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps), monitoring and observability, optimization, and intelligent automation.
As part of the industry’s transformation, the best practices for deploying and managing these sophisticated, powerful solutions are still evolving, and BMC is actively working to develop them in conjunction with industry peers, partners, and customers, particularly with regards to third-party vendor software.
Infrastructure Sizing Improvements
Most importantly, BMC is listening to our customers and partners about how we can best support the journey to containers, and we’ve received feedback that the infrastructure requirements for the BMC Helix containerized architecture are higher than expected.
Consequently, a dedicated team has spent the last three months working to optimize our software deployments and make it easier for customers to plan deployments for a wider range of use cases.
We’re delighted to share that this intensive focus and investment is now showing positive results in our testing environments. We expect customers will be able to deploy and run BMC Helix Service Management with significantly lower infrastructure requirements and costs than are currently recommended, while still enjoying the robust, stable, and highly available service that they expect.
A reduction of our infrastructure sizing recommendations is expected to be published shortly, and we expect to see further improvements across the rest of the portfolio as we continue to focus on performance engineering activities.
Our guidance will also be updated to enable customers to:
- Plan deployments on standalone or shared Kubernetes clusters
- Right-size for a wide variety of use cases
- Deploy optimized systems for non-production environments
- Gather accurate usage data from existing BMC IT service management deployments
To learn how we achieved significant reductions so quickly using BMC Helix Continuous Optimization to find over-allocation and optimization opportunities in our software running on Kubernetes, check out this blog post.
While we expect these improvements will exceed the expectations of our customers and partners, we don’t plan to stop there. BMC will continue to invest in improvements in this area and we plan to deliver ongoing performance improvements throughout 2023 to reduce your cost of ownership and improve the value of your investment in BMC solutions.
Kubernetes Overview
Kubernetes is a portable, extensible, open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services, distributing the application based on the resource availability between different servers (Nodes) which form a Kubernetes cluster. Kubernetes clusters are typically designed, and highly efficient, when configured to host multiple applications. To learn more about Kubernetes and containers, please see our introductory blog post on the subject.
BMC Containerized Software
BMC has made our industry-leading solutions available using the modern capabilities and architecture of the Kubernetes platform, including:
- BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps
- BMC Helix Continuous Optimization
- BMC Helix service management portfolio including BMC Helix ITSM, BMC Helix Business Workflows, and BMC Helix Digital Workplace
BMC-Supported Kubernetes Platforms
BMC supports the deployment of our software on of the following Kubernetes platforms, solutions, and services:
- Kubernetes Platforms
- Kubernetes
- Red Hat OpenShift
- Kubernetes Management Solutions
- VMWare Tanzu
- Nutanix Karbon
- Rancher Kubernetes
- Public Cloud Managed Kubernetes
- Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
- Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
- Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE)
BMC software runs in the same way across any of these platforms, enabling customers to move freely between different platforms as their business needs and strategy evolve. Containerization also enables frictionless migration from customer-managed platforms to BMC Helix SaaS.
BMC Documentation
Refer to this BMC Helix Service Management on-premises planning documentation for details on how to plan for your BMC Helix on-premises deployment.
Thank you for your ongoing support for the program of innovation which BMC is delivering. Please do not hesitate to reach out through your BMC Account Manager or Customer Success representative if you have any queries or further feedback. We’re here to support you.
These postings are my own and do not necessarily represent BMC's position, strategies, or opinion.
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