BMC Software Inc. has upgraded its IT discovery and dependency mapping toolset and rebranded the product as BMC Discovery. Formerly called Atrium Discovery and Dependence Mapping (ADDM), BMC Discovery has about 1,000 existing customers and is “a core component of our digital enterprise strategy,” according to Robin Purohit, president of BMC’s service support organizations.

BMC Discovery creates detailed maps of all the devices, virtual machines, containers and applications in a complex and geographically dispersed data center with a capacity to model more than 100,000 servers. It can identify things like the age of servers, which devices are connected to storage arrays and software that is out of license or that needs to be updated. This information is useful for a variety of purposes ranging from auditing to security to performance management.

Results are displayed as a graphic map and searchable database that can be analyzed to look for dependencies that may be degrading performance or for unused or under-used devices and software.

“Once you have service maps you can merge them with patterns that indicate where problems may be,” Purohit said. “You can do predictive analytics to look for patterns of activity around a certain item that would point to a potential fault or degradation.”

The agentless technology gives IT organizations visibility into how their infrastructure maps to business needs and where efficiencies can be found. For example, unused or under-used resources can be taken down or redeployed to save money. BMC Discovery can also identify ways to optimize storage space and identify idle or outdated servers that could be security risks.

The software can be downloaded and installed in a container. Mapping usually take only a few minutes, Purohit said.

Among the major enhancements in this release are:

• “Start anywhere application mapping” uses dependency data to map an application based on any information that is known about it. Essentially, it works backwards from a starting point to learn about where the application fits in the infrastructure. “It can take quite some time to develop a comprehensive application map,” Purohit said. This approach is “orders of magnitude faster.”
• “Three clicks to insight” is a way to rapidly identify known issues, such as virus signatures, by clicking through the dependency map looking for patterns.
• Discovery patterns and algorithms have been substantially updated in this release, BMC said.

BMC Discovery is a lightweight software appliance that gets monthly content updates. It’s available as a download with a free trial option.

An International Data Corp. (IDC) study of nine BMC Discovery customers commissioned by the vendor estimated average savings of $4.5 million per organization, a 470 percent return on investment over give years and an eight-month payback time.

“The assurance of up-to-date asset inventory and dependency mapping to properly assess the vulnerability of existing infrastructure can be a significant enhancement to effectively managing cybersecurity as well as application performance and prioritization,” wrote IDC analysts Robert Young and Matthew Marden. “IT can also compare the current and future costs of an asset and, based on these projections, affect data center architecture designs.”

BMC Discovery is available on a subscription basis or on a perpetual license beginning at $75,000.