About a year ago, IT managers at Inflow, a technology service provider in Denver, determined that an investment in automation technology could reduce the number of full-time system administrators needed to manage 600 servers from nine to six.

A recent review showed by using Opsware Systems software, Inflow can maintain the same 600 servers with only three administrators.

"We had to commit to performing a baseline and to integrating the software with our systems, but now we have a 200-to-1 server-to-admin ratio, which is a real gain from using that [Opsware] platform," says Lenny Monsour, general manager of hosting and infrastructure services at Inflow. Monsour credits extensive integration between Opsware and Inflow systems for the successful rollout.

Opsware this week plans to unveil Opsware System 4.5, which the company says will make it easier for customers to integrate the automation software into existing environments and reduce manual effort around patch, asset, change and server management. The core software is written to work with a new software add-on, Opsware Extension Builder, which provides templates to help customers build automation applications for custom processes and proprietary systems.

"Opsware sold an out-of-the-box automation tool to customers with very complex environments, who then wrote additional code to customize the product to get use of the automation in their networks," says Andy Schroepfer, founder of Tier 1 Research. He says some customization must be done to automate patch distribution, server provisioning and application upgrades, whether through systems integrators or in-house IT managers. Opsware added the capabilities in its software to enable customers to do in-house development more easily.

The product uses a combination of server and agent software. The server software is installed on a Linux or Solaris box and serves as the core, while the agents are distributed to every managed server. Opsware System 4.5 costs between $1,000 and $1,200 per server and ships with Opsware Extension Builder.