HP Using Autonomy IDOL To Supercharge Document Management

$10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy

HP said Monday it has integrated Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL), a search and data processing technology built into many Autonomy products, in HP TRIM 7.3, the latest update to its document and records management product.

IDOL uses algorithms to search for information based on the content inside data repositories, using that to build relationships between different types of data, David Gould, director of HP's global TRIM business, said in an interview.

[Related: HP Hires Microsoft Exec Youngjohns To Lead Autonomy Business ]

HP TRIM 7.3 is integrated with Autonomy ControlPoint 3.0, an update to Autonomy's existing policy management offering, which also relies on IDOL.

Gould said the combination of TRIM and ControlPoint can solve challenges organizations are facing in managing digital content, particularly unstructured data such as email, voice, video and social media.

"HP's Autonomy acquisition has accelerated our ability, from a records management perspective, to focus on a broader market and wider range of solutions," Gould told CRN. "Information management is all about understanding where the content is, what it's about and what policy needs to be applied to it to properly manage it."

HP added TRIM to its portfolio in its 2008 acquisition of Australian vendor Tower Software. The vast majority of HP's TRIM business is based in Australia, but HP is betting that the IDOL integration will make it compelling to U.S. customers.

Dan Carmel, head of enterprise content management for HP Autonomy, predicts that more U.S. HP partners are going to be adding TRIM now that it is powered by IDOL and integrated with ControlPoint.

HP closed its acquisition of Autonomy last October but is still not selling Autonomy products through the channel. Carmel said HP does have an "active partner" base selling TRIM to U.S. federal government customers, along with a single partner -- Chesapeake, Va.-based UrsaNav -- selling it to corporate customers.

HP is planning an announcement in the next six weeks that will explain how HP partners can benefit from the synergies between HP and Autonomy, Carmel told CRN.

HP also unveiled Application Information Optimizer 7.0, the latest iteration of an existing Autonomy database archiving product, which is integrated with TRIM and handles structured data.

Application Information Optimizer 7.0 works with the HP Vertica columnar database engine to find seldom used structured data in legacy and production databases and convert it to XML, the format used by modern analytics software.

HP last November established Vertica and Autonomy as the cornerstones of its Information Management business unit. Four months later, HP quietly moved Vertica into its Software division. Earlier this month, HP moved Autonomy back into its Software division and hired former Microsoft executive Robert Youngjohns to run it.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 25, 2012