founded on September 9, 1999 (i.e., 9/9/99) as a managed services provider. After selling the operations side of the business to EDS in the summer of 2002, Loudcloud became Opsware and went to market as a technology company, offering the software that had been developed internally to support customer systems via automated server life-cycle management. In December 2003, Opsware acquired asset management systems provider Tangram Enterprise Solutions, and in December 2004 acquired network device configuration management vendor Rendition Networks. In July 2006 Opsware acquired CreekPath to fill out its Data Center Automation (DCA) product offering, by allowing provisioning of storage components as well. Lastly, in March 2007 Opsware acquired Seattle-based iConclude and their run-book automation software, which allowed Opsware to tightly integrate datacenter management duties end-to-end.

In July 2007, HP announced that it had agreed to acquire Opsware for $1.6 billion in cash ($14.25 per share), 16x revenues. It is HP's third largest acquisition behind Compaq and Mercury.