The Importance of Information Delivery in IT Operations

Transcription

1 The Importance of Information Delivery in IT Operations David Williams Notes accompany this presentation. Please select Notes Page view. These materials can be reproduced only with written approval from Gartner. Such approvals must be requested via Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates.

2 IT infrastructure availability it's all about knowing A 99.9% IT infrastructure uptime metric doesn't matter when business applications are unavailable, end-users are dissatisfied and no-one knows the true state of the IT infrastructure when they need to know it.

3 CIO Strategies for Success Excerpt from the CIO Mindset Successful CIOs: Thinking about their company's real customers, not internal ones Transitioning from managing resources to raising business performance by more than 10% Measuring performance based on operational outcomes in business terms, not traditional ROI calculations on technology purchases or benchmarks on application roll-outs Focus on improving productivity across the organization -IT and Business Increasing collaboration Defining new funding models for IT

4 managing IT availability today's reality Reactive (focused on MTTR) IT operations working within silos with limited organizational cooperation Element focused on 99.9% uptime Limited end-to-end monitoring capabilities (end user and elements) Too many events (creating event storms) with too much data Growing need for skills to manage increasing complexity IT Operations Silos End users Applications Databases Servers Networks Business Condition End User Satisfaction? Events managed/prioritized in silos as element issues are identified IT infrastructure change accelerating (e.g. virtual & cloud infrastructures) Increasing amounts of data being collected, traditional delivery mechanisms no longer working IT organizations continue to struggle to achieve a pro-active monitoring state. An increasing amount of mature, forward thinking IT organizations are considering alternative/enhanced approaches to IT infrastructure monitoring.

5 IT infrastructure availability management it's a matter of perspective Take customer order Update product & notify customer Update product catalog Mapping and Virtualization Arrange order delivery Deliver order and confirm Customer Service Product Catalog and Inventory Order Fulfillment Application View Network View Java,.NET SAP, Oracle, Exchange VoIP Composite Applications Custom Business Apps. IPTV Message-Oriented Middleware Transaction Middleware Portals Web Services Mapping and Virtualization Mapping and Virtualization Application Servers Mapping and Virtualization Database Management Systems Servers Storage Mobile Devices Load Balancers Desktops Mapping and Virtualization IP Switches MPLS Routers Accelerators

6 IT infrastructure management fragmented inconsistent information delivery Hardware Servers Desktops Mobile Devices Storage Network Software Operating systems Middleware Databases Applications Networks IT Operations Tasks Availability & Performance Mgmt Change Mgmt Configuration Mgmt Capacity Planning Job Scheduling Asset Mgmt Inventory Mgmt Storage Mgmt Security Mgmt Service Desk IT Management Information Recipients IT Operations Network Admins Database Admins Applications Managers Service Desk Admins Security Managers? Ownership Enforced Escalation and Outage Business Impact End-users Response time Activity

7 alert notification key findings Considerable effort is taken to detect and process issues yet few IT organizations put the same effort to ensure the issues are immediately delivered to the right IT personnel. IT operations information delivery is as important as the task of gathering the information. IT operations management ECA/Performance/APM vendors focus on data collection and analysis - not information delivery. Service Desks focus on the escalation process not on the methods used to ensure the process dead-lines/service levels are adhered to. Alert notification products are beginning to fulfill two roles, one of information deliver to mobile devices and the other of providing interactive access to the IT operations tools and the processes they support. What s required? Alert Notification Tools that provide the right information, consolidated and filtered (in the right format) delivered to the appropriate people at the right time. Decision makers getting the right data Event ownership to be established Escalation and outage in-line with SLA s Event reporting

8 alert notification evolution focus, value and user Focus: Fault data from event tools Incident data from help desks Value: After hours support Outage data Passive process participation User: Technical support IT operations Focus: Information delivery and process control for Availability & Performance mgmt, BSM, Change & Configuration mgmt and IT operations process mgmt, Service availability/management Value: All hours support IT service availability information Active participation in IT operations processes User Technical support / IT operations Service managers IT operations managers Security and Audit management LOB managers/business Execs

9 alert notification evolution no longer your out-of-hours pager Information / Alert Notification Information Routing Correlation Filtering/De-duplication Data Collection Information Delivery Assurance Remote Activity Enablement Event Correlation & Analysis Performance Monitor Application Performance Monitor Configuration and Provisioning Mgmt Service Desk IT Operations Process Automation Job Scheduler

10 availability and performance architecture data collection --- information delivery Data Flow Intefraces/browsers Data collection, filtering, rationalization, de-duplication Information ownership Support routing Guaranteed information delivery

11 IT infrastructure management the IT operations framework of products Solves real IT operations management challenges Leverages existing technology investment Can be deployed in parts (tools suites) to meet specific needs Widespread adoption (whether you are ready or not) Tools grouped around: Buyers/Organization Processes Framework drivers Process/best practices Accountability IT operations efficiencies Virtualization/ Cloud/IT Services No standards Product integration/consolidation will change the way products work together and how products are chosen and used Understand product relationships and how they integrate to support your processes and then assess vendor s framework approaches and capabilities

12 applying the framework performance degradation remediation IT Operations Tools Best-practice and process initiatives (e.g., ITIL) are being automated and orchestrated by automation tools ITIL v.3 Event Management Automated Process Example: Fault-to-remediation process shortens MTTR by eliminating manual intervention.

13 performance degradation remediation the role of alert monitoring

14 IT operations process automation the role of information delivery assurance Update sent to LOB Manager Incident ticket created Security and compliance checked and verified Incident ticket updated Security Officer Authorizes change Security and compliance checked and verified Incident ticket updated Security Officer Authorizes Change Incident ticket closed Compliance report created End-user performance Process Team Service degradation identified Service Desk Network Admin Network Administrator updated Network devices reconfigured to address need System Admin. Security Officers Processing power added Update sent to LOB Manager & IT operations administration 13-step process 4 IT operations teams 8 IT operations functions 8 IT operations tools Service level checked and verified IT operations updated Update sent to LOB Manager & IT operations administration Process complete Passive Information Delivery Assurance Active Remote Activity Enablement

15 today's data centers new approaches and organizational roles Monitoring: Element availability Service levels / Application / IT service management Focus: Fault management Service degradation Measurement Metrics: Mean Time to Repair Outage avoidance New/Updated Monitoring Approaches Business service management Infrastructure performance monitoring Application performance monitoring Behavior learning analysis Service/application availability reporting Alert notification Process managers Designing, developing and owning processes to, for example, enable the automation of IT operations processes. IT operations architects Tools identification, integration and usage in support of IT services. Service managers IT operations management takes the role to broker and manage internal and external services. IT infrastructure Availability Analysts proactively seeking T infrastructure issues such as application performance degradation.

16 Recommendations 1. Considerable effort is taken to detect and process issues - few IT organizations put the same effort to ensure the issue is immediately delivered to the right IT personnel. IT operations information delivery is as important as gathering the information 2. Alert notification products should fulfill two roles: information delivery to mobile devices, and providing interactive access to IT operations tools and the processes they support. Ensure your mobile notification capabilities include both. 3. When considering alert notification tools, do not restrict your thinking to information delivery. Consider the value of leveraging the same mobile technology to enable interactions with IT operations management tools to orchestrate IT management processes and remediate issues. 4. Alert notification tools are not equal in capabilities, so understand how the tool is integrated with your existing IT infrastructure and how the data is collected, filtered and passed. 5. IT organizations with IT process automation projects (such as change management and server provisioning) should investigate the use of alert notification tools to provide process status awareness and process step interaction.