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1 Issue Integrated IT Management The Value of Integrating Availability & Performance Management and Service Desk Tools About ManageEngine Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet sit Integrated IT Management Empower IT with end-to-end visibility Introduction Today s IT environments are built from a remarkably diverse set of software, systems and components off-the-shelf and custom applications, databases, servers, and networks are integrated to meet business requirements and serve user needs. Achieving the full business value of IT relies on monitoring and managing the health, availability and performance of these complex and diverse resources while maintaining a quality user experience. Businesses view IT as a key strategic asset, yet are often frustrated when the performance and business value of key IT components can only be monitored and managed independently using silo-ed IT management tools. The tasks of IT and operations management are conventionally accomplished using tools dedicated to specific applications and infrastructure components, and service desks operated in a reactive manner to user complaints. According to Gartner 1, The integration of availability and performance management tools with the service desk promises increased IT operations efficiencies, resulting in reduced IT downtime and improvement in service quality and support to the end user. This integration of IT management and service desk becomes essential as organizations increasingly rely on IT-driven business models and service outages and security breaches become front page news. As a result, IT and operations managers are seeking a 360 view that spans all enterprise applications and systems to rapidly identify problems, monitor performance against key business metrics, and enable service desks to predict when systems warrant trouble tickets even well before users complain. As businesses seek the holy grail of measurable Return On IT through a single pane of glass that spans all IT domains, a new and powerful class of integrated IT management solutions has emerged. Integrated IT management enables business managers to better understand, anticipate and Featuring research from

2 2 respond to IT-driven business events; and an integrated, single-dashboard view empowers IT managers to provide the desired transparency, visibility and service-level management. Organizations are turning to integrated IT management solutions to: Reduce operational costs and increase IT and service desk staff efficiencies Achieve higher utilization of IT systems and infrastructure Reduce spending on monitoring tools and regain control over IT sprawl Evaluate scalability of applications, systems and infrastructure Anticipate capacity requirements and scale up to keep pace with future growth It s a new day in business, and IT plays a central role, which requires a holistic, integrated view of all components for proactive, end-to-end management, to ensure that IT is delivering its full business value. Source: ManageEngine ManageEngine IT360 Align IT with business goals using an integrated approach to systems, network and application performance management According to Gartner 2, Today s business demands quality of service, application availability managed to service level agreements (SLAs) and agility responsiveness, which relies on higher degrees of IT operations efficiency. To address these demands, integrated IT management solutions can provide a framework that enables organizations to gain visibility into their IT infrastructure from end to end and improve its performance, answering critical questions, such as: How do IT services affect business goals? Does the IT organization have complete visibility to respond to top business challenges? Can CIOs show executive management what s really happening in IT? Are Service Level Agreements (SLAs) using relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) being met? ManageEngine has delivered enterprise IT management software to more than 45,000 customers worldwide and recognized the Figure 1 ManageEngine IT360 provides a single-dashboard view of IT infrastructure. Source: ManageEngine

3 3 pressing need for a new IT operations and service management solutions built from the ground up, with an integrated approach that enables IT to deliver its true business value. ManageEngine IT360 is a highly capable, affordable and easy-to-use integrated IT management solution; designed to provide a holistic view of the way in which a company s systems, networks and applications are supporting business operations. Although there are many Business Service Management (BSM) and Application Performance Management (APM) solutions available in the market, ManageEngine IT360 offers an unsurpassed combination of features, that enables decision makers to make the right decisions, helps IT administrators ensure high uptime and equips ServiceDesk technicians to resolve issues without too much hassle or at too high a price. ManageEngine IT360 optimizes and accelerates the alignment of IT management with business goals by monitoring KPIs, SLAs and other critical business metrics without disrupting existing workflows and processes. ManageEngine IT360 s customizable operational dashboards monitor the performance of business applications, their related services and overall system and network performance, providing real-time information that enables you to quickly and accurately assess business conditions. ManageEngine IT360 s built-in IT ServiceDesk helps reduce the complexity of workflows and makes it easy for IT administrators to run IT operations effectively and efficiently. It also offers best practices to make sure that business services are available 24x7x365. In turn, this enables decision makers, such as CIOs, IT managers and service managers, to formulate the right business strategies to enhance productivity and achieve success. ManageEngine IT360 Value Proposition With ManageEngine IT360, there is finally an affordable, easy-to-use, single-console, integrated IT management product with all the capabilities historically available only in the most expensive, complex software suites. Single dashboard for a consolidated view of IT Complete visibility which makes it easy to identify and fix problems faster, thereby realizing greater IT productivity Avoids a siloed approach to IT management to reduce complexity and simplify IT Integrated monitoring and service desk modules for greater collaboration between IT Operations and IT Service Management With IT360, we moved from multiple IT tools to one integrated, end-to-end monitoring solution. A single console gives us a unified view into all our IT infrastructure. It also gives us business insight needed to make accurate decisions and report back to our customers. The flexibility and ease of implementation of IT360 gets us to market faster while providing a lower total ownership cost. Senthil Manimuthu Executive Director of IT Infrastructure, PMSI Figure 2 A single view of IT with ManageEngineIT360 s actionable dashboard Source: ManageEngine

4 4 Improve problem detection and resolution time resulting in reduced downtime for higher quality of IT service. Collaboration between network, server, applications and service desk teams enables better teamwork Fully integrated solution from one company No need for professional services to assemble separate IT monitoring and management modules-alternative approaches require you to purchase individual modules and spend substantial time to put it all together Designed organically from the ground up versus disparate products from high-cost vendors, that were acquired from multiple sources Minimal configuration and no specialized expertise Easy setup results in faster time to deployment No need for experts with specialized training Intuitive User Interface Saves time and improves responsiveness Easy to learn for better team productivity Wide range of functionality such as SLAs, business views, KPIs, capacity management and trending Features such as SLAs, business views, and KPIs allow the IT team to focus on highpriority problems that impact the business Empowers IT to respond to real-world problems in a highly responsive manner Capacity management and trending helps plan for future growth and protects existing investments ManageEngine IT360 Gain end-to-end visibility into IT performance Integrated Systems, Network and Application Performance Management Gartner s 4 integration objectives include: Reducing downtime and increasing IT service quality and end-user satisfaction Optimizing resources and increasing efficiencies (i.e., more issues resolved at Level 1 support) Removing delays and gaps in the fault-toresolution process and reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR) Proactively informing the IT administrators of faults (before end users report the issues) Automatically escalating issues in line with SLAs Improving the accuracy of the fault-toresolution reporting (i.e., providing specific downtime and MTTR statistics) Improving trend and analysis reporting ManageEngine IT360 takes an agentless approach to proactively monitor the health, availability and performance of servers, networks, applications, ERP systems, databases, mail servers, Java transactions and other web-based services. IT360 s integrated views are well suited for today s N-tier web applications and their complex dependencies on servers, databases, web servers, middleware components and web services linked using SOA.

5 5 Figure 3 ManageEngine IT360 is built from the ground up for integrated IT management Source: ManageEngine Many applications that are clustered for scalability and high availability require tools that help define proper correlations between resources. ManageEngine IT360 helps monitoring these complex infrastructures and makes performance and service monitoring meaningful for all stakeholders. With its in-depth application performance management, ManageEngine IT360, can go deep into these applications and check for performance and availability. Real-time Network Visibility ManageEngine IT360 offers comprehensive performance and fault management across the WAN infrastructure and helps to ensure connectivity across branch offices. ManageEngine IT360 provides complete network performance management that includes monitoring network uptime, network visualization, capacity planning and network security, with proactive monitoring and automated alert escalation. Integrated Traffic Analysis and Bandwidth Monitoring The integration of traffic analysis and bandwidth monitoring gives IT and network administrators greater visibility into traffic patterns to track real-time network behavior; and helps business managers understand how bandwidth utilization impacts business objectives. End User Experience Management As enterprises take their business online, responsive applications, uninterrupted transactions and minimal downtime are critical. ManageEngine IT360 enables administrators to monitor interdependent systems, identify bottleneck issues and apply remedial action quickly. ITIL-based Service Desk ManageEngine IT360 s built-in, ITIL-ready Service Desk helps reduce the complexity of workflows by automating critical processes, which allows support teams to focus on real business needs. This helps improve the efficiency of the support team and makes it easy to run effective IT operations. ManageEngine IT360 supports ITIL processes such as incident management, problem management, and change management and configuration management database.

6 6 According to Gartner 3, The ability to rapidly understand, track and remediate an IT event or fault is a critical step to aligning IT management with the needs of the business. ManageEngine IT360 delivers on the vision that only when you gain true clarity and transparency, can you unleash the full potential of IT. What IT Operations and Service Management Teams Can Do with ManageEngine IT360 View key usage and performance metrics from a single dashboard to gain immediate insight into problems that impact business using Business Service monitoring. Monitor critical web applications (URL/SQL), SOA and other end user transactions, such as LDAP lookup, mail server round trip times, etc. Monitor in-depth details of transactions, including the time taken for each individual component to load. Set thresholds for critical applications to monitor the end-to-end user experience of any application including its execution time and quickly troubleshoot problems. Source: ManageEngine 1,2,3,4 Gartner Research The Value of Integrating Availability and Performance Management and Service Desk Tools, David Williams, 5 March 2010

7 7 Research from Gartner The Value of Integrating Availability and Performance Management and Service Desk Tools The integration of availability and performance management (A&PM) tools with the service desk promises increased IT operations efficiencies, resulting in reduced IT downtime and improvements in service quality and support to the end user. A&PM and service desk integration has been available for over two decades; however, few have succeeded in reaping the benefits due to organization, process maturity and technology deficiencies. With the appropriate level of planning, expectation, process maturity and IT management tools integration, the promised benefits can be achieved. Organizations looking to improve IT service to their business and increase IT operations efficiencies should investigate integrating their tools and processes. Key Findings Effective integration between A&PM and service desk tools can reduce business downtime through the removal of manual intervention, removing lag from the process, improving response time and reducing downtime. Integration between business service management (BSM) tools and the service desk allows support staff to focus on the issues with the greatest impact on the business. Few IT organizations have successfully automated the fault-to-resolution process, with most continuing to rely on the manual logging of issues detected by A&PM tools. Recommendations Integrate IT service desk tools at the highestlevel A&PM event source, preferably once the service impact has been associated with the event, enabling support to manage issues in line with business impact. Avoid sending event data from multiple A&PM tools to the service desk in order to reduce confusion and wasted effort. To gain greater visibility and control over the fault-to-resolution process, investigate the use of run book automation (RBA) tools for tool integration and process orchestration. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW There are many benefits for integrating A&PM and service desk tools, but without the appropriate expectation level and planning, the risk of failure is high. However, to realize the benefits, we recommend keeping the integration mechanisms simple, preferably with one A&PM tool (commonly referred to as the manager of managers ) acting as the event conduit, passing events with actionable service impact details and establishing a process to manage how, what and when event data is passed between the tools. Finally, ensure that your organization understands and supports the process. STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSUMPTION By 2015, 60% of large enterprises will have effectively integrated their applications and performance management data with their service desk tools, up from 35% today. ANALYSIS With business managers demanding greater IT availability and improved customer service quality, IT operations are revisiting A&PM and service desk integration as a way to increase IT management efficiencies, reduce the time it takes to identify and resolve IT outages, and reduce the impact IT issues have on the business. In addition, integration also provides better reporting and trend analysis, tying service desk tickets back to the real reason for the outage, which can improve trend analysis. It also ensures that a ticket is created for each outage (whether an end user calls the service desk or not) and the outage time is properly recorded in the ticket (the service desk doesn t always know exactly when it first occurred). With the appropriate expectations, resources and planning, the value gained by integrating event and problem management can be greater than the tools used independently. The ability to pass A&PM events from data center operations to service desks has been available for more than two decades; however, IT organizations that have successfully automated the capability are in the minority, with most continuing to rely on the manual logging of issues detected by the A&PM tools. Today s business demands quality of service, application availability managed to service-level agreements

8 8 (SLAs) and agility, which relies on higher degrees of IT operations efficiency. The ability to rapidly understand, track and remediate an IT event or fault is a critical step to aligning IT management with the needs of the business. Increased IT management process maturity, IT operations accountability, the adoption of best practices and the demand for greater IT operations efficiencies are all drivers increasing the chances of success at meeting a set of integration objectives. Integration objectives include: Reducing downtime and increasing IT service quality and end-user satisfaction Optimizing resources and increasing efficiencies (i.e., more issues solved at Level 1 support) Removing delays and gaps in the fault-toresolution process, and reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR) Proactively informing the end users of issues (before the end users report the issue) Automatically escalating issues in line with SLAs Improving the accuracy of the fault-toresolution reporting (i.e., providing specific downtime and MTTR statistics) Improving trend and analysis reporting The Value of Integration Without integrating A&PM and service desk tools, the ability to manage outages remains end-user-driven, resulting in the service desk being unaware of a reported issue. The end user is then questioned about the symptoms, with IT operations trying to recover the situation in isolation. Even when communication among the IT operations teams occurs (face-to-face, via telephone or via cubicle shouting), recovery time and the ability to track and manage the fault is seriously diminished. A manual event management process, where events are manually reported (by or phone call) and an incident ticket is opened and updated by the service desk, with continual updates from the data center operations team, requires a high degree of cross-function organizational collaboration to ensure each issue is managed effectively. A manual process requires far greater communication than an automated procedure, because end users and the service desk need regular updates. Typically, it s a manual process prone to longer recovery times, due to lapses in communication and human error. When an outage occurs, there are four s: fault, data center operations, service desk and business. Figure 1 shows a typical faultto-resolution process with limited A&PM and service desk integration. The fault is noticed first by the business. The end users report an Figure 1 Non-integrated A&PM and Service Desk Tools Business Offline Business Online Business impact Business Downtime Service desk management End users report problem Incident ticket opened Problem Tracking Ticket closed, end users updated Data center operations Event detection & awareness Business impact service-level assessed Event analyzed and fixed Fault IT Downtime Fault Fault Recovery Time Source: Gartner (March 2010)

9 9 issue to the service desk and this opens an incident ticket. The fault, something that has not occurred before, is managed through the problem management system. IT operations personnel work to identify, isolate and fix the fault, providing the service desk with regular updates. Once the fault is resolved, data center operations pass this information to the service desk, which then closes the incident and informs the users. This fault-to-resolution process is triggered by the business end user, driven by human interaction, and impacted by communication lag. An automated procedure requires less manual intervention. The objective is to minimize the fault (fault to resolution) to reduce business downtime. To do this, the data center operations and service desk s need to be optimized through automated, bidirectional communication between A&PM tools (represented by the data center operations ) and the service desk (represented by the service desk ; see Figure 2). An A&PM detected issue automatically opens an incident ticket and the service desk staff is immediately aware of the issue, allowing them to inform the end users of the issue and provide them with IT service interruption details. In addition, it provides a mechanism for proactive (e.g., outbound alert) or reactive (end-userreported issue) communication, and it affords an immediate parent/child incident structure, allowing the quick and effective grouping of incident records. This provides a greater depth of impact information, as well as a comprehensive ability to communicate updates and fixes. With the A&PM and service desk tools synchronized, incidents are tracked and automatically updated as IT operations step through the resolution process. When the fix is complete, the incident ticket is closed and the end users are informed. Integration and automation ensures communication is quicker, eliminating gaps associated with human intervention (e.g., error analysis and fix prioritization negotiation) and manual intervention reducing IT downtime and, therefore, the overall MTTR. A&PM and service desk integration provides value that spans across IT operations into the business. Value to IT Data Center Operations: Optimizes data center operations effectiveness and increases overall IT Figure 2 Integrated A&PM and Service Desk Business impact Business Offline Business Downtime Business Online Service desk management Incident ticket opened Problem Tracking Ticket closed, end users updated Data center operations Event detected Event analyzed and fixed Fault IT Downtime Fault Fault Recovery Time Reduces the MTTA Reduces complexity and eliminates steps Increases understanding and communication Source: Gartner (March 2010)

10 10 operations accountability to the business (reduced downtime) Increased operational efficiency through proactive communication and reporting (decreasing MTTR and allowing IT operations to address issues with less interruption) Collaboration between data center operations and the service desk, ensuring incidents are owned, controlled and managed to resolution directed by service levels, without being constantly pressured to fix them by end users Value to the Service Desk: Proactive understanding of A&PM incidents impacting the business IT issues identified, logged and owned before an end user reports them (allowing the service desk to proactively update the business) Service desk becomes an integrated, integral part of the IT operations fault-to-resolution process Provides the service desk with an understanding of data center operations activities Ability to append an automatically created ticket to a parent record, which is already, for example, in the hands of Level 3 support Allows increased accuracy when measuring incident times and service-level adherence Value to the Business: Real-time awareness of issues due to improved incident communication and the action plan to address it Increased quality of service (information, ss, detail, expectations) Reduced business downtime (MTTR), and loss of productivity and revenue Increased end-user satisfaction Provides trend analysis data on how IT is supporting the business over time Better communication with IT operations Integration Levels Integration between A&PM and the service desk must be reliable, measurable (escalation and outage reports) and able to support IT operations processes (e.g., in support of agreed-on SLAs). To meet these objectives, the integration must provide: The ability for the A&PM tools to create, open, update and close incident tickets both automatically and manually Reliable, dependable integration (e.g., with data buffering) Integration between tools application programming interfaces, preferably developed and supported by each tool s vendor (data passed via is not integration, it is communication) Event or incident ticket status changes synchronized between both tools (e.g., a fixed fault closes the ticket) Reports created on incident ticket information containing all details on the ticket made available, allowing data center operations to understand the status This level of integration can be classified as basic. There are A&PM tools that provide moreadvanced integration with service desk tools. An advanced level of integration includes: Automatic assignment of an owner (user ID) to an incident ticket ID number Events passed to the service desk with the detail to automatically identify the resources and skills to be assigned to the incident The incident ticket ID is associated with the A&PM event (bidirectional event to incident reporting) The type of data passed between the tools will vary as it s defined by each organization s needs (e.g., in support of specific IT operations processes, the fault-to-resolution procedures and SLAs). However, in most situations, there is a core set of data that should be passed between the tools that includes: Time the event occurred (not the time the event was passed) Time the incident ticket was created, updated and closed The event text (preferably usable context) Event criticality (defined within the event tool)

11 11 Figure 3 Example of an IT Service Issue Resolution Process Service-aligned IT operations event remediation process orchestration. Automated process steps 1 to 7 1 A server performance degradation is detected 6 7 Service impact state changed to reflect performance issue fix 5 Incident closed BSM IT operations remediate issue in-line with service impact Service Desk Availability & Performance 4 IT Operations Process Management RBA BSM Availability & Performance BSM Service Desk Event passed back to APM product in-line with service impact priority 2 Server performance degradation event is passed to BSM product to associate the event with an impact on IT services 3 Service-aligned event is logged with service desk incident ticket opened Source:Gartner (March 2010) Event source (element data) Event owner (person, organization or the event tool that passed the event) Incident ticket ID number Service-desk user ID Configuration item affected Adding Service Impact Context to Events Basic event data passed to the service desk provides a way to log, track and help resolve element issues. However, basic event data may not be enough to help Level 1 support identify the real issue or assign the ticket to the appropriate skilled resources. Based on client inquires, we see very few IT organizations combining A&PM with BSM and service desk tools; however, value increases significantly when context (e.g., service impact information) is attached to the incident. Therefore, it is recommended to pass A&PM events once a BSM tool has associated the impact of an event on an IT service. This allows the support staff to focus on the issues with the greatest impact on the business. BSM information passed to the event tool can include: The application, service or services impacted The level of severity based on business impact The criticality of a single event on multiple services (one event may impact multiple services with different criticality levels) Integration in Support of IT Operations Process Integration between A&PM and the service desk is accomplished in a number of ways, including an out-of-the-box program offered by the A&PM tools or a basic integration script. However, there is an alternative option using RBA tools. We continue to see a rise in the popularity of RBA tools as a means to integrate A&PM and service desk tools to automate and orchestrate the faultto-resolution process. RBA tools provide a range of integration capabilities beyond basic event passing. For example, when an event occurs, it triggers an RBA process to automatically pass the event between different A&PM tools (e.g.,

12 12 event correlation analysis [ECA], performance and BSM), check for possible causes, open an incident ticket on the service desk, automatically start a recovery procedure and close the ticket once the situation has been resolved (see Figure 3). An RBA tool managing a fault-to-resolution process removes lag from the recovery process, thus decreasing the MTTR and increasing IT service availability with full reporting of the end-to-end recovery process. This ensures that recovery is managed with minimal human intervention, thereby reducing the risk of human error. Reducing Integration Data Complexity Effective A&PM and service desk integration requires event data to be consolidated, filtered and correlated before it is passed to the service desk. Event consolidation (e.g., bringing together server, network, database and application event data) ensures that when it s filtered and correlated, the risk of multiple tickets being created from one event is reduced (e.g., a server error being reported at the same time as the actual error [a network issue], resulting in two separate tickets). Addressing Common A&PM and Service Desk Integration Challenges Even though A&PM and service desk integration has measurable benefits, there remain a number of challenges, both technical and organizational: Cultural differences between data center operations and service desk staff, which require organizations to overcome cooperation barriers and motivate collaboration between the teams. Limited understanding of the fault-toresolution process, especially between the different support teams, requires IT organizations to ensure each team understands and is responsible for its contribution in supporting the process. Too much A&PM data being passed with too much confusing technical detail requires data center operations to apply the appropriate event filtering, correlation and service impact association to allow the service desk team to more effectively manage incidents in-line with business priorities and service levels. Inadequate, poorly developed integration between A&PM and service desk tools (especially if the tools are from different vendors) can contribute to making the faultto-resolution process slower and less reliable than a manual one. Ensure that integration between A&PM and the service desk is proven and meets your specific event process requirements. Gartner Core Research Note G , David Williams, 5 March 2010 About ManageEngine ManageEngine is the leading provider of low cost enterprise IT management software. The ManageEngine suite offers enterprise IT management solutions including Integrated IT Management, Network Management, HelpDesk & ITIL, Bandwidth Monitoring, Application Management, Desktop Management, Security Management, Password Management, Active Directory reporting, and a Managed Services platform. ManageEngine products are easy to install, setup and use and offer extensive support, consultation, and training. More than 50,000 organizations from different vertical industries, including 3 out of every 5 Fortune 500 companies, use ManageEngine for their IT management needs. ManageEngine is a division of ZOHO Corporation. For more information, please visit Integrated IT Management is published by ZOHO Corporation. Editorial supplied by ZOHO Corporation is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is 2011 by Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. All Gartner materials are used with Gartner s permission. The use or publication of Gartner research does not indicate Gartner s endorsement of ZOHO Corporation s products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity on its website,