In today's connected world, companies rely on their IT infrastructures to deliver business benefits and high service levels. However, these infrastructures are often complex, requiring numerous toolsets and dedicated resources across an extensive infrastructure environment, with multiple vendors and across various technologies.
Businesses rely on technology to manage this complex environment, utilising one or more of the many tools available for this purpose. However, these products are characterised by complexity, fragmented islands of information and high cost and effort of ownership.
As a result, management systems in most companies are characterised by the uncoordinated purchasing of products, creating islands of information with little emphasis on the true business challenges the technology is intended to address, explains Keith McLachlan, CEO of Sintrex.
"Many companies have been disappointed by their infrastructure management initiatives, with very few getting bang for their buck. This is often because in trying to solve an issue, they compare product features and benefits rather than identifying the particular challenge they are trying to address and mapping the solution to their needs. Ultimately, infrastructure management is about getting access to the right information in order to make clever business decisions."
He points out that for many organisations, infrastructure performance directly impacts customer experience, business efficiency, competitive advantage, as well as security and compliance. "How can you manage it, if you don't monitor it?" McLachlan asks. "Business wants answers now, and needs credible information to make business decisions. Many management tools provide huge amounts of data, but not reports that make sense to business. The credibility and validity of the information offered by the management system is central to being able to make intelligent decisions, and yet most IT departments are not able to offer that level of information."
According to McLachlan, to achieve successful IT infrastructure management, organisations must address three key elements; a strategic plan for management systems, a unifying technology platform and the empowerment of people and processes.
"Every customer is unique, so there can't be a cookie-cutter solution. Every tool has flaws and there is no one system that can cover infinite detail on each area. At its core, effective management rests on a strategy for management systems, starting with an understanding of the requirements of the different stakeholders in the enterprise for management information. Having this 'blueprint', which is focused on organisational information requirements, will accommodate a scalable design to allow for further expansion as and when necessary," McLachlan says.
He points out that the statement made by Glenn O'Donnell in The CMDB Imperative: How to Realise the Dream and Avoid the Nightmares, that: "If Boeing or Airbus followed common IT practices instead of sound system engineering principles, air travel would be as risky as a game of Russian Roulette" is clearly illustrated in the field of infrastructure management. "This is why Sintrex has developed a cost-effective solution for operational management based on the traditional FCAPS functional model (Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security Management)."
Working with both businesses and service providers, Sintrex offers custom, tailor-made solutions that work with existing products. "Most organisations believe that they have an effective handle on management. However, when we ask them the four key questions to ascertain this, there is usually at least one area where they don't have the answer," says McLachlan.
These questions are: Do you have a list of all the IT equipment, including make and model, in the business, for every location? Do you know how long all IT equipment has been up, and do you know how long a fault has been active? Do you know the utilisation and trends for every component in the infrastructure, with baselines? If you have high utilisation, do you know who or what is responsible?
"Management systems cannot produce the desired results if the alignment with people and processes has not been taken into account. The technology platform must therefore be flexible to allow for customisation and internalisation, thereby ensuring effective and efficient use of the information in the organisation. Managing infrastructure monitoring at scale is an increasing challenge, and without an approach focused on process discipline, will continue to be a piecemeal hodgepodge of different products that are not meeting business needs," McLachlan concludes.
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