INSIDE SSS

October 2014

Streamlining IT Management
Page 2

Smarter IT:
Optimize IT Delivery,
Accelerate Innovation

4 Hidden Opportunities for IT

Efficiency Improvements
Page 7

Product Spotlight: 6 Tools to

Improve Your IT Management
Page 13

Cloud computing, mobility, social technology, DevOps, embedded

intelligence, and big data bring complexity to the datacenter. To
cope, IT leaders are turning to new IT service management tools
to help them analyze and optimize their on-premises, cloud, and
hybrid operations while accelerating their pace of innovation.

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2014 UBM Tech, a division of United Business Media LLC. ALl Rights Reserved.

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Streamlining IT
Management
Recent innovations in information technology have led to radical
changes. Cloud computing, for example, was virtually unheard of a decade
ago, yet companies are on track to spend more than $100 billion on cloud
services in 2014, according to IDC.
Other disrupting trends are occurring at the same time:
Mobile devices have become pervasive: According to Pew Research, 58%
of Americans now own a smartphone, and 42% own a tablet.
Social technology has transformed the way people connect to each
other, both at home and at work, with 67% of Americans currently using
social networking and 79% of North American businesses having deployed
social technology.
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October 2014

Streamling IT Management
Continuous delivery and other DevOps
practices are transforming application development; 21% of participants in an InformationWeek survey indicated that they have already
implemented DevOps, and another 21%
expect to do so by 2015.
Embedded intelligence and the Internet of
Things (IoT) are also on the rise, with 75% of
global companies either actively exploring or
already using IoT technology.
Big data continues to represent a challenge
and an opportunity, with companies expected
to spend $14 billion on big-data technology in
2014, a 30% increase over 2013.
Many IT teams are struggling to deal with
the added complexity these new innovations
bring while maintaining their current systems.
For many organizations, preserving the status
quo consumes the bulk of the IT budget.
A new generation of solutions promises
to help IT leaders address these challenges
by streamlining IT management. These tools
work across distributed and cloud computing
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environments, giving enterprises an end-toend view of all their IT operations and the
insight they need to optimize IT operations.
The Role of Analytics in IT Operations
Most IT managers are familiar with big-data
analytics, and many are actively working with

business managers on big-data projects. Some

have also realized that big-data analytics can
be very valuable to IT operations. After all, IT
systems generate plenty of data in the form of
logs, alerts, metrics, and help desk requests.
IT operations analytics software can help IT
managers make sense of all this disparate data

How Consolidated Communications uses analytics to avoid outages.

October 2014

Streamling IT Management
and spot emerging trends, preventing trouble
before its reported. The best software also
allows IT to drill down into known problems
and find root causes faster.
The right IT analytics software can reduce the
amount of time IT personnel spend on problem
resolution, thus reducing IT maintenance costs.
In addition, it improves uptime and increases
satisfaction for users both inside and outside the
organization.
In order to achieve these goals, IT leaders
should look for analytics and monitoring tools
that are:
Consumable. The best IT operations analytics
tools are easy to try and deploy, and many run
in the cloud. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools
allow companies to experiment with the technology and offer simplified pricing that is easy
to predict and understand.
Intelligent. Analytics tools must be able to
handle massive amounts of data. The best tools
do more than just integrate information they
also provide insights that help prevent outages
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and resolve issues quickly.

Integrated. The growth of hybrid cloud
computing has made it very difficult for
organizations to get a complete, end-to-end
perspective on all their systems running in
private clouds, public clouds, virtualized, and
traditional server environments. These companies need comprehensive analytics tools
that perform multiple functions.
The Next Generation of IT Optimization
Analytics can help companies reduce the time
spent on maintenance activities, but IT optimization tools can take them even further. These
optimization tools serve two primary goals:
1. They help companies reduce burdens on
IT staff and reduce IT maintenance spending.
2. They help IT please users through better
performance and stability.
IT optimization tools fall into two categories:
Automation tools allow on-premises, cloud,
and hybrid systems to run themselves and
allow users to self-serve as much as possible.

21% of participants in
one InformationWeek
survey had already
implemented DevOps,
and another 21%
expect to do
so by 2015.

October 2014

The Rise of the Hybrid Cloud

Streamling IT Management
These can include tools for scheduling
workloads and cloud orchestration tools
for configuring, deploying, and managing
resources.
Tools for application performance
management (APM) and infrastructure
performance management allow IT to
fine-tune hardware and software settings
in order to guarantee maximum uptime.
The latest tools work across traditional,
private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid
architectures to enable greater flexibility
and better visibility.
IT optimization tools ideally are:
Consumable. Optimization tools must
be easy to try and deploy. The best can
run in the cloud and have usage-based
pricing that provides significant savings
over traditionally deployed software.
Intelligent. Look for software with
built-in features that will reduce the
amount of time required to deploy the
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tool and use it effectively.

Integrated. In a hybrid setting, a single
transaction may touch multiple environments. Siloed tools can delay problem
resolution and hamper the ability of IT
to ensure that service level agreements
(SLAs) are met.
Innovation in IT Management
When both analytics and optimization
tools are in place, IT departments can
shrink the amount of time they spend
dealing with maintenance activities.
That frees them up to explore innovative
technologies and methodologies that
can result in additional benefits for their
organization.
The most innovative IT organizations
are not merely handling the complexity
introduced by current technology trends.
Theyre capitalizing on the opportunities
those trends present. Instead of merely

October 2014

n the early days of cloud computing, industry experts

debated the relative merits of public clouds, which were
managed by a third party, and private clouds, which
allowed companies to retain control of their infrastructure.
These days, a growing number of organizations are
finding themselves with hybrid cloud environments, using
both private and public cloud services. In fact, a 2014
report from Technology Business Research found that 20%
of large organizations had integrated two or more cloud
environments to create a hybrid cloud.
Industry experts agree that the hybrid cloud trend will
continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Analysts
at TechNavio predict that the worldwide global hybrid
cloud market will increase more than 30% per year
through 2018. And other market researchers anticipate
that nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud
deployments within the next few years.

Streamling IT Management
Insights reports that 36% of cloud services are
managed by line-of-business teams.
These practices speed application development, particularly when used with agile
development methodologies. Continuous
delivery and other agile approaches help developers get new features and updates to users
on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. This
responsive development environment allows
companies to adapt to market conditions faster.
Creating More Value
IT innovation improves the ability to satisfy
customers. Maximizing uptime, meeting users
needs quickly, and turning out new and better
How Claranet uses analytics to improve IT operations agility and efficiency for its customers
applications can help the entire organizations
enabling cloud computing, many are becomBy embracing DevOps practices that blur the do a better job of fulfilling its mission.
ing cloud-first organizations. They are moving lines between development and operations, for
Given the complexity in modern IT environto the cloud, particularly platform-as-a-service
example, organizations can address user needs ments, IT leaders need help streamlining their
(PaaS) and hybrid clouds, in record numbers.
faster. Some are giving line-of-business users
operations. Analytics, automation, and perforInnovative organizations are also opening
greater control over applications and infrastruc- mance management tools are providing that
the door to more collaboration among staff
ture, bringing more agility to the organization
assistance and making it easier to capitalize on
members in different departments.
as a whole. In fact, the IBM Center for Applied
the latest technology trends. p
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October 2014

Hidden Opportunities for

IT Efficiency
Improvements

Doing more with less is a constant mantra in IT departments, and

most IT managers have already tried the obvious ways to improve efficiency.
However, they may not have considered some of the hidden places where
outdated or inefficient tools may be adding to the burdens on IT staff.
Because every datacenter is different, there is no magic formula. But some of
the biggest efficiency gains can be found in four key areas: operations, application performance and infrastructure management, automation, and analytics.
Operations
Several common situations can prevent IT operations from achieving
their maximum efficiency. One of the most likely is the use of multiple,
siloed IT management tools and dashboards. As IT infrastructure grows and

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October 2014

4 Hidden Opportunities for IT Efficiency Improvements

evolves over time, many organizations invest
in a disparate set of tools that address a specific
problem or a specific piece of the environment.
Although each tool may do its assigned tasks
well, having to use many different tools to manage hardware or track down problems can sap
time from the IT staff.
Another common problem is that some IT
management tools lack the scalability they
need to deal with an organizations growth.
As the datacenter grows, these solutions run
slower and slower and become less effective.
IT departments also struggle to prioritize
their activities and response to help desk calls.
And many IT organizations complain that they
are spending too much time putting out fires.
With no way to predict and correct problems,
IT staff can only respond to help desk calls
and troubleshoot problems rather than
prevent them.
In addition, IT departments often say
that their infrastructure projects fall behind
schedule. Unforeseen problems crop up
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that require additional time and effort and take

staff away from other activities.
IT service management tools can help predict
and prevent problems, resolve issues faster,
reduce costs, and improve IT agility.
IBM data shows that companies that have
invested thoughtfully in new IT service management technologies reduced their overall
event load by 30%, reduced the number of
events IT staff handled by 10%, and increased
mean time to repair by 10%.
In addition, the tools helped organizations
reduce the time they spent doing historical
event analysis by up to 75% and decrease the
time they spent creating dashboards by 60%.
Overall, these operations gains resulted in
75% lower cost of ownership and efficiency
gains of 15-30%.

Are Your IT Operations

as Efficient as Possible?
Key Questions to Ask
Do you have a single, consolidated view
of your application and infrastructure
management solutions?
When multiple problems occur, how
do you determine which is the most
important?
Do you usually discover IT problems
before end users complain?
Do you have a process for maximizing
IT efficiency?
Are you spending too much on
break/fix activity?
Are you able to keep up with
infrastructure and application changes?

4 Hidden Opportunities for IT Efficiency Improvements

Application and Infrastructure

Performance Management
Many of the challenges companies face
with application performance management
(APM) and infrastructure management are very
similar to challenges related to IT operations.
For example, many enterprises say that siloed
tools mean they dont have an end-to-end view
of their business applications. In particular, they
often lack visibility into third-party or middleware applications, which can make troubleshooting difficult.
And, just like the operations staff, developers
are spending too much time troubleshooting.
Instead of spending their time writing code,
they spend hours trying to resolve performance
issues that could be easily handled if they had
better tooling.
In addition, companies often experience
multiple delays when rolling out new features or a new application. While these sorts
of problems are common, better tooling can
help prevent them. Specifically, the latest

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APM and infrastructure management solutions can improve application uptime and
ensure that IT departments meet SLAs.
IBM reports that companies that deployed
these tools improved the availability of missioncritical applications by 60-90%. They reduced
their outages by 30-40%, and outages that did
occur were 50% shorter than before.
Many of these next-generation tools are
available on a SaaS basis. IBM noted that this
pricing model helped companies reduce their
total cost of ownership for APM and infrastructure management tools by up to 55%,
even as they were investing in tools with
more comprehensive capabilities.

Could You Benefit

From Application and
Infrastructure Performance
Management?
Can your IT operations team view the entire
application infrastructure when trying to
diagnose performance problems?
Are you planning to roll out new
applications in the next 3-12 months?
Could your organization benefit from an
application performance dashboard?
How effective are your current monitoring
tools at tracking all aspects of application
transactions and the paths they take
(including middleware and cloud-based
components)?
How much time do developers spend
writing code versus troubleshooting
performance bottlenecks?

4 Hidden Opportunities for IT Efficiency Improvements

Automation
Another often overlooked
way to improve IT efficiency is
through greater use of automation.
One of the biggest indications that
a company could benefit from more
automation is the amount of time
staff members spend on maintenance
and support activities versus the

amount of time they spend on valueproducing activities.

When deploying new cloud-based
applications, inefficient organizations
may take weeks or months to provision
and deploy the environment. Cloud
management tools that provide IT
automation can reduce deployment
and service delivery times to days and

Could IT Automation
Improve Your Efficiency?
Is IT infrastructure support a core competency or an
ongoing headache?
Are your lines of business moving to a SaaS and/or
operational expenditure (opex) model?
Are you concerned about supporting new
business initiatives?
Do you need to reduce batch windows?
Are you having difficulty meeting SLAs?
Do you want to optimize resource scheduling?
Are you deploying a hybrid cloud environment?
Are you willing to move applications into the cloud?
Are you rolling out new applications without
adding staff?
Do users need to be able to access business applications
from mobile devices?
Do you have easy access to templates that speed the
deployment of cloud resources?
Do you have a single pane of glass to monitor all your cloud
deployments?

How Enfo deploys customer environments 90% faster.

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October 2014

October 2014

4 Hidden Opportunities for IT Efficiency Improvements

hours, thus allowing more scalability.
Companies that arent using automation
effectively may find that they tend to over
provision resources. Without tools to predict demand spikes and schedule workloads, they end up deploying more hardware, which increases costs and places
greater burdens on IT staff.
Like companies with inefficiencies
in operations or APM, companies that
arent using automation effectively often
lack the ability to manage their complex
hybrid cloud infrastructure from a single
solution.
IBM reports that customers that invested
in IT automation tools reduced their client
ticket volumes by 80%, improved their firstcall resolution rate by 25%, and improved
their mean time to resolution by 40%.
They completed cloud deployments in
days instead of weeks, reducing their time
to deploy by 50% or more. Automation
also helped companies reduce outages
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related to IT changes by 70%.

In all, automation allowed companies to lower maintenance-related labor costs by 90%. Organizations using
automation experienced 35% savings
in operation costs and improved staff
productivity. Lastly, they reduced provisioning times by 50-100%, allowing the
business to quickly speed and scale its
IT infrastructure.
Analytics
Without effective IT analytics,
organizations have no way to
predict IT-related problems. In many cases,
they cant detect problems until users
alert them to issues.
A lack of effective analytics increases
the amount of time staff members spend
dealing with support calls. Resolving
those calls often requires them to sift
through log files manually in order to find
the root cause of problems.
False alarms constantly hamper these

October 2014

Could Better Analytics

Improve Your IT Operations?
Are you struggling with issues that take forever to
diagnose and repair?
Are you leveraging all available information when
trying to diagnose problems?
Are you responding to outages and service
performance issues when they are already in
progress?
Are you finding it difficult and expensive to
maintain and/or tune your IT management
solutions?
Are you inundated with performance warnings
that dont correlate with genuine problems?

4 Hidden Opportunities for IT Efficiency Improvements

organizations, distracting staff from real
problems that are much more important. IT
workers also spend a great deal of time maintaining and tuning IT management solutions,
instead of using those solutions to accomplish important tasks.
However, companies that have implemented modern IT analytics say that they are able
to avoid outages, improve their understanding of whats happening in their environment, and lower their operating expenses.
In fact, in one four-week trial at an Internet
bank, IT was able to detect all the major incidents that occurred, including incidents that
would have been silent without the use of
the analytics solution. They were also able to
eliminate manual thresholds, which the company believed would translate into annual
savings of $300,000.
Most importantly, the company found that
analytics helped it avoid outages. During the
trial, IT staff were able to predict outages three
to five days before they occurred. Over four
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weeks, the system issued 10 major incident

alerts before customers detected a problem.
These capabilities saved the bank an estimated
$600,000.
Begin the Process
Dramatic improvements in IT efficiency generally dont happen overnight. Its a long-term,
ongoing process that begins with a thorough
analysis of your current IT operations.
By identifying the key areas where processes
and current tools are resulting in needless
waste, companies can begin to take steps to
correct those problems. In many cases, modern IT service management tools with end-toend capabilities can help organizations reduce
the time they spend on IT management activities and increase the amount of time their staff
can spend innovating in ways that can make
the organization more successful. p

In a four-week trial of an IT
analytics solution, IT staff at an
Internet bank detected all the
major incidents that occurred,
including those that would
have been silent without the
analytics solution.

October 2014

Product Spotlight:
Tools to Improve Your

IT Management

IBMs IT Service Management platform is designed to help companies optimize

their IT delivery and accelerate their rate of innovation. It includes an array of different
products and services centered on operations, performance management, automation,
and analytics. Some of the key offerings include the following:
Netcool Operations Insight with Network Management. For companies that
are looking to improve their operational agility and efficiency while speeding up
their problem identification and resolution, Netcool Operations Insight offers a
host of real-time and historical analytic capabilities. Based on this tools capabilities, Enterprise
Management Associates has named IBM a value leader in advanced performance analytics.
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October 2014

Product Spotlight: 6 Tools to Improve Your IT Management

Control Desk. This software unifies
service request, IT change and configuration, and IT asset lifecycle management in a single solution. Its intuitive selfhelp portal and service catalogue allows users
to solve many of their own problems, eliminating a number of the help desk requests that IT
must handle.
Workload Automation. The multifunctional IBM Workload Automation combines the capabilities of
IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler and IBM
Tivoli Workload Scheduler for Applications,
along with the ability to provision cloud
computing resources. With it, IT can model
workflows in advance to detect any potential
How IBM Cloud Orchestrator automates cloud service delivery.
problems before they occur, as well as moniApplication Performance
age traditional, virtualized, cloud, and hybrid
toring and managing unattended cloudManagement. Unlike tools that
environments from within a single solution. It
based workflows.
only provide visibility into traditional
allows IT managers to see how the application
Cloud Orchestration. Based on
or cloud-based infrastructure, IBMs applicais performing from the end users point of view
open standards, IBM Cloud Orchestion performance management tool gives
and track transactions from start to finish, altrator speeds the configuration and
organizations the ability to monitor and manlowing faster problem resolution.
deployment of a cloud environment, as well
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October 2014

Product Spotlight: 6 Tools to Improve Your IT Management

as monitoring and managing public,
private, and hybrid clouds. It simplifies
the process of managing complex,
dynamic cloud environments, helping
to reduce costs, accelerate service delivery, and automate business processes.
Analytics. IBM offers two
analytics tools for improving
IT operations and management: Log Analysis and Predictive
Insights. Log Analysis tackles the bigdata challenge of integrating data
from logs, events, metrics, support
documents, and trouble tickets, so that
IT can analyze the information to find
and fix ongoing problems as quickly
as possible. Predictive Insights goes
a step further, allowing IT to predict
problems with applications or middleware before any outages occur. p

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Additional Resources
Optimizing IT and Service Management:
A Virtual Conference
About IBM
IBM is the worlds largest information technology company, with 80
years of leadership in helping clients
innovate. Drawing on a breadth of
capabilities and best practices from
across IBM and our extensive partner
ecosystem, we offer clients within
every industry a wide range of services, solutions, and technologies that
can help them improve productivity,
respond rapidly to the needs of their
business, and reduce development
and operations costs.
www.ibm.com