Service Management 2009

Infrastructure Management
What is happening?
Tony Lock
Freeform Dynamics Ltd
+44 7711 719113
tony@freeformdynamics.com
www.freeformdynamics.com

What is going on?

Current IT Initiatives
The Challenges for Infrastructure Management
The Market
Conclusions

The view at the end of 2008...
Has the ‘credit crunch’ had an impact on IT investment in your company?
Is IT funding in your organisation generally on the way up or down?

Do you have or are you planning to begin initiatives over the next 6 months in any of the following areas?
Overall

The virtualisation feel-good factor
250-4999 employees

The impact of virtualisation
On management and support processes
On hardware acquisition strategy

What is going on?

The Market
Conclusions

The Focus Areas For IT Management

Infrastructure Basics
Asset / Inventory Management
Configuration and Change Management
Operational Management
Virtual / Physical Infrastructure Discovery
Service Level / Performance Monitoring
Service Level / Performance Management
Root Cause Analysis / Service Optimisation
Business Service Definition and Service Management
Monitoring and Management
Reporting
Financial / Service Feedback
Charge back
“What if” service modelling

To what degree are the following areas a burden to your IT department?
At first glance it would appear that individual areas do not present a huge burden to the majority of IT departments.

But the real story is very different

What degree of co-ordination exists within your IT management environment?
Positively, we find that most IT departments report at least a co-ordinated approach to IT management, but this is hiding a multitude of sins

Do you try to maintain a clear view of how the various parts of your IT infrastructure relate to each other, e.g. which parts are dependent on which other parts?
Few organisations have full capability here yet – half the challenge is in being able to articulate the need for it, the other half actually doing it.

How well do you think IT helps the business achieve its strategic and operational goals in the following areas?
Contrary to some opinion, IT today does a pretty good job. That’s not to say it can’t do better, but in the main, things are ‘ok’
Figure 1

To what degree does your organisation define SLA’s at an IT component or infrastructure level, e.g. for servers, the network, etc?
Having taken most of the last 5 to 10 years to become mainstream, most organisations now track IT performance at component level.

What issues and challenges does this ‘fragmentation’ cause you?
Fragmentation causes multiple headaches, not only within the IT department on a day to day basis, but it also limits the effectiveness to which IT can demonstrate its value

Does the organisation measure and report on the following in business terms, i.e. in a way designed for business people to understand?
The game has changed. At a time where incremental gains separate performers from also rans, the current set-up is not conducive to allow IT to make its full contribution

To what degree does your organisation define SLA’s at a business service level, e.g. end-to-end SLAs for the performance and availability of applications?
The game has changed from monitoring at component level to reconciling their performance against elements that have a business impact.

Does your organisation recognise the concept of “services” in relation to the delivery of IT?
Freeform Dynamics projects have measure a constant upwards shift in the volume of organisations which are taking a services approach to IT – Freeform sees this as a key mainstream market shift that shouldn’t be ignored.

How well does IT help the business meet the following goals? ( IT management fragmentation levels 1 to 4, sum of scores 3 and 4)
We see ITs ability to assist the business increase in a stepwise fashion as the degree of fragmentation in the IT management environment is reduced.

What is going on?

The Market
Conclusions

The Focus Areas For IT Management

Infrastructure Basics
Asset / Inventory Management
Configuration and Change Management
Operational Management
Virtual / Physical Infrastructure Discovery
Service Level / Performance Monitoring
Root Cause Analysis / Service Optimisation
Business Service Definition and Service Management
Monitoring and Management
Reporting
Financial / Service Feedback
Charge back
“What if” service modelling

Who’s playing?
SpiceWorks
Network
General
Cisco
IBM
CA
Microsoft
Symantec
HP
BMC
NimSoft
Quest
Altiris
Wild
Packets
Big Hitters
Challengers
Niche Players
Open sourcers
21

So who are offering Solutions

Rapidly maturing market – consolidation
The gang of five
BMC PATROL
CA – Unicenter
HP OpenView
IBM/Tivoli Solutions
Microsoft
Many more niche solutions

Asset, Service Desk, Change Management / CMDB
Hornbill
Intelliden (Network Asset Management)
LanDesk
Novell Zen
PS’SoftQualiparc
Symantec / Altiris
CA Service Desk and CA CMDB

Fujitsu SystemWalker
NetQoS
NetScout
Nimsoft
Quest
Radware
CA Traffic Accountant / CA eHealth

What is going on?

The Market
Conclusions

Summary

Users expect IT to work well 24 x 7
Systems Management tools are developing rapidly
There is a real business driven need for sophisticated IT Service Management solutions
Asset / Change Management
Service Level Monitoring / Management
Root Cause Analysis
Automation
Reporting and Changeback
The growing deployment of virtualisation and potentially flexible / cloud solutions adds to the need for such tools
Support processes need to advance to make effective use of new management solutions