IT Management 2.0

Service Providers:  An Eye To the Cloud

In Part I  of this blog, we began to tackle the issue of infrastructure management solutions, their importance to service providers - especially in the era of cloud services.   As we stated in the first post:

The point is that new services are essential to help all service providers overcome shrinking revenues and compete effectively.  Telco providers, in particular, need to look to new services to bolster their legacy network income.

As always, the issue is helping customers overcome the challenges associated with launching new services and managing this ever-expanding

The Big Question: Service Providers and the Cloud

 and increasingly complexIT infrastructure.  Now we’ll look at how EMC Ionix approaches the situation and offers a solution for service providers.

EMC Ionix Can Help

1. EMC Ionix Eliminates Errors:  Automation allows service providers to remove the manual process from their day-to-day activities as they are both error-prone and time-consuming.  It will help them eliminate the cost of manually making the relationships between components on network and entire service infrastructure, including servers, applications and storage.  This becomes even more important within a growing and highly dynamic infrastructure.  Automation can save up to 70% of the time to isolate the problems, and these resources can then be re-deployed from fire-fighting to supporting the business.
2. EMC Ionix Accelerates Infrastructure Management:  By automating infrastructure discovery and problem identification, service providers can reduce the length of many management tasks by upwards of 90%.  Having a holistic approach to discovery, configuration management and fault management dramatically speeds finding and fixing problems on the infrastructure.  And by being able to execute day-to-day changes on the infrastructure, service providers are able to deliver new services much more quickly and easily.
3. EMC Ionix Optimizes Infrastructure:  Service Providers are able to optimize their infrastructures by avoiding unnecessary outages and service downtime due to mis-configurations and unplanned changes in their environment.  Manual change management causes more than 80% of infrastructure problems, so it’s essential to prevent configuration errors, such as mis-typing or interoperability issues by validating changes before execution.  In addition, it allows them to run “what-if” scenarios to understand what impact a particular configuration change might have on the infrastructure.
4. EMC Ionix Consolidates Silos:  By having a management platform that can work across silos, service providers are able to consolidate toolsets for server, network, storage and application configurations to avoid finger-pointing and a swivel-chair management style.  Proactive fault management allows benchmarking of normal network behavior so that action can be taken if it deviates from the norm.  In addition, the information will be useful to help different entities within the service provider to collaborate together, see their impact and make support handover easier.
5. EMC Ionix Helps in Compliance with Internal/External Regulations:  Finally, automated configuration checking will allow the service provider to ensure their infrastructure is in compliance with both their own IT policies but also with regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, and SOX.  It allows them to improve security by having automatic policy

Participate and See For Yourself

Hopefully by now you have a better idea about infrastructure management and its importance to service providers - especially in the era of the cloud.  But don’t just believe us.  We have some great customer testimonials from such companies as Swisscom and Interoute to better illustrate our point.  In addition, we’re opening up to service providers to tell us what they think.  If you’re a European service provider, we encourage you to take our survey here.

Additionally, I’d love to hear what you think.  Please feel free to send comments and feedback.

Suhela

Cloud, Private Cloud, Service Management, Virtualization Management EMC, Ionix, IT Management, Private Cloud, Virtualization

Rock Solid Foundation

Real-estate developers, architects, and builders all know that when you’re looking to construct something in a challenging location or environment, you need to make sure you have a rock-solid foundation on which to build.  Anything less, and you’re setting yourself up for big problems down the road.

The same holds true for IT:  As you make the transition from pure physical computing  environments to virtualized IT infrastructure — and eventually to private cloud – you need a solid foundation on which to build.  Increasingly, it’s apparent that foundation is your network.  If your network fails or is impacted, services go down, the infrastructure cannot stay virtualized, and cloud environments start to dissipate.

The problem is, in the IT realm, developers, architects, and builders aren’t that interested in helping you make sure there’s a solid foundation in place for all the neat new architectures, services, and applications.  In fact, they’re more likely already building into their plans and models certain assumptions about network availability, performance, and compliance.  And those assumptions may not mesh well with reality - and what you can deliver and guarantee - in network and IT operations.

Enter Management

Effectively monitoring and managing your IT environment - that is,

Virtualization: It takes a solid foundation

proactively identifying and responding to problems and properly managing configuration and change so these processes don’t create unintended problems for - can significantly impact quality of service, efficiency and costs.  As virtualization deployments become more pervasive and IT complexity continues to increase, the burden of monitoring  and management must shift away from people and manual processes and into automated analytical systems.

Leveraging the power of automation to ensure your network is a strategic business asset - and not a liability to the business - has been EMC’s approach to management with EMC Ionix.  Building on that, we’ve made a set of announcements recently that highlight recent enhancements to our flagship IT infrastructure monitoring an analysis portfolio.  Aimed at helping customers solidify their “foundations” so the network can seamlessly and effectively support and enable current business operations as well as future business and IT models and architectures, these enhancements include:

• Integrated Network Configuration, Change and Compliance and Operations Management:  Although they differ on their exact percentages, all major IT analyst firms concur that the vast majority of IT service and network outages are caused by misconfigurations.  So, it should come as no surprise that when something goes wrong, the first troubleshooting question asked tends to be:  “what changed.”  As such, correlation of root-cause analysis, business impact, and network change events is essential.  That’s why our recent integration of our Ionix for IT Operations Intelligence and Ionix Network Configuration Management (formerly Voyence) is so key.
• Expanded Virtualization Support:  Ionix for IT Operations Intelligence’s automated root-cause analysis and impact assessment has expanded to now include a range of virtual infrastructures.  This solution now automatically discovers VMware ESX Servers or Microsoft Hyper-V Servers, maps their relationships to virtual machines and the rest of the infrastructure, and continuously monitors their availability and performance.  That simplifies virtual management complexities and lets you holistically manage virtualized infrastructures across domains.  Additionally, the newest release enables the solution to be deployed on virtual machines.
• Next-Generation Performance and Analytics Management:  Through key partnerships, Ionix now provides performance monitoring and correlation of performance events and alerts, which enhance our existing availability monitoring and correlation.  The result:  you can pinpoint the root-cause of availability and performance issues in an integrated fashion that gives the information you need to restore affected systems and services, and allows you to quickly determine business impact.

Analysts Agree

Enterprise Management Associates Research Director Jim Frey agrees that effective network and IT infrastructure management remains a big hurdle to ensuring value from the deployment of new IT models: 

 ”As companies continue to virtualize IT infrastructures, they are excited by the cost efficiency and agility this model may bring.  The real roadblock is ‘how are we going to manage this new infrastructure?’  To smooth the virtualization transition and truly achieve its potential advantages, they need automated IT management solutions that enable them to discover all of the dynamic elements and relationship while also rapidly identifying and resolving the root-cause of failures and degradations.  With EMC Ionix for IT Operations Intelligence, EMC is taking a major step forward in helping customers achieve this goal.”

I’d love to hear what you think about the foundational importance of the network.  Do you agree with me that the window for the “old school” way of network and infrastructure management is closing fast?  I’ve started the ball rolling here.  Please post your thoughts, ideas and comments so we can keep this conversation going.

Brian

Change and Configuration, Virtualization Management EMC, EMC World, Ionix, Network Configuration Management, Network Management, Virtualization, Virtualization Management, VMware

Times are tough…There’s no denying that despite the recovery predictions  of many economists, businesses are still being extremely conservative with their investments.  Investments in IT are no exception.  This is why nearly every IT vendor that walks through your door will claim to save you money — You just need to buy what they’re selling!!!

Needless to say, this trend has created a boatload of skeptics.  Vendors that take a careless approach to “IT cost savings” can find themselves at the receiving end of these skeptics’ barbs.

At EMC, we have a healthy respect for our customers’ skepticism.  So, when we decided to put together an EMC Ionix virtualization management cost savings and benefits assessment tool, we knew it would have to produce figures that were realistic as well as “tweakable” for individual scenarios.  It would have to quantify the value of being able to virtualize faster, to manage more efficiently, and to reduce risk.  It would have to be a useful tool for evaluating your current state of virtualization management — not just an Ionix marketing tool.

So, what’s the right way to look at a cost savings calculator?

1. Recognize Each Solution is Different:  Peer case studies can be a great tool for understanding the potential benefits of a product or technology.  However, you need to take into account that each IT situation is unique.  When you are reading a case study, ask yourself how closely that customer’s situation mirrors your own.  How large is your IT organization?  How many servers are you managing?  What are your labor costs?
2. Evaluate Your Current State:  Unless you’re a startup, you are
   

   Can Effective Virtualization Management Save You $$$ ?

   not starting from ground zero.  Most IT organizations have standardized and consolidated some of their tools, have implemented some degree of automation, and have at least attempted to implement some form of IT service management.  If you were to grade the maturity of your IT management tool usage, where would would you like to be on the curve?

3. Don Just Throw Product at the Problem:  Despite what the ad implies, simply buying the weight lifting machine will not turn you into Mr. Universe.  IT management tools - whether they provide IT operations monitoring, compliance validation, or service management - are all very tightly integrated into your operational processes, policies, and organizational structure.  An IT management solution for managing a virtualized infrastructure will only deliver value if you are also willing to adjust your processes to leverage virtualization.
4. Work With Trusted Advisors:  Whether it is your EMC account team, EMC consulting (which btw has an excellent VMware consulting practice), another IT consulting firm, or colleagues at a peer company - learning from experience of an outside advisor can be invaluable as you work to manage the complexities and capabilities of virtualization.  Keep in mind, we’re all on this same journey together.
5. Keep a Scorecard:  Don’t just calculate the anticipated savings - track them over time.  Often this will require capturing metrics that you don’t capture today.  If you are not realizing the savings and benefits you anticipated, ask yourself some hard questions - Have you made the changes to your processes you need to?  Have you implemented tools on the timeline you planned to?  Ask your vendors these same hard questions (sounds strange coming from a vendor?).  You may discover that there are opportunities for some mid-flight corrections.

With all that said, I invite you to try our “EMC Ionix Virtualization Management Cost Savings and Benefits Analysis” calculator to see how management of your virtualized infrastructure compares with your peers and how EMC Ionix can help.

I’d like to hear what you think.

Phil

Service Management, Virtualization Management EMC, Ionix, ITSM, Virtualization

EMC Ionix ControlCenter quietly celebrated its 10th year of sales this past

After 10 Years, Ionix ControlCenter is Still Recognized as the Industry Leader in SRM

August.  Over those 10 years, Ionix ControlCenter has consistently been the dominant market share leader in Storage Resource Management.  The solution has built a reputation for helping customers across the globe make storage management easier despite the complexity of dynamic, distributed IT infrastructures.

In June, Gartner placed Ionix ControlCenter in the upper-right section of its “Leaders” quadrant in the firm’s “Magic Quadrant for Storage Resource Management and SAN Management Software.”  According to Gartner’s evaluation criteria, vendors placed in the Leader’s quadrant:

“Have the highest combined measures of ability to execute and completeness of vision.  They have the most comprehensive and scalable products.  They have a proven track-record of financial performance and an established market presence.  In terms of vision, they are perceived as thought leaders, with well-articulated plans for ease-of-use, as well as how to address scalability and product breadth.”

And it’s not just the analysts who are taking notice.  Redmond Magazine takes pride in being the “independent voice of the Microsoft community.” The publication annually conducts a survey of its subscribers to determine the winner of its annual “Redmond Reader’s Choice Awards.” 

This year, it sent the survey to 40,000 subscribers.  In the category of “Best Storage Management Product,” guess who the winner was?  You’re right - Ionix ControlCenter.  The product beat out a stiff competitive field of 28 vendors to claim this year’s top prize.  As evidenced by this recent win, Ionix ControlCenter continues to break new ground - now helping customers take their evolving data centers virtual or even to the private cloud.

Another impressive win for a solution that’s led and continues to drive the market. Not bad for a 10-year-old, huh?

I’d like to know what you think…

Kevin

Storage Resource Management (SRM), Virtualization Management Gartner, Ionix, SRM, Virtualization