Automating repetitive Data Center Operations into best practices makes response times faster, more reliable, and less costly. Learn how to extend your current IT systems to do more of the routine work, freeing up IT staff for higher-value projects.
Resolving Critical Business Problem Areas in
Data Center Operations through Automation
A White Paper Prepared for Opalis May 2006Table of Contents
Executive Summary.............................................................................................................................................................................1
Critical Problem Areas in Data Center Operations ......................................................................................................................1Service Level Monitoring .............................................................................................................................................................1Event Lifecycle Management.......................................................................................................................................................1Self-service IT..................................................................................................................................................................................3
Managing Data Center Service - Addressing Key Problem Areas.............................................................................................3Data Center Automation...............................................................................................................................................................3Data Center Integration.................................................................................................................................................................3
The Drivers for Automation and Integration.................................................................................................................................4
Automation and Integration Strategy...............................................................................................................................................4
Opalis Integration Server - Capabilities and Benefits...................................................................................................................4
EMA Perspective..................................................................................................................................................................................6
About Opalis Software, Inc................................................................................................................................................................6Resolving Critical Business Problem Areas in
Data Center Operations through Automation
ability, storage availability, CPU use, network I/O, and Highlights exception events - in order to assure end-users have
Vendor name: Opalis Software Inc. consistently high service levels. EMA research shows that service level monitoring is a high priority for CIOs. Product name: Opalis Integration Server In a recent survey of 100 CIOs, almost 80% listed it as either their first or second highest IT management Product function: Provides a Data Center Au- priority.tomation and Integration platform that allows IT organizations to automate and integrate complex However, over half of these CIOs said they experienced data center processes. problems that affected service levels at least once or twice a week, and a quarter experienced them almost Vendor contact information: daily. Around 90% rated the impact of these service www.opalis.com failures as either critical or important.
Pricing information: starts from $35,000 Part of the problem is that most IT organizations must integrate metrics from multiple sources, including Availability: Immediate management tools, monitors, logs, and services. In the 100 organizations surveyed, EMA found 40 different monitoring tools in use, with an average of over five Executive Summary different tools per organization. Manually monitoring IT Operations and Business executives face many chal- and integrating this disconnected, silo-based environ-lenges keeping labor costs down, providing adequate ment reduces the visibility of important metrics, and service levels, and driving operational efficiency, espe- increases management complexity. Scripting and other cially in critical data center operations such as Service ad-hoc management techniques are fragile, error-pron... [download for more]
