it systems management:
Server monitoring, long a staple of many IT shops, has taken on a new urgency as companies continue to expand their data centers and computing power across vastly distributed networks and systems. Capacity management adds a new dimension to this challenge, as enterprises find they can no longer afford to simply “throw hardware” at problems to increase the level of available resources. Organizations need ways to more intelligently manage changes in capacity demand.
In recent years, the response offered by leading systems management vendors to these challenges has been almost a form of overkill, the IT equivalent to selling high-end Swiss Army knives for problems that a simple paring knife could handle. Companies such as BMC, Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard and IBM offer information technology service management (ITSM) suites that purport to address server monitoring, capacity planning, as well as a range of other requirements. However, these large, expensive, unwieldy frameworks have often failed to meet the growing demands of many IT groups. Despite huge investments in software, consulting and training, IT often lacks the visibility and agility it requires to ensure operational excellence.
Recognizing the limitations of conventional ITSM frameworks, a new class of solution is emerging to address IT needs: integrated server monitoring and capacity planning. This approach not only combines server monitoring and capacity management into a single package, but is also relatively easy to deploy and is offered at favorable price points. IT operations managers and administrators are discovering that they no longer have to buy into heavy ITSM frameworks and remain shackled to them indefinitely. Integrated server monitoring and capacity planning solutions offer a rapidly deployable, cost-effective alternative that helps keep servers and systems running at their peak.
Market Drivers:
Server Sprawl and ITSM Shelf-ware
Enterprises rely on information technology to maintain a competitive edge in their markets, build customer relationships, and manage operations. They require an on-demand, 24x7 infrastructure, resulting in a relentless demand for better performance, greater availability, and more capacity.
Often, the response by businesses and IT departments scrambling to meet this challenge has been relentless “server sprawl” – the almost unchecked growth of server farms across the enterprise that have been springing up in recent years to meet this insatiable demand for computing power and data. The cost of maintaining these systems is high. Gartner's most recent estimates put the IT operations tools market at $10 billion, with more than 200 software vendors.
However, IT operations managers are under tremendous pressure to cut costs while improving service availability.1
Many companies – particularly larger enterprises – have attempted to better manage this systems growth by adopting the large ITSM framework products on the market today. However, many of the features in these packages end up unused as “shelf-ware,” due to the complexity and training costs associated with implementing these high-maintenance systems. Many IT organizations simply aren't providing the resources – in time, budget, and staff – to sort through the intricacies of deploying such large-scale solutions.
Thus, IT operations managers and administrators are left with the job of figuring out how to achieve greater transparency in the reporting of system events. This can be a difficult challenge across enterprises with thousands of servers to be managed.
Two Sides to Performance and Availability Problems:
Monitor the Present, Anticipate the Future
IT operations managers and administrators face the challenge of being able to monitor the performance of growing arrays of servers, while being able to predict and plan for future capacity. Effectively addressing both server monitoring and capacity management needs simultaneously can help these professionals find ways to cut costs and better consolidate IT infrastructures. The following section explores the key issues that both of these categories present to IT operations managers and administrators:
Server Monitoring Issues
Companies keep adding more and more servers to their enterprise infrastructures, which adds more complexity and increases the risks of performance and availability problems arising. Optimizing and troubleshooting distributed server farms requires the ability to track both hardware and software across the network – to not only prevent or discover failure points, but also to spot underperforming systems.
