Network/Systems
Management
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sponsored by SolarWinds
Network World's
Network/Systems Management Newsletter, 07/04/07
Integration, best
practices key to automating management tasks
By Denise Dubie
The word automation gets tossed around a lot when talking about network
and systems management products. For instance, most software includes auto-discovery features and a
majority of monitoring products send automated alerts based on pre-defined
thresholds. And in some cases, vendors promise their products can take
automated corrective actions. But a new
breed of automation software is emerging from established and new vendors
that translates many of the manual processes IT staff must perform into
software - which means the automation is not limited to tasks seen as
strictly IT operations or network management functions. Though for now it
seems increasing operations efficiencies is the logical reason for adopting
such technology. The products - dubbed run-book, IT process or data
center automation depending on which analyst firm you ask - use existing
management products to carry out the automation, which requires vendors such
as Network
Automation, Opsware,
Opalis,
RealOps,
and several others to integrate into customers' environments. Such software
can serve as the communications bridge among products and enable automation
across third-party tools and IT domains, Forrester Research reports.
"The introduction of process automation solutions such as RealOps,
Opalis, or iConclude [acquired by Opsware] provides significant progress by:
1) providing the ability to control and launch relevant operations
represented by different point products, and 2) passing relevant data between
these products, thus resolving the interprocess communication problem,"
reads a recent Forrester Research report co-authored by Senior
Analyst Evelyn Hubbert. The automation software emerging today also relies heavily on best
practice frameworks, such as the IT Infrastructure Library, or ITIL.
The coupling of best practices with automation could help IT managers
introduce more operational efficiencies into their environments, according to
Gartner. "The [run-book automation] market growth is driven by IT executives
needing to increase IT operations efficiencies, especially around the
adoption of best practices, increasing IT agility and proving IT operations'
accountability to the business," reads a report by David Williams, a
research vice president with Gartner. "If you need to automate IT
management processes for change management, element provisioning or the
adoption of ITIL-based best practices, then now is the time to consider an
RBA tool."
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Contact
the author: Senior Editor Denise Dubie covers the technologies, products and services
that address network, systems, application and IT service management for
Network World. E-mail Denise. This newsletter is
sponsored by SolarWinds
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