SOUTHFIELD – Integration is one of the most over-used terms in IT, yet, for the most part, the value that integration provides to the business is often overlooked. This article describes seven points of integration achievable by businesses today, and the corresponding value those integration points deliver.
In the past, integration was event-driven and piecemeal. Today, technology is available that can integrate processes across networks, systems, databases, applications, storage, security and other previously separate management domains. To deliver this level of integration, the management infrastructure must leverage a centralized management database, integrated workflows and common policy. We refer to this as the ?Integration Platform,? which enables a common definition of assets across management systems to support a system of checks and balances.
Integration Objective One: Single Source of Truth About Assets Across Management Systems
Many sites cannot reconcile the assets that are automatically discovered ? by a network management system, for example ? with the assets that they believe they own and manage. With an Integration Platform, detailed information about assets ? including configuration, financial, and usage data ? is collected and stored in a central management database, where the information can be converted automatically into actionable intelligence. With a single source of truth, the business will have better insight into, and control of, its assets. For example:
A service desk analyst will know if a troubled asset is covered under a maintenance contract and can be fixed without cost.
A contracts manager has visibility into the total cost of ownership of vendors? equipment and can use this information during contractual negotiations.
A CIO can determine whether software licenses are being under- or over-utilized in order to comply with vendor agreements and avoid unnecessary purchases.
A VP of security can validate enforcement of security policies by ensuring that all discovered assets are subject to appropriate management.
Integration Objective Two: Single Point of Control for All Processes
Process-level integration helps organizations mitigate risk through the rules-based automation of business and IT processes and policies. A common workflow engine can facilitate human interaction ? such as routing approval requests and forms ? and interactions between technology components through applications, backend systems, Web services or APIs. Centralized management of processes across the enterprise helps ensure regulatory and corporate policy compliance and simplifies auditing.
With a single point-of-control for all IT and business processes, organizations can help ensure quality and consistency.
A VP of security can be confident that all required approvals are in place before enabling a user to access a system.
An asset manager can ensure that all prerequisite backup tasks, as mandated by HIPAA, for example, are completed before disposing of an asset.
Expense approvals can be processed or escalated in a timely manner.
A business manager opening a purchase request that requires multiple levels of approval can be confident that internal processes for routing purchase requests to the appropriate personnel will run smoothly.
Integration Objective Three: Patch Management that Leverages a Continuously-Updated Asset Inventory.
Unless patch management is integrated with a comprehensive inventory of hardware and software assets, it can be time consuming, resource intensive and costly. An integrated patch management solution enables organizations to manage patches with greater ease and effectiveness.
An asset manager responsible for ensuring that patches are distributed to the appropriate systems doesn?t need to spend time determining which systems need patches.
The risk of failing to patch technologies embedded with other applications, such as a SQL database within a business application, is eliminated
A VP of IT operations can be confident that all enterprise assets are patched properly and are therefore more secure.
Integration Objective Four: A Central Service Hub ? Integrated Service Desk
For many organizations, the service desk is the central management point that translates business policies into work processes. When a service desk is integrated into the fabric of an IT organization, end users and service desk staff can be much more productive.
End users are more self-sufficient because they can find solutions to common problems and reset their own passwords.
Service desk analysts can work on more complex business problems because of time saved through automatic issue detection, management, and resolution.
Service desk managers can reduce talk times, expedite problem resolution and increase end user satisfaction.
A VP of IT can reallocate resources, since fewer help desk technicians are needed to support end users.
Integration Objective Five: An IT Service Catalog Including Service Costs and Performance
The integration of a service catalog with a workflow engine enables IT organizations to provide a more meaningful business interface to IT services and to more easily present the services they provide, the service levels they can deliver and the associated costs. Employees have a convenient single point of access to request services, which saves time and optimizes the value from IT resources.
With visibility into service level costs, departmental and/or line-of-business VPs can make informed decisions about whether to request an application with 99% or 95% availability.
With this same visibility, a CIO can negotiate appropriately with business units before making potentially costly service level commitments.
A VP of human resources can ensure that new employees are immediately productive via automated workflows that facilitate the requisition of office equipment, the creation of a voicemail account, and the granting of system access permissions based on the employee?s role.
Compliance auditors can have confidence that services are being consistently activated and de-activated according to documented procedures.
Integration Objective Six: Service Availability
Management products that leverage an Integration Platform are able to associate discovered infrastructure components with the IT services they support. In addition, the management products can collect, correlate and aggregate faults and alerts in the context of these IT services. This service context reduces problem analysis time and the overall support workload.
When multiple products across multiple IT disciplines, such as network and systems management, leverage the Integration Platform, IT staff can perform faster root cause analysis ? thereby reducing ?finger pointing? and eliminating duplication of effort.
With an infrastructure management solution that has insight into the services supported by infrastructure components ? such as servers, networks and databases ? IT operations can more effectively manage availability and performance.
A CIO can enjoy a unified view of IT operations. Disparate divisions can begin to focus on more important goals such as service improvement and business alignment.
An IT director can justify expenditures on a new technology by building a business case based on IT service demand and business benefits, rather than a mere checklist of functional requirements.
Network and systems managers can prioritize response efforts, accelerate service restoration and reduce Mean Time to Repair through impact analysis and root cause analysis.
A service desk manager can more effectively utilize staff resources by spending less time chasing symptoms instead of causes.
An IT operations manager can quickly discover IT infrastruct
