Contemporary enterprises rest on the bedrock of IT networks, which facilitate seamless business operations and uninterrupted service delivery to customers. The sustenance of robust networks relies on the indispensable role of ITOps – encompassing the provisioning, monitoring, and management of IT networks to ensure maximum uptime and enhance the end-user experience.
The Scope of ITOps
ITOps encompasses a comprehensive range of tasks, including vigilant network monitoring, strategic configuration applications, hardware and software upgrades, implementation of robust security measures, devising mechanisms for disaster remediation, and providing prompt client support to maintain SLAs. In essence, ITOps empowers organizations to uphold high-performing networks, a crucial facet for achieving their desired business outcomes.
Challenges in ITOps
Evolving Networks
As per a recent survey conducted by our ManageEngine team on ITOM trends, approximately 62% of companies are planning to modernize their IT infrastructure, with an astounding 83% prioritizing cloud migration. This reveals that networks are continually evolving to meet customer demands. Therefore, ITOps strategies must keep pace with the rapid evolution of networks to remain relevant and effective in the business landscape
Optimizing Storage
In the present business climate, data holds a paramount position. With each passing day, the accumulation of data within your network increases, placing considerable strain on storage systems and potentially impacting network performance. Thus, undertaking capacity planning becomes imperative to forecast future growth accurately and make informed decisions regarding storage expansion, as storing data indefinitely is not advisable.
Rising Security Concerns
While monitoring network performance is vital, it is equally essential to address security threats. These threats can manifest in various forms, even disguising themselves as seemingly innocuous updates to monitoring software. To avert security breaches, IT teams must exercise heightened vigilance and implement stringent security measures.
Benefits of IT Automation
1. Streamlining Operations
In a landscape where networks undergo constant evolution and face security threats, network monitoring can be an arduous and challenging task. Relying solely on increasing IT team resources through conventional means may not be sufficient to address these issues effectively. To surmount these challenges, an agile and intelligent mechanism driven by AI and automation is indispensable.
Automating routine and mundane tasks while streamlining day-to-day IT monitoring operations not only reduces human error but also accelerates fault resolution. With these operational burdens lifted, IT monitoring teams can focus their time and effort on strategic thinking, adding substantial value to the organization’s ROI. Moreover, automation becomes a crucial catalyst when scaling up an organization.
2. Fortifying Security
Automation plays a pivotal role in bolstering network security. For instance, it can prevent unauthorized access in large organizations with thousands of employees.
Traditionally, IT administrators are tasked with assigning user roles and access privileges within the organization. However, manual handling of these changes can lead to errors, resulting in future security vulnerabilities. Automation, on the other hand, circumvents these issues by implementing a set of predefined rules or criteria for adding or removing users, reducing human error and fortifying network security.
Propelling ITOps with AI: AIOps Capabilities for Network Monitoring
A recent survey from ManageEngine also highlighted that 45% of companies are planning to implement AIOps-driven strategies in network monitoring. A transition to AIOps-driven monitoring enables the workforce to function more strategically, fostering innovation throughout the organization and yielding a profoundly positive impact on business performance.
AIOps, a term denoting AI-driven network monitoring, empowers organizations to proactively monitor their networks and minimize fault occurrences, thus reducing downtime.
Root Cause Analysis
An essential metric for IT admins is the mean time to repair (MTTR), which must be kept as low as possible. However, identifying the root cause of network issues can be a laborious task, given the vast amount of diverse and complex data generated by network monitoring.
AIOps comes to the rescue by automating the root cause analysis process. AI rapidly processes the data, correlates metrics, comprehends patterns, and suggests potential root causes, effectively reducing issue resolution time.
Capacity Forecasting and Automation
Decision-makers often encounter budgetary challenges when planning to scale up operations. To determine the optimal level of resources required for incoming workloads, a deeper understanding of computing, networking, storage, and software needs is essential.
AIOps leverages historical network monitoring data as a basis for capacity forecasting. Machine learning and predictive analytics algorithms use this data to generate highly accurate forecasts for critical network resources, enabling precise and informed decision-making to avoid resource shortages. Additionally, an AIOps platform facilitates workload automation, ensuring optimal resource usage based on workload requirements.
Completing Your ITOps Strategy with OpManager Plus
To meet the demanding and ever-changing network monitoring needs, an AIOps-driven IT monitoring mechanism is indispensable. Such a system not only monitors the network but also provides valuable insights into future developments, such as forecasting demands and proactive issue identification, empowering IT teams for increased productivity.
ManageEngine OpManager Plus stands as an integrated IT network monitoring solution, streamlining all ITOps activities from a single console, thus eliminating the need for multiple solutions. Embracing future trends, OpManager Plus incorporates AI-based features that enable IT teams to function more strategically and efficiently. Discover the power of our recently launched AI-based features. Learn more about our solution from ManageEngine from here, and for more tips and news, you can visit our blog.