IT Service Management, better known as ITSM, is defined as the discipline for managing IT infrastructure. Often times, ITSM will be equated with the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) that is brought to us courtesy of the United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce. For me, I’d rather thank the U.K. for The Beatles, Harry Potter, Dr. Who, and more.
The point is that the challenges of managing IT are not new, but the rate of disruption is accelerating to a pace we have never seen. What makes it even more difficult is nearly every current IT paradigm is being challenged; traditional IT silos are being torn down, and new business owners are demanding a seat at the IT table. Additionally, IT must continue to “run the business” with legacy infrastructure, applications, and skill-sets while simultaneously transitioning to the Cloud era with limited budgets and head-counts.
Meanwhile, the Cloud paradigm is both immature and filled with inflated expectations. Let’s face it, nearly every individual that owns a smartphone or uses Cloud services from the likes of Netflix or Evernote believes they understand the Cloud. This “Consumerization of IT” is putting tremendous pressure on IT leadership and specifically, on IT Operations.
In order to deal with the static era of client/server architecture, IT Operations has collected quite a few tools, solutions, or frameworks that have yielded both positive and negative return on investment (ROI). These solutions range from ITSM Service Desks to an ITIL CMDB and represent a considerable outlay of both Opex and Capex. The notion that every company or organization is going to scrap all of their current IT Operations solutions to start over is ludicrous. While this may benefit the likes of the Legacy providers such as CA/Nimsoft, IBM, BMC, and HP, does it really benefit you?
Instead, IT Operations must replace those solutions that have not been successful while integrating with those solutions that have. What IT Operations needs is a transformative IT Operations Platform that is Open, Heterogeneous, and Scalable.
- Open means having the ability to integrate with 3rd party ISV and homegrown solutions while not exposing your company to a never-ending parade of costly professional services.
- Heterogeneous means being able to handle legacy infrastructures while allowing you to move to the Cloud era regardless of your technology choices.
- Scalable means being able to support small environments to extra large deployments providing a supportable and upgradable platform.
Zenoss Service Dynamics provides such a transformative IT Operations Platform while respecting your past, present, and future IT decisions. For it is only by integrating with other transformative technologies such as ServiceNow, Citrix CloudStack, Cisco UCS, Virtualization, and more that makes the vision of a single unified IT Operations Platform a reality.
It is time to look beyond the architecture of those vendors who would provide you with legacy solutions wrapped in a Cloud bow rather than truly transforming your IT Operations for the Cloud era. Let CA/Nimsoft, IBM, BMC, and HP live in the nostalgia of yesterday while Zenoss helps you transform your IT Operations to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Next week 3/7, I will be presenting a 30-minute webinar, The Need for a Single, Unified IT Operations Platform, where you can learn how it is possible to transform IT Operations through a platform that is Open, Heterogeneous, and Scalable.
Click Here to Register
Image via Phil Simon
