If anyone is asked what are the top reasons why IT monitoring would aid their job, or the wider business, you will probably get a different list every time. Here’s ten from us to get you started…
1) Real-time visibility
Know the current health and availability of devices and applications critical to your business (or customers businesses)
2) Upgrade and migration planning
Identify troublesome devices that might need attention (hardware changes/ firmware upgrades/ reconfiguration), consolidation and virtualisation resources
3) Root cause
Drill-down quickly to the actual reason for service degradation. Minimising frustration and cost of extensive triage and diagnosis.
4) Demonstrate value
By sharing performance and availability information with other key stakeholders, you can prove the real value of IT to the organisation consuming services
5) Trigger DR plans
Proactive monitoring can give you early warning of serious impending service affecting issues. This can give you the opportunity to invoke a business recovery plan “before” services are in fact lost.
6) Secure your network
Some of the devices in your network are tasked with protecting the entire environment from external infiltration (AV, Firewalls, mail filters). Identifying issues with these devices is key to ensuring the integrity of your estate.
7) Ensure your e-shop window is “fully stocked”
Applications underpinning internet-facing applications (customer portals, e-tail websites) are the lifeblood of many businesses. Careful monitoring of the performance and availability of these critical systems feed directly into the “bottom line” of the company.
8) Be aware of the health of your network ‘on the move’
As issues can arise at any time, the ability to receive notifications and to check on the current health of your infrastructure regardless of where you might be is a real benefit. Mobile apps and the ability to send notifications as SMS messages ensure you are always alert to key events.
9) Maximise availability of services
All of the devices and applications you have are likely there to provide services to end users or customers. By keeping devices and applications in top condition, ensures that those services perform to their maximum potential, and help ensure the success of the business.
10) Increase efficiency and reduce costs
Fast automatic triage of issues, mean that remedial actions can be taken quickly before they become costly outages. This means that IT staff spend less valuable time on troubleshooting and more time on new technology initiatives to drive business forward.
UK ServiceNav Product Development Manager; my priority is to be needful of the particular requirements of all ‘English-speaking’ markets where ServiceNav is sold.
I have over 20 years experience of the IT monitoring field - covering a wide variety of products and technologies.
