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Do management frameworks help or hinder the management of a virtualised desktop estate?

Last updated on July 7th 2011 by Simon Barnes

When an organisation reaches a certain size, it becomes necessary to invest in technology to help overrun IT staff ensure the availability and management of the growing IT infrastructure. However the benefits afforded by technology from vendors such as BMC or IBM Tivoli come at a cost both financially and in terms of time, and as a consequence care needs to be taken to ensure that a return on the investment is made. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, and perceived benefits don’t materialise, whilst costs spiral out of control.

So, what goes wrong?

IT infrastructure management software is inherently complex, and necessitates commitment to:

• Develop its reach and effectiveness
• Ensure staff are adequately trained to use, develop and support the engineered solution
• Invest in headcount to fulfil roles dedicated to working with management software
• Provide succession planning in the event that staff move on

All too often, the additional costs associated with these commitments are not considered at the outset, and the decision to invest is based on the capital expenditure alone. Consequently, management commitment is eroded, and investment in the operational aspects of the service is half-hearted or non-existent. The net result is a lack of faith in the technology itself, a realisation that costs far exceed the derived benefits, and the prospect of another failed IT project. But the original problem of ensuring that IT adequately supports the business, still remains.

In these instances the Enterprise Systems Management (ESM) framework can become a hindrance to the management of the systems it was deployed to manage. The trick to resolve this issue is to think about the management of the software itself at the start of the project. This is achieved by implementing a structure to help run and improve the use of the management software so that not only does it aid the staff who it was bought for originally but it also demonstrates its value to the management who have written the cheques.

This can be done in a number of ways; either by the customer themselves understanding the requirements and commitment needed to run the software from the outset and incrementing headcount and applying procedures accordingly, or by outsourcing the management of the software to an organisation like Orb Data. We have written a template that encompasses support, change, event and incident management and management reporting. The aim of this template is to not only set out the optimal procedures needed to manage the software for a customer but also demonstrate its value and to evolve the deployment alongside the customer’s applications and to constantly seek improvements to the deployment.

Ultimately the answer may lie in the cloud. Putting aside the hype associated with Cloud Computing, and the seductive pull of adopting the latest trend in IT, there is a fundamental attraction in the potential to make cost savings, increase productivity of staff and enhance service delivery. We think that these benefits could be adopted for ESM frameworks.

Orb Data has developed a Monitoring service (www.yourtivoli.com) which will allow the customer’s staff to remain focussed on what they do best, removing the need to invest in developing skills, whilst we concentrate on improving the delivery of IT services to their business.

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