IT Service Optimization (ITSO) Tools

Tools that support ITSO processes can be classified into four core areas:

1. Event Monitoring
2. Performance Management
3. Capacity Planning
4. Performance Reporting

Event Monitoring

At the most basic level, event monitoring allows IT to react to performance problems before the damage is extensive. At a more advanced level, event monitoring identifies adverse trends in performance and notifies IT before service levels are impacted, allowing IT to be more proactive.

Performance Management

Performance management consists of two principal activities: reactive performance analysis and proactive performance analysis. Reactive analysis occurs after an adverse event. Proactive analysis is concerned with preventing such events from affecting the smooth delivery of IT services.

Reactive analysis of an adverse event includes activities such as:

• Correlating performance data to locate the IT component that is the root cause
• Drilling down from an anomalous point on a performance graph to determine who or what is responsible
• Visually comparing current performance with past performance in an effort to understand the cause of an event

Proactive analysis includes activities such as:

• Watching trends and cycles in system performance and projecting future performance levels as compared to service levels specified in the service definition
• Analyzing trends to determine how best to ensure that service levels will be met in the future
• Identifying underutilized capacity for potential redeployment

Proactive analysis is preferable to reactive analysis, since it prevents disruptive events, ensures a smooth-running data center, and eliminates time spent fighting performance fires.

Performance management tools provide a means of collecting performance data for problem detection and analysis. When selecting a performance management tool, it is important to understand how the tool implements performance data collection and storage policies as this can impact the scalability and manageability of the tool. The efficiency of the data collection agents and performance database are also important factors.

Capacity Planning

Capacity planning is the key to an efficient, smooth-running data center. Capacity planning is about predicting performance, allowing services to be provisioned with just the right hardware configuration to accommodate forecasted changes or spikes in business workloads. Capacity planning can also help prevent performance fires, freeing human resources that would otherwise be spent troubleshooting.

Capacity planning helps IT organizations to:

• Accurately and efficiently provision new applications
• Reduce, delay and sometimes completely avoid costs
• Justify upgrades with objective analyses
• Optimally configure systems to accommodate forecasted changes in business
• Migrate systems to take advantage of new technology
• Consolidate servers to simplify management and gain economies of scale
• Mitigate risk by playing out potential scenarios in advance and then preparing for them

There are various methods of capacity planning, each suitable in different circumstances, including trending, simulation modeling and analytic modeling.

Performance Reporting

It is important to provide timely reports with the appropriate level of detail to various levels in the organization. Periodic reports for management can track performance against service levels. Financial reports can demonstrate IT's contribution to organizational goals and IT resources consumed by various departments. Interactive reports are also important when investigating the cause of performance problems.