The State of IT Monitoring, a survey commissioned by Centreon has highlighted the ever-growing importance of IT monitoring in organizations between now and 2023. It also pinpoints the need for ITOps to change their monitoring methods and tools to have an ever-increasing visibility on their IT and business performance, from Cloud to Edge. In a nutshell organizations should prepare their journey to smart monitoring, enjoying a better view through a unified and truly holistic monitoring platform. Here’s your guide to success.
Prepare for clear skies
Even the most daring pilot would not fly in foggy weather, with no visibility whatsoever, or rely on a kaleidoscope in lieu of a periscope. This is what many ITOps still do, however, as the State of IT Monitoring highlighted. Lack of visibility is very much an issue in organizations, even though ITOps have many tools at their disposal to monitor their IT system.
Only 27% of respondents rate their visibility on IT performance levels as excellent, while 30% of businesses rate the lack of overall visibility of their monitoring tool as the second cause of dissatisfaction.
Before starting on your journey, you must therefore be well aware of the type of visibility you want and on which subjects. You’d be missing the mark if you adopted a new type of monitoring system that would still leave out your Edge infrastructures or your business applications, for instance.
Round up and review your equipment (it’s always better to do it before lift off)
Looking only at the surface of things, can be misleading. You may believe you are perfectly equipped to launch your smart monitoring operation. However, this may not be the case: even though on paper ITOps are well equipped, they are unable to make things work together to attain holistic visibility.
On average, businesses have 14 IT monitoring tools, and yet they say only 61% of their IT scope is monitored on average.
The mind boggles at these figures, however the explanation is actually quite simple: with so many monitoring tools, having a clear view on all the wiring, ensuring everything is correctly interconnected can indeed seem like it’s rocket science. But if you can’t see the big picture, you have no visibility. Too often, the entire IT scope is not interconnected, notably due to IT monitoring not being centralized and the tools not being adapted for developing a type of monitoring capable of covering the entire IT system and capable of collecting and centralizing data in a holistic manner.
So the first step is to upgrade one’s system in order to have the means to increase visibility. The aim is to have fewer tools, but for these to be more adapted, in order to centralize data, with the ultimate aim of achieving such figures as those attained by the French Department of Justice, with 90% of the IT system monitored using a single tool.
“Today, with Centreon, every team shares the same tool and the same practice baseline. This means we are able to monitor 90% of the IT system and improve availability and, in keeping with Agile Transformation, break down barriers, improve communication and build synergy and efficiency between teams.”
Nirina Razafimandimby, Deputy Department Head of Operations and Productions, IT Division, French Department of Justice
Focus on the right goals (always useful for moving forward)
To move forward and get started, looking at the horizon is always better than looking down at your feet. Which direction should you take? What are the goals of (true) holistic visibility? How do you picture your monitoring system in 3 years’ time? Respondents to the State of IT Monitoring answered all these questions by unanimously praising Business KPIs and Edge and Cloud monitoring as the way to go in the years to come. And this won’t be possible without holistic visibility!
50% of businesses believe their top IT monitoring priority for the years 2021-2023 will be extending IT monitoring to the Cloud, to the Edge and to IOT and 45% believe generating Business KPIs will be.
In order to switch to holistic monitoring, the first step is being able to collect, centralize and correlate data from the entire IT system. Launching smart monitoring means having a tool capable of interfacing with every tool on the market, collecting data and delivering it with relevant, IT- and business-oriented KPIs. The lack of interoperability is actually considered as the first subject of dissatisfaction by ITOps (in over a third of businesses). It’s easy to see why!
“We hardly ever use the tools provided by the software providers nowadays, except sometimes for collecting data. Our monitoring system has been structured and industrialized over a wide scope which includes everything from operational tasks to business tasks with the monitoring of social applications, the availability of which is critical. We also oversee the digitizing process of our invoices.
Redouane Majjad, IT production manager for the French departmental council of Haut-Rhin IT department
Prepare a safe landing into smart monitoring
Centreon provides you with both the equipment and the knowledge to embark on the great adventure of smart, future-ready monitoring, unified, centralized, and capable of monitoring the entire IT system, from Cloud to Edge.
Some organizations have already successfully taken the journey towards a unified monitoring system, such as the I&O at Hôpital Nord-Ouest.
“Having a single, centralized IT monitoring system with Centreon provides us with an extra pair of eyes. It has become essential in order to provide our patients with the best care pathway, and provide our hospital staff with the best support. “
Eric Denizot, Manager, Communication Infrastructure and Projects at Hopital Nord-Ouest
So, will 2021 be the year you launch holistic monitoring? We can help you get started with the best flight planners and technicians!
Do you wish to find out more about the future of monitoring and spend the next few days smart-reading? Download our State of IT Monitoring now and read all the key figures on monitoring trends. Based on an international survey commissioned by Centreon, this study conducted by Vanson Bourne was carried out among 600 IT professionals in organizations over 500 employees, in the following countries: the United States, Canada, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain.
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