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A Typical Scenario
Every mid to large organization has many tools and systems to manage the complexity of their computing networks and associated systems. These tools generally fall into the following categories:- Device Information
- Network Information
- Security Information
- User Information
- Application Information
- Business Process Information
These tools are deployed to "things" that the company knows about. Furthermore, these tools are generally configured with great effort to a point-in-time configuration and require considerable energy to maintain. The company instruments only what it knows, not those devices that fly below the radar – unseen and unknown.
As a result, despite an abundance of tools to administer desktops, routers, switches, firewalls, and servers, corporate IT functions are hard pressed to quickly and capably respond to performance shortfalls, security vulnerabilities, compliance assessments and gaps, root cause failure data, software license gaps, rogue devices/configurations, etc.
In a typical troubleshooting exercise on a server an administrator will know or obtain an IP address or machine name. Once identified, this is what generally happens.
- Armed with an IP address or machine name, an administrator must figure out how the server is instrumented
- Know how to get to the tool
- Remember password
- Know how to use the tool
- Know how to get the data out of the tools
- If the tool is not instrumented for what is required then other tools must be pressed into service
- It usually takes 5 tools to get basic information on a server
As administrators navigate their toolsets, they accumulate the data essential to obtain a reasonably complete picture of errant devices and begin troubleshooting. This data is held on pads, spreadsheets, or in the heads of systems administrators. All the time spent manually collecting and collating merely provides them with context for the device. Throughout this entire time, the clock is ticking... "Tool overhead" becomes a drag on IT work and elongates response times.
OPX automates this process. It institutionalizes tacit knowledge and connects all variables along every dimension... without programming... without creating new rules... Easily and automatically.
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