Managed Objects

Performance and Availability vs. Analytics - Part 4 of 5

Sorry for the delay but family time called as we were blessed with a baby boy a couple weeks ago.  So back on track; in part one we hit data collection, part two talked about applying analytics and business/service mapping and part three we hit on evolving the Data Center Automation Blueprint from Performance & Availability to Service Assurance.  So what does that mean for analytics?

Well, here is where it gets tricky.  I believe their are two types of analytics that are sometimes being confused or blended together…

Type 1:  Is Per functional category - meaning, software automation that uses algorithms, automated analysis, etc focused on one of the 3 functional categories (e.g., Performance & Availability, Configuration & Change, Security & Protection).
Cross functional category.

Type 2: Is Cross-functional - like Process Orchestration & Resource Reconciliation, you have a roll-up aggregated view of metrics that are mapped to the business (beyond IT specific metrics).  This is also commonly called Business Service Management by most definitions.

Some quick examples….companies like Integrien, Opnet fall into type 1, while companies like Managed Objects, Firescope map closer to type 2.  Now this all gets very confusing as there are overlaps where vendors who do mostly type 1 analytics and some type 2 analytics claim both and even call themselves BSM vendors…meanwhile, the same occurs where mostly type 2 analytics (aka BSM) also claim to do some type 1.  So I’m not a BSM guru but I do exchange blogs/emails with some and would love to hear them chime in on this thread.  Based on this feedback and some further reading over at my favorite BSM blog, my next post will wrap up this series and I’ll update the Data Center Automation Blueprint.