Big Data Takes on IT Management

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN ARCHIVED POST - Netuitive has since become Metricly, and the tool has matured greatly since the time this was written!

Metricly was recently interviewed for a story in the latest issue of Modern Infrastructure.

In the article entitled “Modern-Infrastructure-Big-Data-in-IT-Mar-2014” the author makes the point of increasingly complex, cloud-based applications and infrastructure creating a need for “Big Data” IT operations analytics in the enterprise.

The article also cites that big data analytic tools are now being utilized to solve and even anticipate IT infrastructure performance problems. At Metricly we don’t see this as a new phenomenon. Some of our largest customers have been dealing with the challenge of “Big Data” volumes in application performance management for some time.

One point that is also perhaps not elaborated upon in the article is how big data analytics can be used not only to improve IT infrastructure performance but to also to understand how IT infrastructure performance impacts critical, customer facing applications. Advanced IT analytics are now being used to correlate business metrics as well as IT infrastructure and application data.

Gartner refers to this as IT Operations Analytics (ITOA), and their use is starting to enable large enterprises to better understand the business impact of IT. According to Gartner, “IT operations analytics tools enable CIOs and senior IT operations managers to monitor their business operational data and metrics. The tools are similar to a business intelligence platform that business unit managers use to drive business performance. IT operations analytics tools enable users to assess efficiency, optimize IT investments, correlate trends, and understand and maximize IT opportunities that support the business.”^1^

Early adopters of ITOA are typically large banks, telcos and payments systems seeking to improve business performance and service availability by identifying anomalies associated with IT infrastructure and application performance.

For more insight, check out this infographic illustrating survey results on what IT leaders think about the big data problem and the desire to analyze and correlate customer experience, applications, IT infrastructure, and business data.

(1) Gartner – “Data Growth Demands a Single, Architected IT Operations Analytics Platform” – published: 30 September 2013