IT solutions can only produce values if their operation is aligned to actual demands. System management activities may be used to keep IT services in a good and viable shape, and to collect data and information needed for decision-making about their operations in quantified, historical, analyzable forms. This is a key requirement for the development of any IT scorecard system.

Practically, all IT manufacturers offer system management solutions for their own products, whether these are hardware or software products, while there are also independent, open-source solutions (e.g.: Nagios), as well.

Some applications have been developed for the management of one specific product (VMware vCenter), while other products have been so designed that they would be suitable for the management of several tools of several manufacturers (e.g.: IBM Tivoli, Microsoft System Center). The selection of the suitable product is only possible when the right balance is struck considering the range of the manageable products, the measurable parameters and the uniformity of the management environment.

Functionalities of system management applications may somewhat differ but normally include the following:

• monitoring and gathering operational parameters
• alerting when threshold values are exceeded
• setting and saving configuration parameters
• logging changes and modifications
• keeping inventories of monitored tools

This list may suggest that when a system management application is deployed, the core task is not the installation of the application or putting it into operation, but designing the operational environment. When doing that, special attention must be paid to its alignment to the following processes:

• configuration management
• change management
• incident and problem management
• capacity management
• availability management

G-DAS Professionals may assist our Customers in designing that operational environment while also developing a system management solution that really unlocks the business value.