On premise and on demand, reducing the complexity of systems management is achievable with the right tools, knowledge and end-to-end visibility into your system. We polled our systems management experts to learn what opportunities exist for IT leaders to simplify systems management despite increasingly more complex IT environments. Here’s what they had to say…

1. Keep an up-to-date configuration management database (CMDB). We see numerous cases where an outdated CMDB adds more work and cost to systems management. In many cases, the outdated CMDB is the result of poor visibility to the physical and virtual IT environment. Modern IT monitoring solutions should provide visibility to every aspect of your IT environment with live IT monitoring reports that improve response time and lead to more proactive CMDB updates.
2. Automate recurring tasks and where feasible. One of the leading causes of poor service management is failure to automate recurring tasks including back up and recovery, provisioning, policies, etc. Aside from recurring tasks, the service desk is another area where automation can drive more efficient service management. For example automating ticketing and then, upon resolution, automatically updating the CMDB can improve service levels, accelerate incident response and resolution, and reduce service costs.
3. Increase visibility. We find that most systems management strategies can benefit from greater visibility to the entire IT environment—physical, virtual, on premise and on demand. One of the key benefits is an increase in proactive service management. For example, pushing out software updates is often a touchy subject in service management. No one likes downtime. With greater visibility, you can pinpoint the best time to push out updates and minimize, or in some cases eliminate service disruption.
4. Plan for scale. We’ve encountered IT infrastructures that were doomed from the start as a result of decisions that limited its growth when the business grew. Working with leading technology providers affords greater flexibility to scale your infrastructure as well as offering unification of your existing systems management and monitoring solutions.
5. Training and certification. Systems Management is as much about the people as it is about the hardware and applications. Make sure your IT staff is trained on the hardware, applications and any XaaS within your physical and virtual operating environment. While certifications can become costly, the opportunity cost of not certifying or at least maintaining certifications can outweigh the cost of training. Simply leveraging your in-house IT subject matter experts for training and knowledge management can go a long way toward improving service management.

While there are steps you can take to reduce the complexity of your IT infrastructure, complexity is an innate characteristic of modern IT. More than simplifying complexity, improving visibility with a holistic approach to monitoring your IT infrastructure can help you better understand the complexity and manage it more effectively. Talk to a Nimsoft service management expert today and learn how you can simply service management—even in the most complex IT environments.