I recently had the privilege to attend and speak at the annual CA World conference at the end of April. The conference focused on many areas of the Information Technology space, from monitoring to client device management, mobile device management, performance management, capacity management and more. If you had an area of interest in IT, it was likely represented.

I was asked to present on Park Place International’s best practice deployment of cloud-based monitoring solutions in our own OpSus cloud infrastructure. As a cloud service provider, we believe in using cloud-based tools as well!

As part of our OpSus Cloud Services, we offer MyOpSus, a web-based customer portal that leverages CA Nimsoft toolsets to continuously monitor the cloud environment. Through MyOpSus, we also provide customer access to the data. Imagine being able to have an entire hospital EMR hosted in the cloud without losing the ability to access real-time and historical performance data about your entire infrastructure… that’s what you get with OpSus.

Monitoring is critical to any environment, but especially in the healthcare space. As providers become even more dependent on the availability of these critical systems, detecting potential issues before they happen is imperative. The ability to evaluate trends and historical data across a quickly growing infrastructure creates an environment where we can begin to head-off issues before they become critical or in some cases, before they even happen.

We kept this in mind as we selected and customized the toolset for our OpSus offering, integrating monitoring and proactive alerting with support and systems management tools, reporting, and a continually evolving knowledge base. The result is a fully functioning portal where customers have the power to control and manage their MEDITECH environment while leveraging the operational benefits of the cloud.

While at CA World, I was also asked to participate in a panel discussion which focused on how organizations work through the system selection process. Many key insights made during the discussion underscored the importance of understanding who your strategic partners are. Ensuring you have a good relationship with a vendor that understands your needs and will work with you through the lifecycle of the purchase, implementation, and use of the purchased solution and beyond can be critical to your success. Park Place and CA’s strategic partnership has resulted in a tool that enhances and improves our overall cloud service delivery and provides ongoing value to our customers.

Mark Luquire is the Cloud Operations Manager at Park Place International. He has been in the healthcare IT space for nearly a decade. Mark managed teams of engineers providing services for more than 60,000 end users at the enterprise Healthcare IT level. He brings experience with a wide breadth of technologies including MEDITECH, Citrix, network services, identity management, and more with a passion to make sure the patient is always considered.

This is an update release to CA Nimsoft Monitor 6 that includes Nimsoft Server 6.5, Unified Management Portal 6.5 and Unified Reporter 6.5.

CA Nimsoft Monitor 6.5 includes a number of new and enhanced capabilities – including:

• Web based administration
• New auto-discovery wizard + features
• New baseline charts/graphs
• New Unified Reporter UI

Nimsoft Server 6.5 GA Downloads:

• Download Nimsoft Monitor 6.5 for Windows, Linux or Solaris.
• Download Nimsoft UMP 6.5 for Windows, Linux or Solaris.
• Download Nimsoft Unified Reporter 6.5 for Windows, Linux or Solaris.

Key Links for Nimsoft Monitor 6.5 release:

• Nimsoft Monitor Server documentation:
  http://docs.nimsoft.com/prodhelp/en_US/Library/1962682.html
• Nimsoft Probe documentation:
  http://docs.nimsoft.com/prodhelp/en_US/Library/1959156.html
• Unified Management Portal documentation:
  http://docs.nimsoft.com/prodhelp/en_US/Library/1959154.html
• Unified Reporter documentation:
  http://docs.nimsoft.com/prodhelp/en_US/Library/1959176.html

Learn more about CA Nimsoft Monitor today!

The MSPmentor Top 501 2013 Edition is out. According to the report, the top 501 MSPs grew their Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) an average of 25 percent in 2012.  It’s clear that these MSPs are leaders in leveraging technology platforms to cultivate repeat business and gain new business. Our CA Nimsoft MSP experts assembled an anatomy of key attributes that contribute to MSP success.

Drive revenue growth

While revenue growth is one of the key metrics tracked by the MSPmentor Top 501, most top MSPs are savvy business leaders who know how to grow revenue while also minimizing costs and optimizing IT resources—they know how to bridge the gap between IT and business. The best MSPs are skilled at leveraging existing resources to generate additional revenue streams and know how to market their offerings. They invest in technology management platforms that scale as their business grows. For example, let’s say that you’re an MSP that offers infrastructure monitoring services and your client decides to add virtual machines.  Can you scale your existing monitoring solution to profitably ensure a positive user experience and maintain or adapt SLAs to encompass virtual machines?  Part of bridging the gap between IT and business is selecting the right technology platforms that match your business vision when it comes to growth, and the most successful of MSPmentor 501 have integrated application management, cloud and mobile into their service catalogs.

Build a broad IT infrastructure footprint

This is an area where most top MSPs have experienced growth. Their IT assets under management grew as a result of new business, mergers / acquisitions and growth in devices used. A broad infrastructure footprint doesn’t necessarily grow the business,if you’re not able to do so profitably.  That’s where top MSPs leverage their technology platforms to enable them to scale to meet demand.  Conversely, they also need the ability to scale back without losing money when demand trails off.  It’s not enough to simply scale, you need agility to quickly meet your clients’ changing needs. The report indicates that on-premise server management is expected to decline while virtual and cloud services are expected to rise. Will your technology platform enable you to grow your MSP business by offering these services without a hefty investment or a time-consuming deployment?

Continuously improve capabilities and competencies

Top MSPs invest in their people skills as the business grows and technology evolves. A Global Knowledge Report, “15 Top Paying Certifications for 2013” (opens PDF), is a good indication of the capabilities in demand by enterprises and the MSPs who serve them.  Project Management Professional (PMP) tops the list and ITIL v3 Foundation takes the number nine spot.  Certifications in solutions development, security, virtual environments; and database, datacenter and network administration are a few of the IT disciplines also covered on the list. Top MSPs actively seek good candidates with competence in these technology areas. In addition, the service desks of top MSPs apply the ITIL or similar framework to ensure quality of service as well as efficiency with which service is delivered.

Enhance client satisfaction

Top MSPs are obsessed with client satisfaction. They not only meet SLAs, but also establish realistic and cost-effective SLAs based on the clients’ needs and budget.  However, robust service and support go beyond the SLA. They involve identifying industry trends and best practices and transforming them into service offerings that anticipate the clients’ needs.  For example, offering self-service portals that enable transparency into the work you do and prove the value of your services at a glance. Often, top MSPs differentiate themselves in the market with their service catalogs, which can help MSPs market additional services to existing clients. And top MSPs build customer satisfaction measurements into their workflows so that they continuously and automatically gauge client satisfaction.

MSP success summary

Reading through the Top 501 Managed Service Providers List, it becomes apparent that these MSPs are continually transforming their businesses.  They look for ways to grow and ways to keep costs at a minimum without compromising service. That’s where the technology platform provider can help… by enabling MSPs greater flexibility to meet their own needs and those of their customers.  See the difference a unified IT monitoring platform can make in your MSP business. Who knows you may even make next year’s list.

An IDC study indicated that the cloud could create 14 million new jobs by 2015. Is “cloud” in your next job title and description?  CA Nimsoft cloud support experts took a look at jobs in the IT field to identify the skill sets required as cloud computing continues to proliferate.

One important distinction brought about by cloud computing is an even greater focus on business strategy within the IT function.  As the IDC study points out, cloud computing has less to do with technology and more to do with enabling business strategy that drives revenue. So because of the relative ease and speed of cloud computing, IT managers can focus less on day-to-day cloud support issues and more on how the cloud can enable business strategy.

IT Skills that support cloud computing

Cloud support is where many of the new IT jobs will focus.  A recent NetworkWorld article by Christine Burns, “Top 10 cloud related job titles,” indicates that “Cloud Architect” is the most popular position for which employers are looking. The cloud architect not only understands enterprise architecture, but also SOA, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS models.  In other words, this individual knows how to leverage cloud computing to achieve business results and knows the underlying technical requirements of the cloud.

In many cases, the new skill sets required in cloud environment are an extension of existing IT jobs.  For example, software engineers now have a wider range of opportunities as a result of cloud support. This is apparent in the number of apps that continue to grow as an offshoot of mobile devices.

Systems engineers and systems administrators will need some level of proficiency in monitoring and supporting virtual environments. Whether vendor-specific training such as VMWare or Cisco, IT professionals will be required to know how to operate in an environment where hypervisor software is used. Many IT managers believe that candidates should have demonstrated experience with cloud computing.

Don’t just slap the word “cloud” on your resume

What can IT professionals do now to enhance their skills? We recommend training and professional certification programs that provide general cloud computing knowledge. For example, EMC² offers professional certification in its “Cloud Architect Track,” which includes training in the design and implementation of virtualized environments and data centers.  CompTIA offers their “Cloud Essentials™” certification, which covers the business and technical aspects of cloud services management and support. For cloud security training, Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) offers its “Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK).” You may also wish to consider schools for continuing and professional education, often affiliated with colleges and universities, such as Stanford University’s online cloud computing course.

We also suggest exploring vendor-specific training and certification depending upon individual professional development goals or the enterprise’s focus on cloud adoption. Rackspace offers its “CloudU Certificate“as does VMWare with several recently released cloud-related professional certifications.  Most cloud vendors offer professional training programs. However, some IT professionals caution against specializing in a given vendor’s cloud platform at this adoption phase of cloud computing. They suggest starting with more general, vendor-agnostic cloud computing training. We’ll leave that decision up to the individual; however one thing is certain, skilled cloud professionals must do more than slap the word “cloud” on their resumes.

Cloud strategies align with business strategies

Some say that companies are merely placing the word “cloud” in front of the same IT jobs that have always existed, such as systems analyst, systems administrator, etc. Others say that there are jobs that would not exist without the cloud, such as cloud architect, cloud strategist, etc., which goes back to our earlier point.  The cloud is influencing more IT execs to not only consider cloud computing as a technology, but also as an enabling platform for business strategy that can drive revenue while reducing operational costs. In order to implement these strategies, businesses will need IT colleagues who are skilled in cloud technology, deployment, management and, above all, cloud security.

Learn more about cloud support and how CA Nimsoft is helping MSPs and enterprises leverage the cloud effectively.

The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) presents a number of sobering facts about increased data volume and speeds that will impact systems management. With global business IP traffic expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 23% and data volumes anticipated to reach 13.1 Exabytes per month by 2016, the need to ensure service levels also grows.

The Impact of Mobile on Network Management

From a business perspective, the statistics are even more sobering when it comes to monitoring mobile devices.  Expect to see more mobile data traffic—a 13-fold increase from 2011-2016 according to Cisco’s VNI forecast.  What does that mean for systems engineers?  It means more complexity in terms of managing the network.  With nearly a third of all business internet traffic in 2016 resulting from mobile devices, an authentication or connectivity issue could significantly affect workforce productivity.

Real-time monitoring of mobile devices will be essential as a greater volume and variety of devices connect to the network.  However, network management goes beyond simply monitoring device traffic.  System admins must also have visibility to traffic types, e.g., what devices are connecting to the network and from where.   How much bandwidth is being consumed, when is it being consumed and by what devices.  In addition, visibility to underlying packet information helps administrators pinpoint root cause quickly. Under ideal monitoring conditions network managers should be able to pinpoint root cause before an issue results.

The Impact of Video Conferencing Traffic on Systems Management

Our customers tell us they’ve been experiencing greater bandwidth consumption as a result of increased video conferencing.  Cisco’s VNI indicates a steady upward trend in the use of video—a six-fold increase in IP video conferencing traffic from 2011-2016. Aside from bandwidth issues, the QoS and performance metrics are even more apparent to the end users of video conferencing.  A monitoring solution is an essential pre-emptive tool.  The CEO of a company during a global video conference doesn’t care about bandwidth if he’s unable to communicate effectively with colleagues and shareholders.

Using real-time network management, system administrators can predict the quality of the video transmission before it occurs.  They can test for bandwidth, packet loss and routing and make any adjustments prior to the video conference. Then, during the conference, real-time monitoring enables administrators to quickly identify and resolve issues before QoS is compromised. We see video conferencing as a growing area for IT teams to add significant value to the business.  When IT business teams work together, they can optimize IT investments and enable global business teams to collaborate more effectively. The result is increased productivity and reduced costs.

Is Real-Time Monitoring a Help or Hindrance?

Many of our customers express concern that monitoring in these more complex, distributed environments may in itself consume bandwidth.  While that may be true with some monitoring tools, more advanced monitoring technology enables a deeper level of monitoring without consuming bandwidth.  For example, lightweight agents provide more in depth monitoring with a small disk footprint.  And for virtual environments, agentless monitoring provides deep integration with most management interfaces.

Our philosophy is that the more complex the network, the more simplified and automated the monitoring tool should be. Combing through packet data and IP header information should be automated, so the system admin can apply his or her time drawing conclusions from data instead of collecting it.  Part of simplifying real-time monitoring is presenting complex data sets in easy-to-read dashboards.  With explosive network growth on the horizon and even greater network complexity, systems managers will require more intuitive monitoring tools.

Learn how CA Nimsoft can simplify systems management despite growing complexity.

From application monitoring to zero outages, we explored some of the more popular IT monitoring topics from 2012. Our year in review produced five selections worth a second look.

1.  The Mobile Challenges of IT Monitoring

One can hardly look back on 2012 without the mention of mobile. And mobile will continue its meteoric rise for the next several years as more people rely on a wider array of devices to connect to the internet and corporate intranets.  This post identifies key challenges of mobile and advises how to overcome them including security, regulatory compliance, mobile policy and application performance.

2.  Avoiding Pitfalls When Moving Your Enterprise Application to SaaS

As cloud computing continued to permeate the 2012 IT landscape, more enterprises sought to move their enterprise applications off premise.  With the intent of reduced operational and licensing costs, some of these companies were caught off guard when the savings didn’t materialize. This post tackles some of the more common reasons why the promise of SaaS was not fulfilled, including focus on the software instead of the service, poorly defined service catalog, and other SaaS pitfalls.

3.  Application Monitoring:  Keeping Business Critical Applications Running Smoothly

The cost of downtime is growing as a result of the enterprise’s strong dependence on business critical applications. When you couple that with the growing complexity of IT infrastructure and a mobile distributed workforce, effective IT monitoring is essential. Using average performance metrics to monitor applications isn’t enough. At the same time, simplifying the monitoring of complex environments can help avoid outages or at least mitigate risk. This post is worth another read.

4.  Cloud Bursting? Here’s How to Monitor Your Applications

We selected this post for its guidance on leveraging cloud capacity to scale production web applications. More importantly, it highlights three key monitoring considerations that ensure successful implementation of hybrid environments. The post also uncovers a few nuances that can help IT pros better leverage the agility of the cloud to pre-empt performance issues from impacting end users.

5. Application Monitoring:  A User-Centric Approach

Whether your business critical applications are hosted on premise or off premise, application performance is more about the service than it is the software.  This post takes a look at how monitoring applications effectively can have a positive impact on user experience.  But it goes much deeper than reliability and uptime. Take a second look at this post to learn how you can leverage predictive techniques to improve application performance and user experience.

Contact the Nimsoft IT monitoring experts today to improve the performance of your applications on premise or off premise.

Changing business imperatives coupled with new technologies and delivery models are driving new opportunities for managed service providers.  The CA Nimsoft MSP experts take a look at several ways IT service providers can capture additional opportunities to boost performance for their customers and add a boost to their own top lines.

Saas:  Delivering value from applications

Software-as-a-Service (Saas) will continue to represent a significant share of business software purchases. One way of adding value for corporate clients is to develop an expertise in a given software category,  e.g., Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or specific application. SharePoint®, for example, is an application that can substantially improve productivity.  However, often teams within the corporate environment lack the time or the skills to effectively use the features. MSPs who can deliver more than application service levels, but also help customers gain greater value from the application, can garner or at least substantiate premium rates. And let’s face it, the real value creation for IT often comes from applications.

Cloud:  Harnessing business value more effectively

Businesses are looking at cloud computing to quickly deploy applications and reduce CAPEX.  Drawn by the “pay-as-you-grow” capability, many businesses are seeking cloud deployments as a means of better predicting and controlling IT costs.  However, some of these companies lack the in-house specialization to build and deploy cloud environments effectively. As a result, the benefits are either not realized or not optimized.  We believe cloud computing represents several opportunities for IT service providers including:  infrastructure and operations management, building private clouds, and advising on cloud policy. In Europe, IDG reports a CAGR of 30 percent through 2016 for cloud professional services and suggests the rate is growing even faster for private cloud services.  The cloud is definitely a likely value add for service providers.

Mobile:  Driving new revenue streams for MSPs

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention mobile as one of the fastest growing IT opportunities for MSPs. In fact, technavio reports in a recent MSPMentor blog post “that the mobile device management enterprise software market in the United States will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.66 percent over the period 2011-2015.” The BYOD movement is fueling the growth; however, concerns about security could hamper growth.  In any case, mobile presents several opportunities in the security area.  For example, mitigating risk of enterprise contacts leaking into personal social media accounts such as Facebook. Another key value-added service for MSPs is consulting with customers on BYOD policy.  Often BYOD is deployed on an ad hoc basis—e.g., the CEO tells the CIO he wants to use his new device to access the network while he’s traveling. While such situations are often unavoidable, if you value your job, they represent a larger strategic view of BYOD.  MSPs can facilitate effective policy making and back it with the technology to manage and monitor devices.

Transforming Information Technology (IT) into Business Technology (BT)

Finally, there are numerous ways to increase share of wallet with complementary services.  For example, remote monitoring can be augmented to include customized client portals.  We find that many of our MSP customers are being asked to provide greater transparency into the overall health of the network.  Using customized portals, gives businesses a window into the MSP world.  It also demonstrates the value MSPs provide by displaying a clear picture of how well service providers are performing against the SLA.

We find that a lot of small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) look to service providers as single point of contact for their business technology needs.  In this role, managed service providers must keep up with the pace of change so that their clients can focus on their own core competencies. Similarly, MSPs with expertise in a specific industry vertical, such as healthcare, can add value to their services.  Value can take the form of simplifying regulatory reporting or ensuring an auditable trail of electronic documents.

As business continues to evolve and technological developments in applications, devices and security advance, MSPs are poised to deliver greater value.  We mentioned it in a previous post (Four Key Pillars of Successful MSPs), but it bears repeating, Top performing Managed Service Providers understand and anticipate the needs of their clients and offer the most effective mix of services that meet the clients’ needs at a price that’s cost effective for the client and profitable for the MSP.

Talk to a CA Nimsoft MSP expert and learn how you can enhance business performance for yourself and your clients.

CA Nimsoft Unified Management Portal 6.2.1 provides many performance related improvements.

UMP 6.2.1 GA Documentation:

• Install Guide
• Release Notes
• DMZ Guide
• Multiple Server Configuration Guide
• SSL Guide

UMP 2.6.1 GA Installer Packages:

• Nimsoft Unified Management Portal 6.2.1 GA Windows Install Package (451 MB)
• Nimsoft Unified Management Portal 6.2.1 GA Linux Install Package (449 MB)
• Nimsoft Unified Management Portal 6.2.1 GA Solaris Install Package (449 MB)

Learn more about CA Nimsoft Monitor!

This is an update release to CA Nimsoft Monitor 6 that includes both Nimsoft Server 6.2 and the Unified Management Portal 6.2.

In addition to some new auto-deployment features within the ADE as well as some new enhancements related to discovery, this 6.2 release also includes some powerful new performance analysis capabilities within the Unified Service Manager:

CA Nimsoft Server 6.2 GA Downloads:

• Download NMS 6.2 for Windows, Linux or Solaris.

CA Nimsoft Server 6.2 GA Documentation:

• NMS Release Notes and Upgrade Guide
• NMS Installation Guide
• NMS Configuration Guide
• Infrastructure Manager Guide
• Getting Started Guide

CA Nimsoft Unified Management Portal 6.2 GA Downloads:

• Download UMP 6.2 for Windows, Linux or Solaris.

CA Nimsoft Unified Management Portal 6.2 GA Documentation:

• Help Documentation
• Release Notes
• Installation Guide
• DMZ Guide
• Multiple Server Configuration Guide

Learn more about CA Nimsoft Monitor!