Data Center Management
Both for in-house operation and outsourcing, service-level agreements must be managed to ensure data-availability
Among the topics currently being explored are: scalability, securing data center networks, disaster recovery, government restrictions.
Another major area is the cost of downtime regarding customer dissatisfaction & business loss and also the "astonishing" yet hidden cost and effect regarding personnel & productivity.
Business-service management (BSM) treats IT as part of the larger enterprise strategy and helps fill the gap between business and IT.
IBM notes that major problems often happen in the grey areas, particularly due to errors in the interfaces, and focuses on critical failures. Sufficient redundancy should allow failures in non-critical areas to protect the business from being affected. BSM, which is positioned above IT Service Management (ITSM), promotes a customer-centric and business-focused approach to service management, aligning business objectives with IT or ICT from strategy through to operations. Tools that help BSM include a modeling language and a common dashboard, which together allow data center personnel to see problems before business customers do.[18]
Newer developments
Remote data center management allows offsite experts to watch for situations needing their timely intervention at a lower cost than having such staff be onsite 24/7/365.
While some requirements for on-site hardware have been reduced, spending in other hardware areas such as UPS may have to increase.
Data center asset management
Data center asset management (also referred to as inventory management) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management and strategic decision making for the IT environment. Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment.
IT asset management generally uses automation to manage the discovery of assets so inventory can be compared to license entitlements. Full business management of IT assets requires a repository of multiple types of information about the asset, as well as integration with other systems such as supply chain, help desk, procurement and HR systems and ITSM.
Among the topics currently being explored are: scalability, securing data center networks, disaster recovery, government restrictions.
Another major area is the cost of downtime regarding customer dissatisfaction & business loss and also the "astonishing" yet hidden cost and effect regarding personnel & productivity.
Business-service management (BSM) treats IT as part of the larger enterprise strategy and helps fill the gap between business and IT.
IBM notes that major problems often happen in the grey areas, particularly due to errors in the interfaces, and focuses on critical failures. Sufficient redundancy should allow failures in non-critical areas to protect the business from being affected. BSM, which is positioned above IT Service Management (ITSM), promotes a customer-centric and business-focused approach to service management, aligning business objectives with IT or ICT from strategy through to operations. Tools that help BSM include a modeling language and a common dashboard, which together allow data center personnel to see problems before business customers do.[18]
Newer developments
Remote data center management allows offsite experts to watch for situations needing their timely intervention at a lower cost than having such staff be onsite 24/7/365.
While some requirements for on-site hardware have been reduced, spending in other hardware areas such as UPS may have to increase.
Data center asset management
Data center asset management (also referred to as inventory management) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management and strategic decision making for the IT environment. Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment.
IT asset management generally uses automation to manage the discovery of assets so inventory can be compared to license entitlements. Full business management of IT assets requires a repository of multiple types of information about the asset, as well as integration with other systems such as supply chain, help desk, procurement and HR systems and ITSM.
