Intelligent partners
Quocirca research indicates that operational intelligence tools help to sort the masses of useful data that is collected by modern businesses, says Bob Tarzey
A recent Quocirca research report (Masters of Machines II) shows how some of the cost constraints that were the bane of IT departments a few years ago have now given way to worries about data chaos and poor customer experience.
On top of this, worries about security, which were always top of the list, have increased. Such concerns are a problem for end-user organisations, but for the channel they are an opportunity, if a new approach to addressing them can be proposed.
The research shows that organisations that have invested in operational intelligence tools are better positioned to take action than those that have not. Operational intelligence is about achieving better insight into the way IT infrastructure is performing, exposing security threats and ensuring a better customer experience.
This is done by analysing the machine data generated by IT hardware and software. Machine data can also be enriched from external data sources, such as geolocation feeds. The report measured the operational intelligence effectiveness of a given organisation through an index, which ranged from zero for no capability to four for maximum capability.
High scores went hand in hand with the ability to collect machine data from a wide range of sources. The higher the score, the better organisations were able to achieve a number of things.
First, they were better able to handle IT complexity. For example, there are many reported potential benefits of deploying public cloud services, but for most their use is still an extension of in-house IT. A downside of this is that the resultant hybrid IT platform is more complex to manage.
Those with more complex set-ups were the most likely to use or be planning to use operational intelligence tools (see figure 1 below).
Second, higher operational intelligence index scores meant a better capability to manage the cross-channel customer experience. The research looked at various ways of interacting with customers, including websites, voice, mobile apps and social media.
The more channels supported, the more complex the problem of managing overall interactions. The effort is worth it as more channels mean more transactions and more business. Organisations with the most commercial transactions and channels were the most likely to turn to operational intelligence, providing insight into the way IT infrastructure is supporting business performance and the customer experience. Third, there is a dark side to operational intelligence.
The more capability an organisation has, the more concerned it is about security (See figure 2, below).
Other Quocirca research (to be published) shows how widespread security weaknesses are and improved operational intelligence exposes them. But without knowledge of these problems, you cannot fix them.
There are a number of suppliers of operational intelligence tools. Perhaps the best known is Splunk, which sponsored Quocirca’s report. Other well-established commercial suppliers include Vitria, Tibco and XpoLog. Splunk Cloud is also challenged by Logentries and Sumo Logic which only sells direct. There are also open source tools such as Graylog and Logstash. When it comes to security, an area where many organisations use Splunk, there is the busy SIEM (security information and event management) market.
Operational intelligence tools vary in their ability to support SIEM and some SIEM tools extend into the operational intelligence arena. IBM, HP and Intel Security are all big players here along with specialists such as LogRhythm, AlienVault and SolarWinds.
Whatever tops the list of your customers’ concerns, there are plenty of choices for seeking out the intelligence to help them.
■ Quocirca’s report Master of Machines II is free to download at: http://quocirca.com/content/masters-machines-ii-0