General Dynamics IT (GDIT)’s story – and pain point – is all too familiar for government contractors and Federal agencies alike. It’s a story centered around tool management consolidation and the subsequent move to the cloud to streamline and simplify IT processes.
GDIT’s goal, like that of so many others, was to achieve increased operational agility. However, in their IT environment and the subsequent migration to the cloud, they noticed visibility gaps emerging and used 23 different tools to provide adequate coverage.
But they aren’t alone…
The U.S. Federal government continues to direct Federal agencies to modernize their IT operations by transitioning legacy infrastructure and applications to private and public cloud computing models. However, in their IT environment and the subsequent migration to the cloud, they noticed visibility gaps emerging and used 23 different tools to provide adequate coverage.
There is a marked delay in agency migration to the cloud due to ongoing concerns over cloud security and a lack of control associated with a need for greater visibility across cloud environments.
These IT visibility gaps (coupled with limited access to both infrastructure and applications in the cloud) must be addressed by agency CIOs who are still held accountable for service availability, driving efficiencies, and minimizing risk; regardless of what the underlying technology is or who provides the resources.
But since they’re operating in hybrid IT and multi-cloud environments where new technology is working alongside older technology, agency IT teams would benefit by moving away from their legacy infrastructure-based monitoring tools and adopting newer, updated technology that provides a complete and holistic view of their infrastructure and applications.
Leaving the Past Behind
Legacy monitoring tools lack the ability to automatically discover, integrate, contextualize, remediate issues, or derive useful insights from data that originates from disparate tools and sources. To make matters worse, most of the legacy monitoring tools also require multiple add-on modules or are nearing end-of-life (i.e., vendors like CA, HP and BMC® have announced they will no longer support legacy monitoring suites).
But perhaps the biggest problem that legacy tools pose to agencies is that they were designed for the mainframe era (or even with traditional client/server architectures), and they’re ill-equipped to work in today’s cloud and ephemeral environments where VMs, containers, microservices, and other emerging technologies are being adopted at a rapid pace.
In fact, according to a recent Gartner report aptly titled, How to React to the Impact of the Cloud on IT Operations Monitoring, they note that by 2021, only 15% of organizations will have implemented holistic monitoring for their cloud investments, leaving $255 billion in associated cloud investments at risk for those that take a piecemeal approach.
To overcome the impact of cloud monitoring gaps, manage workloads in hybrid IT environments, and maintain proactive control over mission-critical systems, Gartner suggests implementing a holistic monitoring strategy that incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
By using an AI/ML-driven approach to take a real-time inventory of clouds, technologies, and vendors, Gartner makes the point that organizations like GDIT are better positioned to bypass visibility gaps because they’ll have the ability to predict and resolve issues before they arise.
A Holistic-Monitoring Solution
By employing ScienceLogic’s signature solution, SL1, agencies and government service providers are benefiting from a leading IT monitoring and automation platform that also serves as an automation engine for AIOps; providing the visibility necessary to modernize their IT operations.
ScienceLogic’s single platform, SL1, automatically discovers and shows how all IT ecosystem resources work together and applies real-time context, helping IT teams identify opportunities for automation and tool modernization that improve service delivery, drive efficiencies, and minimize risk – all while supporting the performance and availability of mission-critical systems.
With a holistic monitoring strategy, IT leaders can take steps to digitally transform their agencies and support IT modernization initiatives now and well into the future. If you’re ready to consolidate toolsets and further modernize your IT operations, ScienceLogic is positioned well to help.
Related reading: How GDIT consolidated their tools and tamed the multi-cloud tempest.
