Gone are the days when IT was an enhancement to productivity where organizations replaced paper-based functions with computer-based functions, using a small number of applications to carry out work. In that landscape, applications were delivered via client-server relationships and largely purpose-built. One server, one application, or at most two, delivered across a relatively flat network – a simpler approach in a simpler time. The state of monitoring was equally simple for IT operators: with just a few tools, showing availability of devices, support could easily know the status of a device, and what applications were impacted.
In today’s modern enterprise of hypervisors, load balancing, cloud computing, and a myriad of logical and virtual networks with layered security, there are hundreds more ‘devices’ working together to deliver applications and digital services. Oftentimes these devices are shared by multiple applications or services, creating an extremely complex services topology. In this paradigm, device-only monitoring cannot adequately determine mission impact when something goes awry, defaulting to ‘human sensors’ within the user community to tell support if a critical service is working or not.
As the IT landscape continues to evolve with increasing complexity, distributed systems, and high resiliency, traditional device up or down statuses are no longer sufficient in measuring service health, risk, and availability. To address this challenge, organizations need to adopt a business services management perspective on observability and monitoring. By looking at an aggregate view of digital services, it becomes easier to understand the impact of individual events and prioritize accordingly. This context is particularly crucial in environments where scaling, clustering, and redundancy are considered, as a single device failure could have a catastrophic impact on several key business services. In such cases, effective communication with leadership becomes essential in managing expectations and minimizing the impact of any disruptions.
Many solutions claim to ‘discover’ a service and model it. However, many of these solutions still lack the perspective of what a service does for the organization in human terms. ScienceLogic SL1 provides a holistic solution to monitor, evaluate and manage health, availability, and risk for IT infrastructure and the critical services it supports. Critically, SL1 also allows users to customize how they want to consume service information, including viewing applications and services in relation to geography, service dependencies, or any other way that makes sense for their agency’s needs. As IT operations at federal agencies become more complex, IT operators and managers need the right tools to effectively manage service health, availability, and risk, to minimize impact on missions and those they serve.
To learn more about SL1 Business Service Management for Government click here.
