Do you have a need to cut IT Management Costs? Most
organizations will welcome this idea and will listen intently. Recently,
Gartner reported that process automation has become a key focus for
organizations looking to improve and measure IT operations. Let me introduce to
you NETIQ’s Aegis, a vendor-neutral platform whose sole purpose is to model,
automate, measure, and improve IT operations.
According to NETIQ, Aegis will integrate with NetIQ systems
and security management products as well as BMC Remedy, EMC Smarts and other
leading third-party products to automate IT processes. This is quickly becoming
a crowded space, and Gartner estimates that by the end of 2007, 35% of IT
managers will start to invest in such automation technologies. That number is
expected to grow as existing implementations deliver incremental successes.
Travis Greene, Chief Service Management Strategist at NetIQ,
says, “No other IT Process Automation product has an embedded correlation
engine like Aegis. This enables Aegis to more intelligently trigger
process execution, based on analysis of events from multiple, dissimilar
tools"
He goes on to say, "Anyone in IT who has tried to
implement process understands that a resistance to change can quickly arise if
process is perceived as a bureaucratic bottleneck to getting things done. Aegis
helps IT organizations avoid that by automating process and shifting
the bias from ‘doing’ to ‘approving’ through tool integration."
Aegis was developed internally with
a process-centric perspective; Aegis delivers Run
Book Automation (RBA) with intelligent automation to vastly reduce the time spent
by IT operations’ staff on manual repetitive tasks. It is also a broad
scope IT automation platform delivering an intelligent, incremental path for
the adoption of ITIL
best practices.
Greene states, “Aegis is like a universal remote control for
your IT management tools. Similar to what you might use at home to
automate the running of your home theater components, Aegis understands
what each tool in your environment is capable of and can automatically control
them in the right order, whenever a triggering event is
received."
Aegis features the following:
-
Enterprise Service Bus: Allows for vendor-agnostic integration of
existing enterprise, security and application management tools -
Process Automation Engine: Executes
pre-defined workflows in response to process triggers to command existing
permissioned tools to take action -
Process Visualization: Enables
viewing of process execution through an interactive Web console to better
manage IT service delivery and facilitates collaboration between process owners -
Process Improvement Metrics and
Reporting: Utilizes metrics generated by an analysis engine to calculate
process efficiency and demonstrate improvement -
Workflow Modeling: Documents tribal
knowledge through a drag-and-drop designer or pre-built templates to create
processes based upon management best practices -
Correlation Engine: Gathers events and
data from multiple tool sources and correlates them to produce more intelligent
process triggers -
“With our Aegis product, NetIQ is
delivering a more practical approach to process automation that has not been
available to date,” said Chris Pick, vice president, Products and Marketing,
NetIQ. “By providing more intelligent automation and a platform to maximize
under-utilized management tools, Aegis helps organizations better control the
cost of IT operations. This is critical as customers and prospects strive to
eliminate highly repetitive and mundane tasks and more efficiently allocate
their time to meeting business requirements for growth.”
As a database administrator (DBA),
you might be wondering how this software can make your life easier. Aegis can
do specific tasks that ease your chaotic life on a daily basis. Most DBA’s
today wear many hats and any relief from arduous tasks would be welcomed. To
make a database administrator’s life easier, Aegis can perform the following:
-
Aegis can trigger the method of shrinking database files to
alleviate space issues that may arise during a business day should disk space
be a concern. -
Aegis can verify the cause of SQL deadlocks should the
performance threshold be crossed. -
Aegis can also kick off the T-SQL command to create a user and/or
grant a user access to requested databases based on a help desk ticket and the
proper approval chain. -
If a database dump fails because of low disk space, Aegis
workflow kicks off to present the database administrator with the list of large
files. The administrator can then choose which files to delete and send a
message to Aegis to re-submit the backup task.
These are just examples of how Aegis can automate many of
the tasks database administrators would under normal circumstances have to do
manually. Aegis can provide alerts to DBA’s on multiple issues and enable them
to react by responding to Aegis’ message. Aegis can then set processes in
motion to address those items automatically.
About NetIQ
“NetIQ, an Attachmate
business, is a leading provider of comprehensive systems and security
management solutions that help enterprises maximize IT service delivery and
efficiency. With more than 12,000 customers worldwide, NetIQ solutions yield
measurable business value and results that dynamic organizations demand.
NetIQ’s best-of-breed solutions help IT organizations deliver critical business
services, mitigate operational risk, and document policy compliance. The
company’s portfolio of award-winning management solutions includes IT Process
Automation, Systems Management, Security Management, Configuration Control and
Enterprise Administration. For more information, please visit www.netiq.com.”
NetIQ Aegis is due out in late November 2007. Pricing is
based upon managed object, management server and connectors to third party
products. For more information, please visit http://www.netiq.com/go/aegis-pr or
call NetIQ at (888) 323-6768.