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IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
Executive Summary
Managing the network has always been an important part of IT operations, and in most cases is a
stable and mature practice within the broader IT organization. But IT organizations are transforming,
adopting service-centric processes and objectives, along with service management tools and tech-
nologies. This transformation rarely springs from the network organization – it usually begins in the
call center or applications support team. The network team often is late to the party, and yet must be
embraced as part of any long-term integrated service management strategy. This report examines the
challenges of and strategies for reconciling network management and operations with broader service
management initiatives.
An Alignment Issue
When most organizations consider the objectives of network management, few think about busi-
ness service management, or BSM, as a starting point. The vast majority of network management
tools and the network management teams who buy them have been primarily concerned with keeping
their own domain clean and efficient. But that approach is increasingly at odds with the transforma-
tion IT is undergoing, embracing the inexorable shift towards end-user quality of experience as a
primary measure of IT success – a shift which requires a collaborative and integrated view of all of
the interconnected and interdependent domains which make up the IT service delivery infrastructure.
ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) analysts have been tracking this shift,
and most recently documented it as a major initiative within mid-level and upper level management in
early 20091.
How can the historic strength of the network team be fashioned
into a pillar supporting service management?
A central theme of the shift towards BSM is the rising importance of the end user, and in particular
the experiences of end users whether they are internal knowledge workers or external partners and
customers. The end goal of IT service management is to reliably meet the needs and expectations of
those who will consume IT services. Meeting this goal presents many challenges to the IT organiza-
tion, not the least of which is maintaining visibility into all of the interconnected elements which come
together to deliver IT services. If the IT infrastructure was a static entity, there would be a determinis-
tic process for establishing sufficient visibility and correlating measurements and metrics to assess and
assure user experience. But that is not the case – IT infrastructures are becoming ever more dynamic
and fluid, especially within the computing tier. And with increasingly mobile workers and users, even
the network access path has become a variable. The visibility challenge this creates can be overcome,
but it also presents specific difficulties in keeping up with change and accommodating variability within
the server and network domains.
EMA research has evidenced the fact that keeping up with a growing, abstracted infrastructure is
putting operations and support personnel further and further behind in meeting end-user experience
expectations. As can be seen in Figure 1, application performance problems (a core element of user
1 Business Service Management: Strategies for Success in 2009, Enterprise Management Associates, May 2009
End-User Service Assurance: The New IT Mandate
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 1
IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
quality of experience) are increasingly first reported by end user calls into the help desk. EMA believes
this trend will continue until IT organizations do better job of aligning management tools and practices
around the end user.
When an application-related problem occurs,
how does IT deal find out about it?
Calls from Users 2008
54%
Calls from Users 2006
43%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Figure 1: EMA Research on Problem Identification
Aggravating the visibility challenge, EMA research shows that the network team is often the last group
to be engaged or involved in service management initiatives. How do we bridge this divide? How can
network operations achieve the integrated, supportive stance they need to take in order to be part of
this is essential evolutionary trend? Many would say it’s a simple matter of training and tools integra-
tion, and that a bottoms-up approach to building BSM solutions is both feasible and practical. And
while this may be true for organizations with broad resources and deep pockets, such an approach is
often a non-starter due to total cost, time to implement, and the fact that the managed environment
is constantly changing and hopelessly complex. Worth considering is an alternative, where a strong
service management layer, aligned from the beginning around assuring user service quality, is put in
place and network management tools are then added in a way that complements core service defini-
tions and constructs.
The Service Management Challenge
Network management has its roots in basic health monitoring, interoperability, and device by device
configuration management. That basic set of functions has been in place for decades, most recently
expanded with the widespread addition of performance monitoring. And when performance monitor-
ing was added, suddenly there was a new concept introduced into the network operations environment
– no longer was the question simply, “is the network up,” but rather it became, “is the network perform-
ing to expectations?” And when expectations are brought into the discussion, the next natural need is
to establish an understanding of and then measurement of those expectations – the first kernels of
service orientation. But IT services go far beyond the network, and are typically defined in a way that
is centered upon applications and systems. Services intended for end users and customers would not
exist if not for the connective function of the network, but there are combinations of resources which
culminate in the experience and work efficiency of the IT end user.
End-User Service Assurance: The New IT Mandate
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
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