There’s no doubt that identifying and then resolving IT issues has never been more challenging or complex. Not only are there more applications than ever, those applications can be running on any combination of virtual machines, software and physical infrastructure. IT people are then left to try to make sense of it all by monitoring […]
There’s no doubt that identifying and then resolving IT issues has never been more challenging or complex. Not only are there more applications than ever, those applications can be running on any combination of virtual machines, software and physical infrastructure. IT people are then left to try to make sense of it all by monitoring tens, sometimes even hundreds, of screens.
To bring all that back under control, AppEnsure has launched a framework for managing IT systems that leverages agents, metadata and a backend processing engine based on a Splunk search and indexing engine that allows AppEnsure to sort through massive amounts of machine data in real time.
According to AppEnsure CEO Colin Macnab, the company’s namesake platform is designed to analyze and process all the machine data stored in Splunk using deep packet inspection processing techniques that run a Layer 2 line speed. Macnab says AppEnsure then identifies and stores the unique fingerprint attributes of every application in the AppEnsure metadata. Once a problem is discovered, AppEnsure helps IT organizations immediately identify what application attributes have changed.
As is often the case when it comes to resolving IT problems, fixing something usually takes a few minutes. Identifying the source of the problem, on the other hand, can take hours, days and even sometimes weeks. Macnab says AppEnsure is designed to help IT organizations close trouble tickets significantly faster, which is usually one of the primary metrics by which any IT organization is evaluated.
Designed to work both on premise and in cloud computing environments, AppEnsure is part of a new generation of IT management tools that are taking advantage of Big Data analytics and advances in metadata management to reduce the complexity of managing heterogeneous IT environments.
The degree to which these tools will obsolete existing IT management frameworks remains to be seen. But the one thing that is for certain is that when it comes to diagnosing problems, the amount of time the IT organization is given to solve any particular problem is rapidly diminishing.
Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.
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