At Advizex, Intelligent Operations means something bigger and broader.
First, a quick definition. The phase “intelligent operations” is often used interchangeably with things like artificial intelligence (AI) or other automated processes. But at Advizex, Intelligent Operations means something bigger and broader. Intelligent Operations is an Advizex framework – one of our core offerings – and it covers four distinct categories or pillars of business and IT life:
1. IT Service Management (ITSM).
This is how the business requests things from IT
2. Cloud Management Platform (CMP).
This is how resources get requested and given out to specific systems within a business.
3. Automation & Orchestration.
This is often a function of a CMP. How do things get done? How do systems get rolled out into different business units or areas?
4. IT Operations makes sure items 1 to 3 get done.
They are the people and processes that wrap it all together.
Let’s consider how pillars 1 to 3 typically operate within a company , and how Advizex’s Intelligent Operations framework can enhance productivity at every point: and help #4 – IT Operations – become more responsive.
1. IT Service Management (ITSM)
When you look at ITSM, it’s best to start from the perspective of the consumer of IT services. It’s all the workers within a business or industry that use IT services. And these consumers often have questions or requests. How do they get submitted and where do they go? That’s your company’s ITSM. A lot of times, these requests will go to an enterprise platform – or ENT – that will perform the role of ITSM. In some companies, ITSMs are not quite this sophisticated: sometimes people just pick up the phone and call IT with a request – or send an email with their ask.
The bottom line here is that the business is requesting something. The request is captured SOMEWHERE: ideally in an ENT, but not always. All of these requests get housed (again, ideally) in a content management database (CMDB). If the CMDB is modern enough, it should have API connectivity in and out of it so that the ITSM tool can be integrated with other platforms, like the next pillar:
2. Cloud Management Platform (CMP)
The CMP is how IT owners manage and view how everything within a business or system is running. It can be used by a developer in IT, an application owner, an IT business analyst. In fact, it doesn’t have to be in the business using the tools, but instead is someone who is requesting something directly from IT. The ideal state is that the CMP has enough APIs to communicate back and forth with the ENT. The APIs look for similarities and overlap, and then communicate those back to the CMDB. This helps IT develop efficiencies , assuming they have the time and resources.
3. Automation & Orchestration
Automation and Orchestration is the “hub” of automation where all of the requests live. It’s not what is doing the work behind the scenes, but the process that will be used to do the work: you might have virtualization, networking, backups, cloud platforms – all sorts of different end points that might need to be reached from the IT service platform. This IT service platform is typically some type of device automation – an end point that the IT automation can reach out to. This device might have APIs that reach out to the ENT CMDB to make changes or improve systems automatically.
This is a lot of flow behind the scenes. It’s a lot for IT Operations to handle. The question becomes: how can you improve the flow from 1 to 3. The answer is Intelligent Operations.
Why might Intelligent Operations be important for improving this flow?
Let’s look at a worst-case scenario: let’s say a business request enters IT through an email. This request might take forever to get to the right IT person to tackle the job. From there it might take even longer for the request to get approved – maybe authorization has to be granted or permissions have to be approved. Once those come in, the business can finally proceed with whatever they need. This could take days or weeks. What would happen if that request could be granted almost automatically?
With Intelligent Operations, you take these requests that happen day in and day out and you can do them with a greater sense of purpose and with less hands-on keyboard time. You can automate these processes so requests get handled faster and better. That not only increases IT’s value to the business; it also increases IT’s ability to do more strategic planning and development. In fact, with Intelligent Operations, you can add increased value to your own IT and development teams since you’re increasing the rate of requests coming through IT.
Intelligent Operations streamlines and incorporates all of the pillars of IT life – ITSM CMP, Automation & Orchestration and IT Operations – together throughout a unified system, and IT Operations wraps it all together. Instead of being reactive to pillars 1 to 3 – IT Operations is driving it all.
Intelligent Operations is all about creating a process that provides additional value to the business in a way that provides faster response. This super responsive design is its inherent value – to the business and to IT.