EbizQ

Storage area networks have been – and still – are big thing in business. Over the past few years organizations have had to find ways to add more and more storage to their IT environments as new applications come on-line and as new data sources such as Web storefronts have added massive amounts of potentially valuable data to be analyzed. As a results, organizations have invested in more and more storage capability-from larger servers to storage area networks that can connect different types of storage into a unified data network for use by a wide variety of corporate applications or users. Because of the continuing need for greater, faster, more efficient and manageable storage options, business storage solutions are going to continue to be a big area of investment for organizations over the next five years.
But it’s important to recognize that we’re not just going to see this type of focus and growth in the business sector. We’re also going to see it in our homes and personal lives. Over the next few years, the variety and types of significant storage devices we use in our personal lives will increase dramatically-from multiple, different portable storage devices, to ones for use in our cars, to ones connected to our TV and digital media centers, most households will have a variety of new storage devices with new features.

Over the years, the view of what IT was (and is) has expanded. Initially IT was a mainframe computer, a few programmers, and batch programs that generated reports for a limited number of internal employees. Then it was mainframes and terminals, with applications that handled the most mission-critical (or at least computationally-critical) portions of a company’s business process. These were used by even more employees. Then, over time, IT evolved to mini-computers with many users, personal computers for all employees and now Web- or Intranet-based solutions intended to be used by employees, partners, customers and just about anyone else.
At the same time that this expansion has been happening, there’s been an expansion of the notion of the role of applications, as well as an expansion of the importance of application management. For example, initially, applications were managed centrally, but over time organizations have either stopping managing them (remember client/server?) or invested in IT-oriented solutions that can now package, deploy, and manage applications across a wide range of systems and users.

Doing performance management correctly is like trying to get my kids to wash their hands. Sure, I can create a process or rule for it: When our hands are dirty, we wash them. Then I can ensure that the components of the process are available and responsive: There’s soap by the sink and the hot and cold water turn on easily. But even when I’ve set everything up, and have the metrics established (we need to wash our hands daily!), how can I be sure that they’ll be achieved? And if they are achieved, are they being achieved correctly?
For example, it’s pretty easy to identify when my older son isn’t meeting our performance goals: His hands are clearly filthy. But it’s a bit tougher with my younger son: He did wash his hands. But did he use hot water? Did he use soap? Did he actually scrub for a reasonable period of time (or did he simply pass them under the water)? It can be hard to tell. I’ve also discovered that there’s usually no adequate feedback mechanism to help me identify when there are user or system problems. For example, we can be out of soap for days in their bathroom and I’ll never hear about it. Or they may decide on their own to use one of those liquid hand sanitizers instead of actually washing their hands. It’s hard to know sometimes.
The point is, even with the right process (or application) and tools, the effectiveness of the result really depends on actions of the users. If there are user failures (like failing to report missing soap, using cold water, etc.), then the resulting process is going to be ineffective.
As I will explore in my next column, it’s the same with enterprise performance management and an organization’s applications. When enterprise applications like SAP, Oracle or Seibel aren’t being used effectively and efficiently by users, the business results will suffer.
One solution to this problem is putting solutions in place that can collect and manage information not only on your applications, but on the user experience of the users using those applications. Let’s look at what that means.
Of course, you’d want to start by collecting traditional application management-related information like response time and availability. You’d also want to know the transactional response times-for example, how long does it take the application to respond after the “enter” key is pressed? But-and here’s where it starts to go beyond traditional management solutions-you’d also want to know how long it takes for users to navigate through the application screens.
Are they spending too much time on difficult to navigate or complete screens? Of course, you’d also want to collect information on which applications (and transactions) what people are using. It would also be helpful to collect information about quality of the users’ experience and any errors in the infrastructure or application, whether they’re cause by the user or by something in the IT environment. For example, perhaps users are getting errors trying to connect to certain applications or databases, but such errors aren’t getting reported.

Like it or not, many of today’s organizations have to plan for audits – in some cases once a year, in other cases on an on-going basis. Of course, meeting compliance and auditing requirements takes time, resources and money. That’s why many organizations have started to look at the effectiveness of their compliance and auditing strategies, with an eye to streamlining and automating processes and simply making audits less painful and costly.