If You Are Looking to Invest in Advanced Analytics for IT, Exactly What Should You Be Shopping For? Part 3: Scenarios

Dennis Drogseth

This is the sixth in my series of blogs inspired by EMA's AIA buyer's guide — directed at helping IT invest in Advanced IT Analytics (AIA), what the industry more commonly calls "Operational Analytics." The goal was to create a "Consumer's Report" approach. And to do that we took it one step further. We created what we called "Shopping Cart Criteria" based on our prior research on AIA adoptions over the past three years.

My last two blogs looked at Cost Advantage parameters and Environments.

Start with Part 1: Cost Advantage

Start with Part 2: Environments

Cost Advantage included:

■ Time to Value

■ Administration and Support

■ Toolset Consolidation

Environments included:

■ Cloud for Performance Management

■ Cloud for Change/Capacity/Cost Optimization

■ Core Infrastructure (Network/Data Center)

■ Legacy/Mainframe

■ Application Performance and Availability Management

■ Internet of Things (IoT)

In this blog, I examine scenario-related shopping cart objectives for AIA.

At EMA, we evaluated seven unique scenarios relevant to AIA adoptions. Our scenarios included agile/DevOps, Integrated security, change impact awareness, capacity optimization, business impact, business alignment and unifying IT.

Agile/DevOps

DevOps is a key area of opportunity.

We found that some vendors had made DevOps a clear and proven focus, whereas for others it was more a direction of future interest. But DevOps is a key area of opportunity. In prior research we saw that 69 percent of our respondents were looking to link their AIA investments to DevOps requirements.

In evaluating this scenario, we looked at discreet requirements in terms of agile/DevOps needs including support for both development professionals and quality assurance and testing (QA Test). To do this we considered overall APM strengths, application change impact awareness, and proof points in terms of actual deployment scenarios. We also targeted analytic insight into digital experience management across the full application lifecycle.

Integrated Security

Integrated security was another scenario where almost all the vendors provided basic functionality, but only a few had made it a primary focus. However, based on recent EMA research in both analytics and SecOps, integrated security is a very high-growth opportunity, with surprisingly strong priorities among both operations and security stakeholders for shared data, shared analytics and shared insights.

In evaluating this criterion, we looked for bidirectional security-related toolset integrations for analysis and visualization relevant to SecOps requirements. We also considered appropriate stakeholder support, and proof points in terms of actual deployments.

Change Impact Awareness

It is well known that performance management and change impact awareness go hand in hand. To be "outstanding" in this area, however, requires many fundamentals. Among them are:

■ analytic awareness of changes in performance-related metrics

■ insight into dependencies to see how and where abnormalities are most likely to impact a critical business service

■ insights into change management procedures and histories so that timely correlations can be proactively understood between change histories and performance and availability metrics

In determining a rating for change impact awareness, we also considered integrations with IT service management (ITSM) sources, CMDBs, CMSs, and ADDM capabilities.

Capacity Optimization

We reserved this scenario for those vendors that went a step beyond change impact awareness. In other words, no vendor could excel here without at least being "strong" in change impact awareness. Capacity Optimization featured those vendors with significant integrations with capacity analytics and automation to make all the requisite connections between performance, change, capacity, and, ideally, cost. In multiple research initiatives, we've seen capacity and even cost analytics stand out as a leading priority for AIA — especially when it comes to optimizing the move to cloud.

Business Impact

In the age of digital transformation, little could be more important than energizing the handshake between IT service delivery and business outcomes. In evaluating this criterion, we considered basic strengths in transactional performance and support for business stakeholders. The highest ratings required data and analytics integrating business and IT sources, as well as common dashboard visualizations of business outcomes such as revenue, business process optimization and conversions from competitive websites.

Business Alignment

Business impact factors into business alignment, but data sharing for optimal business alignment also requires reports and visualization that promote IT-to-business dialog along multiple fronts in a current and dynamic way. In evaluating this scenario, we looked at well-defined stakeholder support for business as well as IT stakeholders, well-evolved dashboarding and workflows, and at least some strengths in unifying IT.

Unifying IT

Unifying IT, much like toolset consolidation, is something of a Holy Grail in value when it comes to investing in AIA. Advanced IT analytics can enable a common layer of efficiency that helps to promote better processes, dialog, data sharing, and automation across virtually all of IT — not just operations. Integrations and stakeholder support were paramount for this scenario, as was social IT and mobile support. For proof points, we looked for real-world examples where a wide range of IT stakeholders were in fact beginning to work differently and more effectively together.

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If You Are Looking to Invest in Advanced Analytics for IT, Exactly What Should You Be Shopping For? Part 3: Scenarios

Dennis Drogseth

This is the sixth in my series of blogs inspired by EMA's AIA buyer's guide — directed at helping IT invest in Advanced IT Analytics (AIA), what the industry more commonly calls "Operational Analytics." The goal was to create a "Consumer's Report" approach. And to do that we took it one step further. We created what we called "Shopping Cart Criteria" based on our prior research on AIA adoptions over the past three years.

My last two blogs looked at Cost Advantage parameters and Environments.

Start with Part 1: Cost Advantage

Start with Part 2: Environments

Cost Advantage included:

■ Time to Value

■ Administration and Support

■ Toolset Consolidation

Environments included:

■ Cloud for Performance Management

■ Cloud for Change/Capacity/Cost Optimization

■ Core Infrastructure (Network/Data Center)

■ Legacy/Mainframe

■ Application Performance and Availability Management

■ Internet of Things (IoT)

In this blog, I examine scenario-related shopping cart objectives for AIA.

At EMA, we evaluated seven unique scenarios relevant to AIA adoptions. Our scenarios included agile/DevOps, Integrated security, change impact awareness, capacity optimization, business impact, business alignment and unifying IT.

Agile/DevOps

DevOps is a key area of opportunity.

We found that some vendors had made DevOps a clear and proven focus, whereas for others it was more a direction of future interest. But DevOps is a key area of opportunity. In prior research we saw that 69 percent of our respondents were looking to link their AIA investments to DevOps requirements.

In evaluating this scenario, we looked at discreet requirements in terms of agile/DevOps needs including support for both development professionals and quality assurance and testing (QA Test). To do this we considered overall APM strengths, application change impact awareness, and proof points in terms of actual deployment scenarios. We also targeted analytic insight into digital experience management across the full application lifecycle.

Integrated Security

Integrated security was another scenario where almost all the vendors provided basic functionality, but only a few had made it a primary focus. However, based on recent EMA research in both analytics and SecOps, integrated security is a very high-growth opportunity, with surprisingly strong priorities among both operations and security stakeholders for shared data, shared analytics and shared insights.

In evaluating this criterion, we looked for bidirectional security-related toolset integrations for analysis and visualization relevant to SecOps requirements. We also considered appropriate stakeholder support, and proof points in terms of actual deployments.

Change Impact Awareness

It is well known that performance management and change impact awareness go hand in hand. To be "outstanding" in this area, however, requires many fundamentals. Among them are:

■ analytic awareness of changes in performance-related metrics

■ insight into dependencies to see how and where abnormalities are most likely to impact a critical business service

■ insights into change management procedures and histories so that timely correlations can be proactively understood between change histories and performance and availability metrics

In determining a rating for change impact awareness, we also considered integrations with IT service management (ITSM) sources, CMDBs, CMSs, and ADDM capabilities.

Capacity Optimization

We reserved this scenario for those vendors that went a step beyond change impact awareness. In other words, no vendor could excel here without at least being "strong" in change impact awareness. Capacity Optimization featured those vendors with significant integrations with capacity analytics and automation to make all the requisite connections between performance, change, capacity, and, ideally, cost. In multiple research initiatives, we've seen capacity and even cost analytics stand out as a leading priority for AIA — especially when it comes to optimizing the move to cloud.

Business Impact

In the age of digital transformation, little could be more important than energizing the handshake between IT service delivery and business outcomes. In evaluating this criterion, we considered basic strengths in transactional performance and support for business stakeholders. The highest ratings required data and analytics integrating business and IT sources, as well as common dashboard visualizations of business outcomes such as revenue, business process optimization and conversions from competitive websites.

Business Alignment

Business impact factors into business alignment, but data sharing for optimal business alignment also requires reports and visualization that promote IT-to-business dialog along multiple fronts in a current and dynamic way. In evaluating this scenario, we looked at well-defined stakeholder support for business as well as IT stakeholders, well-evolved dashboarding and workflows, and at least some strengths in unifying IT.

Unifying IT

Unifying IT, much like toolset consolidation, is something of a Holy Grail in value when it comes to investing in AIA. Advanced IT analytics can enable a common layer of efficiency that helps to promote better processes, dialog, data sharing, and automation across virtually all of IT — not just operations. Integrations and stakeholder support were paramount for this scenario, as was social IT and mobile support. For proof points, we looked for real-world examples where a wide range of IT stakeholders were in fact beginning to work differently and more effectively together.

Related Links

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Keys to Building a Partner Ecosystem That Scales

I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

How AI Agents Are Reshaping DataOps for the Always-On Enterprise

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

AI Deepfakes: Rethinking Trust in the Workplace

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

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Why ITOps Need Right-Sized AI, Not Bigger Models

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...

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For years, DevOps teams operated under a simple assumption: collect enough telemetry, and you can find and fix any problem. That assumption is breaking down. Modern enterprises now operate across microservices, hybrid cloud environments, APIs, Kubernetes, and highly automated delivery pipelines. Releases happen continuously, dependencies shift constantly, and failures spread faster than teams can diagnose them ...

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Let me start with something I've seen play out more times than I can count. A team hits a wall with the cloud. Costs creep up, then spike. Performance starts to feel inconsistent. Someone in finance asks a simple question like "why did this double?" and nobody has a clean answer ... Maybe this isn't the right place for everything. That realization feels like a breakthrough, like you've identified the problem. In reality, you've just identified the starting line ...

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