In APMdigest's exclusive interview, Colin Fletcher, Research Director at Gartner, talks about Algorithmic IT Operations (AIOps) and how it will impact ITOA (IT Operations Analytics) and APM (Application Performance Management).
APM: For the readers who are unfamiliar, what is AIOps?
CF: Algorithmic IT operations (AIOps) platforms utilize big data, modern machine learning and other advanced analytics technologies to directly and indirectly enhance all primary IT operations functions with proactive, personal and dynamic insight. AIOps platforms enable the concurrent use of multiple data sources, data collection methods, analytical technologies (real-time and deep) and presentation technologies. AIOps platforms represent the evolving and expanded use of technologies previously categorized as IT operations analytics (ITOA).
APM: What advantages can IT Ops gain from AIOps?
CF: I find it is really useful when looking at how you or your operations team can take advantage of predictive, machine learning-enhanced tools to think in terms of how they assist and/or augment your current capabilities. The ideal state or ultimate goal of an AIOps investment is a platform that is capable of continuously, proactively generating insights that are used in support any number of internal and external customers. While AIOps has tremendous potential to deliver on use cases that stretch well beyond core IT operations functions, to date we've seen enterprises get real, tangible value using AIOps platforms to:
■ Make the holy grail vision of a "single pane of glass" a reality across multiple technology stacks and generations most often in support of root cause analysis
■ Rapidly support new digital business initiatives and their accompanying use of the latest disruptive technologies (containers, microservices, IoT, etc.) at scale
■ Achieve the long sought after goal of automated, sustainable, scalable, and most importantly, useful event correlation that works to reduce alert noise/fatigue and speed diagnosis
APM: How does AIOps enable you to get more from your existing data?
CF: To put it as simply as possible, AIOps provides for many a more practical way to get multiple data sources into one platform and apply multiple analytical technologies to that data in an automated fashion to discover the relationships and patterns that lie undiscovered in previously isolated data. This is particularly true in the case of utilizing IT operational data in combination with data generated by applications or infrastructure normally outside of IT's operational visibility. To be clear, this is not to say that this has somehow not been possible previously, of course it has been, but in most cases prior to AIOps, it was cost prohibitive or technically challenging to do so.
APM: Does AIOPs augment or support APM?
CF: Currently AIOps is typically used to supplement APM use cases and/or tooling by providing a much more practical and in some cases cost effective means of filling in the gap between what data is being collected directly by the APM tool and the rest of the supporting applications, infrastructure, security, service, customer/business operational, and configuration data that is rarely directly integrated or utilized in APM tools. This is due in large part to AIOps' emphasis on providing the ability to continuously deliver insights from multiple data sources regardless of the mechanism used to collect the data.
APM: Does AIOps support DevOps?
CF: DevOps teams and particularly application developers gravitate to AIOps tools naturally in their search for data-driven (as opposed to instrumentation-driven) insight to their particular application's behavior.
Many DevOps teams also cite the "democratic" or "agnostic" or "open" nature of AIOps tools that from day one are assumed to be integrated with "something or multiple somethings" to deliver combinative value as well as their genuine support of experimentation and creative use of data for purposes beyond problem solving as reasons for using AIOps tools.
Most frequently we see DevOps teams using AIOps to monitor application and infrastructure performance, troubleshoot issues, and provide dashboards and reporting across entire toolchains that consist of multiple tools used in both development (CI, Test, ARA) and operations (monitoring, CD/Release/Configuration).
The Latest
As cloud computing continues to grow, tech pros say they are increasingly prioritizing areas like hybrid infrastructure management, application performance management (APM), and security management to optimize delivery for the organizations they serve, according to SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2020: The Universal Language of IT ...
Businesses see digital experience as a growing priority and a key to their success, with execution requiring a more integrated approach across development, IT and business users, according to Digital Experiences: Where the Industry Stands ...
Fully 90% of those who use observability tooling say those tools are important to their team's software development success, including 39% who say observability tools are very important ...
As our production application systems continuously increase in complexity, the challenges of understanding, debugging, and improving them keep growing by orders of magnitude. The practice of Observability addresses both the social and the technological challenges of wrangling complexity and working toward achieving production excellence. New research shows how observable systems and practices are changing the APM landscape ...
The enforced change to working from home (WFH) has had a massive impact on businesses, not just in the way they manage their employees and IT systems. As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, enterprise IT teams are looking to answer key questions such as: Which applications have become more critical for working from home? ...
In ancient times — February 2020 — EMA research found that more than 50% of IT leaders surveyed were considering new ITSM platforms in the near future. The future arrived with a bang as IT organizations turbo-pivoted to deliver and support unprecedented levels and types of services to a global workplace suddenly working from home ...
The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the world. From augmented reality advanced analytics to new consumer solutions, IoT and the cloud are together redefining both how we work and how we engage with our audiences. They are changing how we live, as well ...
Despite IT professionals' confidence in their ability to support today's much greater dependence on digital services, there is a rise in application performance errors reported by more than half of consumers, according to the Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Transformation survey from xMatters ...
The new normal includes not only periodic recurrences of Covid-19 outbreaks but also the periodic emergence of new global pandemics. This means putting in place at least three layers of digital business continuity practice ...
