By Michael Allen *
In search of more flexible and adjustable structures, it is increasingly common to see companies adopting environments based on Hybrid Clouds. But while the cloud offers the agility that companies today want, it must also be said that the ever-changing nature of this technology model has also had its consequences. The biggest one, undoubtedly, is the unprecedented increase in levels of complexity for the management of IT networks - which has meant that traditional network monitoring strategies are almost always unable to provide practical answers about what really is happening within operations.
To reverse this scenario, in the past two years, IT teams have identified a new opportunity for performance management through the tools of AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations). These solutions use Artificial Intelligence to analyze and track monitoring data, helping IT teams to understand with much more precision and agility all the infinity of alerts issued by a network, eliminating false positives and identifying which problems need to be prioritized.
According to recent surveys, the global market for AIOps platforms is expected to grow from US$ 2.5 billion in 2018 to US$ 11 billion by 2023. According to Gartner, 25% of companies will have an AIOps platform supporting two or more important IT operations until the end of next year. However, it is worth saying that the use of Artificial Intelligence should not be the only measure to be taken to ensure the success of performance monitoring and analysis actions. In order to obtain the real potential of these tools, organizations cannot see Artificial Intelligence as just another “in-the-machine” cog in the operation of the company's technology infrastructure. Conditions must be created and developed to the point of generating practical benefits for the operation as a whole.
AIOps tools should be able to provide an accurate determination of the root of the problems, rather than just displaying alerts that need to be examined. Therefore, it is essential that AIOps has a holistic view of the IT environment. Only then will you be able to receive relevant data and contextualize alerts using performance metrics from across the IT stack. Integration with other monitoring resources, therefore, is a fundamental part of the successful adoption of AIOps tools, ensuring that there are no gaps in visibility and that problems can be understood and resolved more quickly. It is worth remembering, in this case, that AIOps tools are as good as the data that is fed and maximizing access to information is vital to the success of these applications.
For AIOps solutions to be effective solutions that make life easier for IT teams, these tools need to be part of a complete performance management approach. Adopting this more integrated approach will allow IT teams to not only find and track problems automatically, but also to create true software intelligence that can respond to these problems in real time.
Achieving this potential and simplifying IT operations, providing a more efficient organization, should be the ultimate goal of AIOps applications for organizations. When done well, the software intelligence enabled by these solutions can be used to generate greater efficiency in the control of automated businesses, automatic correction of processes and self-correction of network failures. Finally, the use of these tools can allow the transition to autonomous operations, in which Hybrid Cloud environments can adapt dynamically, and in real time, to optimize the performance of end users, without the need for human intervention. As a result, problems can be resolved before users realize that there has been a failure.
This AI-based automation will fuel the next wave of digitization and truly transform IT operations. However, it is not possible to achieve this real success by joining a mixed set of monitoring tools and an AIOps solution in an IT network set up like Frankenstein, with different technologies, languages and processes. Companies need a new holistic approach to performance management, with options that combine the presentation of insights and full visibility of the Cloud infrastructure, with digital experience management and AIOps capabilities.
Adopting this approach will help deliver on AIOps' true promise by providing answers to IT instead of just more data. As a result, IT teams will be freed up to invest more time in innovation projects that differentiate businesses from competitors, instead of focusing their efforts on keeping the lights on.
* Michael Allen is VP Worldwide Partners for Dynatrace
Warning: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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