10 Steps to Simplifying Systems Management
- Organizational: Steps 1 to 5

1. Start with an inventory of assets. You can't manage anything unless you know what it is you're managing.

2. Affix values to assets. Create a prioritization of assets and understand value, like are they redundant? Are they sitting there as a backup-and-recovery system, etc.

3. Link it back to the business. How do all of these assets deliver services to the business.  Now you will understand what you have.

4. Staff up appropriately. Evaluate competencies and skills to property handle a holistic system management process.  IT leaders need to be honest with themselves in evaluating current staff’s ability to do the job and might even look toward business-side leaders with technology skills to move into the role.

5. Streamline the management duties.  Incorporate proven system management practices, this also helps preserve intellectual property (i.e. more than one person can manage the system).

- Tool Selection: Steps 6 to 10

6. Look for a tool that bridges visibility gaps. The biggest obstacle to systems management as a result of IT fragmentation is the confusion over responsibilities.

7. Seek the most interoperability for your buck. Just about every IT organization in existence today deals with the complications of running a heterogeneous environment.

8. Shop green. Environmentally friendly IT practices are not only signs of solid corporate responsibility, but they also save a lot of green. And one of the easiest ways to effectively diminish power and cooling requirements is to improve systems management practices.

9. The more automation the better.  Reducing the manpower necessary to run systems is the name of the game in systems management, so the tools you choose need to be able to automate both simple and complex tasks. For example, to improve power management, a tool could automatically shut down desktops at quitting time and start them up prior to workers’ arrivals.

10. Finding a Fit. It is absolutely crucial that an organization choose its tool based on whether it is built for the right size of organization and how well it can grow with an organization.

Ultimately, all of these steps fit together to form the backbone of a cohesive systems management process.

Taking a holistic perspective to managing the organization’s infrastructure requires a different approach and one that many IT organizations are not equipped to adopt, they tend to be reactive rather than pro-active.

If you’re an IT manager or executive who is getting pushback from those who hold the purse strings over the purchase of systems management tools, here is your pitch.

Many IT organizations are asked to do more with less in the coming months. According to a recent Butler Group survey, 73 percent of IT staffers expect their budgets to be reduced or remain flat in the coming year.

By managing the technology stack at a higher level, with the ability enable it to manage a wider range of technologies more efficiently, organizations are able to do more with existing staff, while reducing operational cost and expense.