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Most European businesses are reliant on their it systems to drive commercial transactions. Measuring a given business's transactiveness is a useful gauge for looking deeper in to how it systems are managed. Highly transactive businesses are more likely to be using flexible it platforms.
Most European businesses are reliant on their it systems to drive commercial transactions. Measuring a given business's transactiveness is a useful gauge for looking deeper in to how it systems are managed. Highly transactive businesses are more likely to be using flexible it platforms.
Most European businesses are reliant on their it systems to drive commercial transactions. Measuring a given business's transactiveness is a useful gauge for looking deeper in to how it systems are managed. Highly transactive businesses are more likely to be using flexible it platforms.
Are you the Master of the Machines? http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd
It will not come as much surprise that recent Quocirca research 1 shows most European businesses are reliant on their IT systems to drive commercial transactions. However, measuring a given businesss transactiveness (the degree of this reliance) is a useful gauge for looking deeper in to how IT systems are managed to ensure responsiveness and a good customer experience.
The first observation is that highly transactive businesses are more likely to be using flexible IT platforms; that is, virtualisation and on-demand infrastructure (platform and/or infrastructure as a service PaaS/IaaS). A second observation is that this goes hand in hand with a recognition that IT operational intelligence has an important role to play, not just in ensuring IT systems are responsive, but that they are reacting to commercial requirements and that all relevant staff have a view of this.
For the purposes of the research, IT operational intelligence was defined as follows: harnessing machine data to gain real-time insights into operations to access, tune and improve IT and business processes, to identify security threats, highlight performance issues and see emerging customer trends. To get a measure of the capability that the organisations represented by the respondents had in place, an operational intelligence index (OI-index) was created with a range from 0-3. The index measured the capability organisations had to use such intelligence in the following areas:
1. Search and investigate 2. Proactive monitoring 3. Operational visibility 4. Real-time business insights The more capability they had in each area; the higher the overall OI-index value. Scores varied widely, but went up in line with transactiveness and the use of flexible infrastructure. Those organisations using flexible infrastructure as a primary way of deploying IT had an average OI index over 2, whilst for others it was less than 2. In other words, flexible infrastructure provides the business agility needed by transactive businesses but supporting operational intelligence tools are needed to make it all work.
However, it goes well beyond just having the tools in place; as important is the job roles that get to view the intelligence provided. Most provide some level of insight around operational intelligence to IT managers. However, those with a high OI-index are much more likely to go beyond this and provide a view to other job roles including those at board level. This is because they are using IT operational intelligence to provide real time business insights which is of value across an organisation.
Operational intelligence relies on machine data as its raw material and as with any intelligence, it is only as good as the data gathered. The volumes generate by an organisations IT systems can be huge. Over the period of a year, for an average enterprise it can run into billions of data items. This includes things like what data went via which router, who accessed which application and when, the IP addresses, URLs and devices via which web sites are accessed and so on. This makes operational intelligence a big data problem and it fits all the 5 Vs definition of big data well.
These are v for volume as described above; v for variety, covering the range of sources, with their
Are you the Master of the Machines? http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd
wide variety of formats. If machine data can be used in near real time, it gives v for velocity; and it can add lots of v for value to operational decision making. All of which gets an organisation closer to the truth about what is happening behind the scenes on their IT systems; the last v for veracity. Machine data is what it is; you cannot hide from the facts that analysing it exposes.
That said, much is missed, even those with a maximum OI-index only gather machine data from about 65% of their IT infrastructure; for those with a very low index it is about 15%. Clearly, something is missing to deliver the vision even among the most capable and ambitious and that turns out to be the supporting tools which are often not up to the job.
Mostly, organisations are relying on general purpose business intelligence tools, backed with an assortment of spreadsheets and general purpose databases. Only 27% use purpose built tools; however, those that have implemented specialist tools do gather considerably greater volumes of machine data and will therefore have access to better operational intelligence.
For many it is early days; those with specialist tools in place will extend their use to improve machine data capture the resulting intelligence gathering. The reach of the tools use has to include on-demand IT resources as well as those deployed in-house as the most transactive businesses turn more and more to flexible infrastructure to ensure a great user experience and maintain competitive edge.
1 Quocircas report Masters of Machines is freely available to readers of The Stack at the following link http://www.splunk.com/goto/masters_of_machin es_whitepaper
This article first appeared on The Stack: http://www.thestack.com/are-you-the- master-of-the-machines
Are you the Master of the Machines? http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd
About Quocirca Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the views of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real- world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry and its real usage in the markets.
Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption the personal and political aspects of an organisations environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value in any implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables Quocirca to advise on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises.
Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocircas mission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time.
Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITC products and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of long term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community.
Quocirca works with global and local providers of ITC products and services to help them deliver on the promise that ITC holds for business. Quocircas clients include Oracle, IBM, CA, O2, T-Mobile, HP, Xerox, Ricoh and Symantec, along with other large and medium sized vendors, service providers and more specialist firms.
Full access to all of Quocircas public output (reports, articles, presentations, blogs and videos) can be made at http://www.quocirca.com