It's all about the CMIS - Challenges (7 of 9)

As with everything there are going to be some challenges but get it right and there will be benefits too. I've outlined these below:

Challenges

Capturing from multiple data sources and across the enterprise

You’ll need to interact with the different departments and sources to explain or convince them why you need the data.

·        Siloed databases

·        3^rd party sources

Capturing data at the correct level and interpreting

Are you able to capture the data at the correct level and ensure that it includes all the necessary components that you need to report on i.e. vCenter data that encompasses all parts of the VMware infrastructure?

Successfully synchronising the data

Data will need to be synchronised, to establish consistency among data from its source to the CMIS. You need to piece together component, service and business data for the same granularity and date and time to provide a fuller more accurate picture of service usage.

·        Date/time, intervals

Relating Business, Service and component elements

Successfully piecing together component, service and business data for the individual elements that make up the service including incorporating the relationships between them using information from CMDBs, provided of course that the information within the CMDB is up-to-date.

Benefits

Overcoming the challenges of implementing a CMIS and populating with data will provide many noticeable benefits to the business outweighing these challenges.

Improved accuracy – being able to sift through the data and analyse for patterns of activity and seasonality will improve the accuracy of the reports produced and delivered to key stakeholders.

Meaningful thresholds – analysis of a typical period allows you to establish ‘normal’ behaviour for a system and set meaningful thresholds accordingly.

Enable the capacity portal –the CMIS underpins the whole capacity management process which includes the capacity portal and undertaking the valuable capacity management techniques.  Having the data available in logical single location provides centralised reporting into the portal which is accessible to authorised users across the web. 

Underpin valuable capacity management techniques

·        Modelling

·        Tuning

·        Demand Management

On Friday I'll be looking at how you can provide some chargeback but don't forget to take a look at our Resources, for some great white papers and on-demand webinars.

https://www.metron-athene.com/resources/index.asp 

Jamie Baker

Principal Consultant