Hitachi White Paper Sample

Traditionally, tools for monitoring and managing resources in the data center have been specific to operational domains — servers, storage, applications, network and so forth. The problem with this approach is that the tools are often not integrated. While each tool may be effective and useful for the specific domain in which it operates, there is no one tool that provides insight into how all the resources operate together and impact each other. These tools lack the comprehensive view of overall performance in the data center — and have no way to detect the cause of interconnected problems and issues.

The consequence of this siloed approach to systems management is that it can make it difficult to acquire insight into performance and availability among interdependent resources. To get a comprehensive view across data center resources of trends that might alert you to problems on the horizon, you not only need multiple tools, but you may also need multiple specialized staff members to use them, and to coordinate the results into one meaningful view. This can be nearly impossible to accomplish working with a minimal staff of IT generalists. Without a single view, your IT staff may end up constantly being forced to operate in a reactive mode, providing support only after problems already have occurred.

A related problem is that more tools require more training. In a midsized environment staffed by a small group of IT generalists, this is no small concern.