In a previous post, I discussed different management systems integration types: data layer integration, functional integration, event integration and presentation layer integration. RapidInsight provides presentation layer integration functionalities as described in the post.
Problem:
You have number of different management tools for different management disciplines (fault mgmt, configuration & change mgmt, service desk, etc.), and technologies (Unix, Windows, LAN, WAN, Applications, etc.). Yet services you provide span multiple technologies and platforms, and you need to provide information to internal/external customers about the services they use. We'll consider can think about the scenario described in this post to understand what type of information you may need to provide to your users.
- Distribution
You can't give install the client for each management tool for every user/customer that needs access to information, that's for sure. But wait, these tools have web based clients so you don't have to install the clients, customers can use the web based client. One down, what other problems are there? - Training and support
The customers may be able to access to each of the management tools using a web browser, but the client for each management tool still provides a different user interface? Can the customers just "use" the clients? or do they need training? Are you geared to provide support to large number of users trying to figure out how to use the tools? - User identification and authentication
Will the user be able to use all tools with a single username and password? How will this work, will you need to synchronize the usernames and password among all the tools? May be you can user and external authentication system (like LDAP) for all tools? Can you? Will you use a single sign-on solution to be able to identify and authenticate each user? Does the single sing-on solution support all the management tools you have? - Authorization
Does the client for each management tool have sufficient user access levels to ensure the users can only do what they are supposed to be able to? (Assuming you're able to implement consistent user access levels for each of the tools). - Consistency, flow of information and usability
Will the user be able to find the related information from each of the tools easily? For example, when there is a problem, will the user need to navigate monitoring UI to see the events, then go to ticketing UI to see the related tickets and then to the change management UI to see related configuration changes? Will the user need to "remember" information while navigating from one UI to the next?
Solution:
As stated above, there are many challenges when implementing a solution to provide IT operations management information to the customers/users. Integration in the presentation layer (philosophy that is embraced by RapidInsight solution) is the pragmatic approach to provide IT operations management information to internal and external customers, avoiding the problems discussed above. I can summarize the philosophy as the following:
- The user interface should present the information to business users and customers in the context they are familiar with and not necessarily how the information is presented by different management tools.
- The native clients of the management tools are often not suitable for the business users and customers as
they are often designed for the heavy, more technical users in mind. - Business users and customers typically need to have access to a small subset of the data (that is relevant to them) and the functionality provided by the native clients of the management tools. The user interface should only provide the necessary, relevant data and functionality and nothing more to minimize/eliminate training need and support requirements.
- Projects often fail or not get completed on time due to complex web of dependencies among different initiatives. Implementation of the solution should not have dependencies to implementation of other projects or functionality/architecture not yet available.
- The user interface should take advantage of the advancements in the rich internet applications (RIA) technologies (ajax, flash, etc.), focus on usability and not replicating the functionalities provided by full clients.
- The solution should not have an all or nothing approach and provide an incremental improvement path when feasible.
Following this philosophy, RapidInsight provides collection of information from different management tools, in-house databases, commercial systems, etc. on-demand or continuously through use of adapters. RapidInsight server gathers the data and send the data in standard XML format where the data is presented in uniform UI components. For example, real-time and historical events from the monitoring system, change records, configuration data for the related devices, and the performance data can all be presented in a consistent manner, allowing the user to move from one to the other seamlessly.
