IT Process Automation Blog

Let’s face it. Many business processes depend on the successful manipulation of files and get stuck or fail if something goes wrong with even a single file along the way.

Now, while most ‘file automation’ programs help you with simple file manipulations (moving files, deleting files, etc.), a business environment usually requires more sophistication. Here’s a real life example.

One of our clients in the insurance industry has a business process where it received zip files via ftp from insurance agents. Zip files contain incident data (photos of damaged cars etc.) which needs to be extracted and moved to different back end system.

The file automation problem begins when a zip file is corrupted and cannot be opened – something which causes the entire business process to get stuck and fail. Since the backend legacy system was lacking a log file, even identifying the event was not that obvious.

Our customer used eyeShare, our IT process automation tool to resolve this issue. eyeShare validates the time stamp on zip files. If the time stamp is over 2 hours (indicates the file could not be opened), it triggers an automated workflow in eyeShare, which sends notification via text message, and performs several corrective activities.
Why didn’t the customer use scripting? Two reasons. First, time saving — the ability to implement the required logic without writing a line of code, simply by dragging pre-build logic activities. The second reason is complexity — the need to automate several corrective activities (including alerts and notifications), plus handling legacy systems, which would require complex script writing and integration capabilities.

So if we try to generalize, what’s needed many times is a combination of two capabilities: a sophisticated watchdog that can monitor and respond to a wide range of file events; and high-level process automation ‘skills’ in order to perform any number of activities across different systems when certain conditions are met. So for example, you’d want a mix and match capabilities such as the table below:

photo credit: andercismo

A nice article i would recommend you to read:

IT as a Service Broker – Adopting a Hybrid Delivery Model — The “cloud era” of information technology is upon us. Connectivity is pervasive and everyone and everything is connected. Readily available, low-cost, Internet-based services providing access to new capabilities and infinite amounts of information have given rise to a new set of experiences and expectations for technology users. Furthermore, a new generation is entering the workforce, one that has grown up with technology at their fingertips, one that expects immediate gratification and instant results and one that is ambivalent to traditional IT controls. These tech-savvy business users are mixing the technology experiences from their consumer lives with those of their profession to morph into a new “prosumer” workforce. And they are able to drive game-changing innovation without a dependence on IT intervention. This is the reality of the cloud computing economy; it’s the forcing function behind the creation of new goods and services, new business models, new routes to market, and new ways of engaging customers. Simply put, cloud services are the enablers for the next frontier in business and government, one where technology-enabled services are easily sourced and woven into the enterprise fabric. However, cloud sourcing can also introduce new levels of complexity and business risk without the appropriate levels of integration and governance. This has given rise to a new class of service provider – the cloud service broker.

IT as a Service Broker – Adopting a Hybrid Delivery Model

Tel Aviv, Israel and San Francisco, CA — May 23, 2011 — Ayehu Software, provider of the first Unified Incident Management solution, today announced the expansion of its North American operations with the appointment of two US-based executives, and the live deployment of its solution at US-based customer, Conduit.

Unified Incident Management is a multi-dimensional approach that allows IT professional to orchestrate and effectively manage all activities related to the resolution of IT incidents. This includes automating problem resolution processes, automatic assignment and enforcement of problem ownership, human-machine workflows that combine computerized procedures with remote IT personnel decisions, audit trails, statistics, and executive dashboards for managing the entire incident resolution process.

The two new executives joining Ayehu include Ronit Belson and Yori Lavi, who will jointly manage Ayehu’s US operations. Ronit Belson, previously a Senior VP at OpTier, is a seasoned business development executive with rich experience in forming strategic collaborations. Yori Lavi brings with him more than 25 years of high-tech industry experience and was previously founder and CEO of OpTier.

“These new appointments are part of our continued investment in the US market,” said Gabby Nizri, Ayehu CEO. “The solid background and leadership skills of both Ronit and Yori, combined with their vision, team building and execution skills will offer immediate benefits to our customers and will help us grow our US business.

Additionally, Ayehu announced that its flagship product, eyeShare, was deployed at Conduit, the largest network of web and mobile app publishers with over 260,000 members and 230 million end-users. The Conduit IT team passes all monitoring events of its mission-critical data center through eyeShare to automate problem resolution processes, as well as perform routine IT tasks.
“We have multiple monitoring tools covering our data center, but eyeShare is really the umbrella that presides over our entire incident resolution process” says Yaron Weiss, Head of Operatios at Conduit. “It has drastically reduced our recovery time from system failures, as well as freed our IT staff to work on other assignments.”

eyeShare is successfully deployed at a wide range of organizations – including enterprises, medium businesses, and SaaS based companies, who run lean IT operations with limited resources. eyeShare is designed to handle complex distributed IT environments, including virtualized and cloud computing, and allows IT organizations to cut manual work, reduces Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR), and mitigates IT risks.

About Ayehu
Ayehu Software Technologies Ltd. develops and markets eyeShare, a lightweight, enterprise-grade product for unified incident management. Deployed at major enterprises and supporting thousands of business users, Ayehu eyeShare helps IT professionals identify and resolve critical incidents up to 90 percent faster, minimizing their impact to the business and saving time for IT operations teams. Established in 2007, Ayehu is a privately-owned company based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit www.ayehu.com.

About Conduit
Conduit is the largest network of Web and mobile app publishers, with over 260,000 members and their 230 million end-users. The Conduit Network empowers publishers – from global brands to independent developers – to create, exchange and distribute apps, and to collaborate through business partnerships. Conduit enables publishers to seamlessly encapsulate content and deploy it everywhere, from Web browsers and Community Toolbars to mobile devices across all platforms. Publishers can distribute and exchange their apps directly, or through the Conduit App Marketplace. Conduit-powered apps enhance engagement, retention and monetization beyond the boundaries of the publisher’s website. With Conduit, global brands including Major League Baseball, Time Warner Cable, Univision, Chelsea Football Club, Fox News, iVillage, Groupon, Travelocity, and TechCrunch are marketing themselves online – along with hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized organizations in more than 120 countries around the world.

Press Contact
Ronit Belson, Managing Director
Ayehu Software Technologies Ltd.
Headquarter, Los Altos, CA
Phone: (650) 877-2121
Email: ronit.belson@ayehu.com

Clal Insurance Automates Critical Incident Management, Cutting Operations Costs, Saving Time and Reducing Mean Time to Recovery

Ayehu Software, provider of automated solutions for critical incident management in IT operations, announced today that its flagship product, eyeShare, has enabled Clal Insurance to dramatically cut the recovery time of its mission critical business portal.

Clal Insurance, Israel’s leading insurance, pension, and financial services group, serves thousands of insurance agents using a web-based financial portal. The portal’s recurring system failures resulted in business losses and dissatisfied customers; system recovery, which was based on manual procedures, was long and unpredictable and tied up critical IT staff.

“Once we started using eyeShare, portal recovery time fell by over 90% and we have dramatically reduced lost business,” said Haim Inger, Clal’s CTO. eyeShare’s Rule Engine identifies portal failures and automatically triggers the most appropriate problem-resolution workflow. eyeShare sends notifications via SMS and email to the responsible IT manager, who takes ownership of the problem. The workflow proceeds by automatically executing pre-defined recovery tasks, pausing at specific decision points to receive remote instructions from the IT person – for example, whether to restart an application service. “As a result of our experience, all new IT systems are now implemented on eyeShare prior to going into production,” adds Mr. Inger.

eyeShare is a lightweight, off-the shelf product focused on IT critical incident management. Integrating with existing monitoring systems like CA Unicenter, HP, IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol and Nagios, eyeShare identifies critical incidents, ensures someone takes immediate ownership, and automates recovery steps under the guidance of the problem owner. eyeShare cuts manual work for IT operations staff, reduces operational costs, reduces Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR), and mitigates IT risks.

Designed to handle complex distributed IT environments with multiple systems, remote servers, and virtualization, eyeShare speeds up problem resolution through:

– A Rule Engine that captures symptoms and activates an incident-resolution workflow
– A Shift Management module that defines responsibilities and escalation procedures
– A Bi-Directional Notifications Engine that ensures someone takes ownership of an incident, and receives human input and control where necessary
– Workflows that execute the problem resolution process across multiple systems – automating pre-defined procedures, guided by a human operator
– A Task Automation Library, enabling easy automation of incident resolution steps
– An Executive Dashboard for full transparency and in-depth reporting

To learn about best practices for cutting IT critical incident recovery time, download the free eyeShare white paper at http://www.ayehu.com/Downloads/WhitePaper.html

In this section we present best practices which address all the inefficiencies in the problem resolution/critical maintenance process, allowing you to substantially reduce Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) in your IT organization. Some of these guidelines are easy to implement; some are more complex and require planning and supporting technology.

In the next section (pg. 9), we discuss Ayehu eyeShare, an IT solution that allows you to fully implement all four of these best practices in one simple, off-the-shelf product.

#1: Turn Expert Knowledge into Diagnosis Rules

Instead of relying on experts to diagnose problems in real time, which turns these experts into a bottleneck, you can make the expert knowledge available in real time. Specify rules that clearly answer these questions:

• Which combination of symptoms indicates that the problem occurred?
• How to validate that the problem really occurred?
• Which solution is appropriate for this type of problem?

These rules must be readily available, so that as soon as a problem occurs, it is immediately clear what the problem is and what type of solution is appropriate.

For example: The problem—high risk of server downtime due to disk raid malfunction. The diagnosis rule—if event logs for the past 6 hours show symptoms of disk failure in 2 out of 3 disks in the array, the problem is about to occur. The solution—repair or replace the malfunctioning disks.

#2: Define Problem Ownership and Escalation in Advance

When a problem occurs, operations staff spend time seeking an owner for the problem. To save this time and speed problem resolution, you should define the following in advance:

• A shift schedule, specifying which staff members are on call at any given time of day, and what types of problems each of them can handle.
• Escalation paths, for cases in which staff are unavailable or unable to take responsibility for a problem.

The next step is to find a way to immediately notify staff according to the schedule when a problem occurs—this allows you to find an owner for the problem immediately.

For example: The website is down at 7pm—the person who receives the alert checks the shift schedule, and sees that the engineers on call are John and Andrew. The schedule specifies that only John handles website downtime problems. An SMS is sent to John, requesting that he takes ownership of the problem. If John does not respond, the problem is escalated—an SMS is sent to Sarah, John’s boss, requesting that she take ownership.

#3: Document the Full Resolution Process

To streamline the problem solving work itself, and make sure IT staff are able to capitalize on previous knowledge and experience, document and integrate the full resolution process for each problem:

• Clearly spell out all the operations needed to resolve the problem, from start to finish.
• Document decision junctions during the process, what the decision should be based on, and resolution steps for each possible decision.
• Test the documented process, by watching an inexperienced operator using it to solve the problem.
• Make sure the documentation is available at the time and place the problem occurs.

#4: Automate Problem Resolution Steps

Automation addresses two problems in the problem resolution process—slow manual execution of problem resolution tasks, and human errors. Any process you automate will run faster and will be less error-prone. You should strive to:

• Automate any step in the resolution process that is predetermined and does not require manual intervention or human judgment. In Ayehu’s experience, over 80% of problem resolution steps can be automated.
• Simple forks in the process such as “if the server is up, do X, if not, do Y” can and should be automated, unless there is a complex decision that a human being really needs to make.
• Use scripts to automate simple tasks, which do not require complex interactions between machines.
• Investigate automation solutions to automate complex tasks—today’s process automation technology can integrate with numerous systems and perform broad, cross-cutting operations.
• Give human operators full control—automatic processes should stop and wait for human input when they reach an important decision junction. Human operators should be able to easily oversee and abort any automatic process.

For example: Automate Microsoft IIS service recovery process—an automatic process can be designed, which starts by pinging the web server to confirm that it is up. If server is up, and system Telnet port 80 is working, the process checks status of IIS services, and returns the status to relevant IT staff. If server is down or Telnet port 80 not working, the process reports this. The automatic process could ask whether to restart the server, and do this automatically upon receiving a response.

Ayehu eyeShare is the first off-the-shelf product that manages and automates IT problem resolution and critical maintenance tasks. It incorporates all of the four best practices we mentioned above, allowing you to speed up problem diagnosis, immediately locate an owner for a problem, guide problem resolution using a structured workflow, and automate routine tasks…

There are five inherent inefficiencies in the way most IT organizations resolve problems and perform critical maintenance tasks. Each one of these inefficiencies causes IT staff to spend more time on problem resolution, and increases Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR). Thus, each of them also represents an opportunity for increased productivity and faster recovery.

• Non-expert diagnosis—there is usually someone in the organization who knows to diagnose and solve a given problem. But chances are that when the problem occurs, that expert is not around, and there is usually no comprehensive process documentation which explains how to solve the problem. Often a non-expert needs to decide which problem occurred and how to solve it—they might contact the wrong people or perform the wrong resolution steps, causing needless delay.
• Can’t find an owner for the problem—when a problem occurs, someone needs to take responsibility and make the tough decisions. It takes precious minutes to get someone on the line, and then it often turns out they’re unable or unwilling to take ownership of the problem. The search for an owner can sometimes take hours.
• No structured process—when somebody starts working on resolving the problem, they usually don’t have a step-by-step process to guide them. Even the best troubleshooter on your team might miss an important step or go off in a wrong direction—particularly when under pressure and at unusual hours—further stretching time to recovery.
• Slow manual resolution—even the right expert, performing the right steps to resolve the problem, might take a very long time to do it manually. If the problem requires checking memory and restarting a service on 9 remote servers, this will take plenty of time for any human operator.
• Prone to human error—it only takes a typo in a command-line operation to bring critical systems to their knees. Human errors are always possible, but much more likely when staff are responding to immediate problems under pressure. What’s more, staff might take actions that solve the problem immediately, without realizing broader implications, such as risk to peripheral or dependent systems.

Existing Solutions are Not Enough
Many IT organizations use monitoring systems, script automation and ITIL-style documented workflows to improve the problem resolution process. But these solutions cannot solve the inefficiencies we list above—as explained below.

Monitoring
(such as CA Unicenter, HP, IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol, Nagios)

• Reports symptoms
• Reports root causes
• Performs simple tasks automatically (e.g. restarting a service)

Why It’s Not Enough
Cannot solve severe problems, which require troubleshooting and tricky, multi-step resolution. So human intervention and manual problem resolution are still needed.

Scripts and batches

• Automating tasks on a single machine
• Automating tasks in simple P2P scenarios
• On-demand or scheduled execution

Why It’s Not Enough
Cannot deal with complex environments with multiple nodes, virtualization, remote servers, etc. It’s very difficult to write a script that will run on numerous machines with interdependencies. So many tasks are too complex to automate with scripts.

ITIL and documented workflows

• Creates a central, standard knowledge base for problem resolution
• Clarifies risks and important considerations
• Reduces human error

Why It’s Not Enough
Not there at 3:00am—when a critical problem occurs, the procedure is not on hand and there’s no time to read complex flowcharts to find the solution. IT staff will simply do something immediately to solve the problem.

IT operations staff spend a huge portion of their time resolving urgent problems like system downtime, performance, and network availability, or performing critical maintenance tasks. As IT environment get more virtualized and more complex, problems take longer and longer to resolve. The burden of these urgent tasks, combined with today’s tight budgets, make it difficult for IT operations to work on key initiatives that add business value.

In the next posts i will cover the following:

• The Challenge of IT Problem Resolution
• Why Do Problems Take So Long to Resolve?
• 4 Ways to Cut Problem Resolution Time
• Solution that makes these 4 steps easy

The Challenge of IT Problem Resolution
IT operations departments are expected to innovate and deliver business value, but IT operations staff spend a large portion of their time resolving problems with critical systems and performing critical maintenance tasks. With so many resources invested in these urgent activities, there is little time left for initiatives that add business value.

Are You Fighting Fires or Adding Value?
In today’s IT organizations, IT operations departments are at the forefront of innovation. Key initiatives such as virtualization, cloud computing, IT modernization, ITIL implementation, and IT compliances (e.g. SOX)—all of which have a huge impact on IT productivity and agility—are the responsibility of operations.
But do operations staff really have the time to make these big steps forward?

It is a common experience among operations staff that urgent problems push aside other important tasks. A large portion of the time is spent resolving problems—such as system downtime, performance of critical systems, and network availability—and performing critical maintenance of the same systems, leaving relatively few resources for key initiatives, strategy and planning, and even regular ongoing maintenance.

This makes it very difficult for IT operations to keep CIOs and CEOs happy—to do more than just “keep the wheels turning,” by delivering real business value.

Two Trends That Will Make the Problem WorseForrester Research identifies two trends that will adversely affect IT operations’ ability to resolve problems while leaving time for other activities:

• Increased complexity of the IT environment—virtualization and cloud computing introduce “a new layer of infrastructure complexity”; a complex infrastructure means problems are getting more complex to identify and troubleshoot, and require more time to resolve. Critical maintenance tasks are also more difficult than ever.
• Economic pressures and accelerated trend to productivity—IT organizations are required to do more with less, and “business satisfaction with IT seems to be at an all-time low.” With less manpower and increased pressure to deliver value, IT operations departments are starving for resources.

Clearly, a solution is needed that will make problem resolution processes more efficient. This is the only way to reduce the burden on operations teams, and free up time for more valuable work. The rest of this paper discusses ways to achieve this in your organization.

To be continued…

Ayehu Adds Automation-based Enhancements for Call Center – IVR systems.

Ayehu Software Technologies Provider of IT Automation Software has announced the addition of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) capabilities to its Ayehu eyeShare IT Process Automation Solution.

The new solution is based on the Ayehu eyeShare Automation engine that enables users who are running Customer Service Centers, Call Centers and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems to design and implement automated problem diagnosis and resolution solutions, to monitor caller experience and IVR flows and to improve service availability and customer experience.

“The reality is that most IVR performance problems today are caused by the back-end platform, network, server and operating system (hardware and software platforms) on which IVR solutions run”, says Gabby Nizri, CEO of Ayehu.

According to Nizri, these problems are directly affecting the quality and the availability of IVR systems which are commonly discovered and reported by the customers who are using IVR services. “With Ayehu eyeShare for IVR, businesses can change that experience without the need for employing expensive human resources”.

Nizri said that Ayehu is delivering state-of-the-art technology together with good user experience through automation solution that makes it easier for everyone.

The Ayehu eyeShare for IVR includes automation capabilities to monitor IVR user call flow. Along with the eyeShare workflow designer, which allows you to build Automated Runbook Automation for Diagnosis and Recovery flows in real-time, it also has features such as Speech Recognition, flow recording, reporting and analytics.

Leveraging eyeShare automation capabilities, the solution also enables customer’s IVR systems to integrate with other applications and system management tools, such as Service Desks, Monitoring Systems and enterprise applications to improve system availability and user experience.

For more information please visit Ayehu website at http://www.ayehu.com

We all face three IT Process Automation imperatives that have a major impact on business profitability:

• Deploying innovative services (which have increased system complexity)
• Maintaining service levels and improving system uptime
• Reducing operating costs (which have grown in parallel with the growth in IT system complexity)

Given these challenges, Run Book Automation (aka IT Process Automation) offers the opportunity to enable significant gains on all three fronts.

Why Complexity is a Good Thing Again
Over the years, we’ve been attacking the word ‘complexity’: The implication was that complexity was unnecessary, difficult to manage, and thus needlessly expensive. But today, we are achieving fantastic savings in capital expenses while increasing flexibility. Solutions such as virtualization and cloud computing, security, network management are smart and robust, yet (unavoidably) complex in their very nature.

So the battle for IT can now be targeted not necessarily at ‘reducing complexity’, but rather on ‘improving the efficiency’ of managing across the variety of complex IT domains. In other words, the goal is to achieve consistent service levels, higher quality of offerings and cost optimization.

IT Process Automation is the Key
Till now, each of the various IT systems has been optimized in and of itself… But we haven’t yet optimized the day-to-day operational activity and troubleshooting diagnostic steps that keeps these systems working together. As much as we all want to believe that our environment can become one well-greased machine that requires no human interaction, it just isn’t a reality. This is not because we haven’t figured out how to get people out of the loop. It is because in most cases, people are an integral part of that loop!

But having people in the loop doesn’t mean everything needs to be rote, manual actions. Run Book Automation has emerged on the scene specifically to meet this challenge.

A Run Book Automation Example
Let’s demonstrate with an example. It’s perhaps the simplest of examples, which you’ve been through one or two or a thousand times. (If not, then congratulations. You are the only IT manager in the world whose users know how to manage their passwords.)

• A user forgets his/her PC workstation login password (most likely at 7am or noon rush hour, when you have no time for that)
• He/she calls IT Support to request a password reset. (“Urgent!” of course…)
• IT Admin goes through a handful of steps:

1. Bring up the pwd reset screen
2. Access the security protocol screen
3. Challenge the user with identity verification
4. Authorize the pwd reset
5. Guide the user in how to proceed

While password reset has become fully automated on most external websites, corporate security protocols typically do not allow for full process automation of internal password management. (And rightfully so, I might add.) So any attempt to fully automate the process is dead in the water.
But why throw out the baby with the bathwater? If an automation platform does the routine work for us, but still allows for two-way communication with the IT admin, we can turn 10 minute tasks into 30 second tasks (done on the go, from your Blackberry or iPhone)! And without adding even a drop of additional risk or corporate policy violation.

What Should a Run Book Automation Solution Provide?
The above example looks at a very simple IT task, which is very compact in comparison to most of our IT processes. But it still highlights the capabilities that a good Run Book Automation solution needs to bring to the table. It’s quite simple:

• Event-driven visual workflow (No coding, just drag and drop and plain common sense!)
• Rule-based engine
• Plug-and-play integration with IT platforms
• Bi-directional communication between the system and the people, using convenient channels (email, SMS, IVR, IM)
• Centralized dashboard for process management in real time

I think that Glenn O’Donnell of Forrester says it best when he says “Be the automator, not the automated”. Run Book Automation recognizes that people are part of the IT process. So let’s accept this reality, and use it as a strength, via Run Book Automation.

May 16, 2010, Tel Aviv, IL.  Ayehu Software Technologies Ltd. Provider of Run-book Automation Solution (a.k.a IT Process Automation) is pleased to announce the release of eyeShare version 3.6 available now in Free and 30-Day Trial from Ayehu website www.ayehu.com.

Ayehu eyeShare in a Run-book Automation Solution (a.k.a IT Process Automation) specifically designed for IT operations & Data centers to automate the Incident & Problem resolution processes for IT systems through the integration of IT management and monitoring tools such MS SCOM, HP OV, Nagios, Solarwinds and many others…

The new eyeShare v3.6 includes new features and functionalities to provide Sys Admins and Ops managers the power to manage events and problem resolutions more quickly in more efficient way, with an easy drag-and-drop workflow designer, Rule Base and Workflow Process engines you can run an automated task and processes without losing the control of IT processes. Watch our online demo to see how it works.

eyeShare v3.6 is now available for Free download. To help make the software evaluation process as efficient as possible, downloading the software automatically registers you to receive your Free license and relevant resources throughout the evaluation process. Get started now and You will receive support and resources that will guide you through your software evaluation to help you to discover, assess, and deploy Ayehu eyeShare Run-book Automation solution. 

Contact details for Support and Sales inquiries: info@ayehu.com