Dear Reader, First, I would like to thank those of you who visited us at the Microsoft Management Summit in Vegas last month. Many thanks for the great feedback you gave us on our new release of IT Process Automation pinpoint solutions, Now available for Free Evaluation Download eyeShare 4.1. In this newsletter you’ll find useful information about IT automation case study, video tutorial, tips and best practices for managing Network Operation Center.   Enjoy! Gabby Nizri,  Ayehu CEO

Enhancing SCOM 2012 with proactive IT automation

With System Center Operations Manager 2012 you can monitor IT systems, network and services and react to incidents and alerts or proactively manage IT tasks better and faster than ever before.However, if you got this far, why not take one step further and automate the resolution of problems too? Why not remediate IT incidents automatically, and proactively schedule IT maintenance tasks?eyeShare lets you do all this, with a smooth SCOM 2012 integration. See the video below or Read more about SCOM 2012 and eyeShare integration.    Watch the Video: eyeShare integration with SCOM 2012

Which IT processes should you automate?

When discussing IT Process Automation, one of the first questions you ask yourself is – which processes should be automated? An InformationWeek survey found five areas that users thought were the most beneficial.   Backup and restoration Disaster recovery Service fulfillment Incident management Data movement Researches, however, identified other ‘key win’ areas that provide more value. Read our latest blog post.

120 workflow templates are ready for you to test!
The eyeShare template library now has 120 templates with ‘pre-canned’ content so you can automate more tasks faster. New templates include: Killing stuck processes Anti-virus inventory reports Cisco router tasks Database table tasks File and folder automation       View automation templates

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Operational or Business Processes?

There’s a popular distinction between business processes and operational, or data center processes. A business process may be, for example, change management, escalation, notification, etc. Operational/data center processes have stronger focus around IT operational systems and procedures – for example, backup & recovery, access management, etc.

The line between these two types of processes is not clear cut, and in many cases a process may be both operational and business oriented. For example, see the results from Information Week’s IT Process Automation report below. It seems that survey respondents are focused mostly on operational and data center processes (31%) or on a combination of both operational and business processes (42%).  There is much less automation of business and customer processes (24%).

Top Areas for automation

It’s always interesting to see what others are automating – even though you have your own priorities and unique needs. The same Information Week survey asked how critical was it to automate specific process areas?  According to the survey, “leading the pack were mostly hard core operations processes”:

• Backup and restoration
• Disaster recovery
• Service fulfillment
• Incident management
• Data movement

This seems natural, as most of these (except for disaster recovery) are repetitive tasks that consume many hours from IT teams. In fact, some of these tasks are relatively easy to automate. Take a look at some of our Pinpoint IT process automation templates to find out more. For example, Active Directory password reset, free up disk space, file monitoring, restart Windows service, or monitor event logs for disaster recovery.

The researches, however, identified the following 5 “key win areas” for automation, which provide more value. (We added links from each of these areas to a specific customer case study in order to illustrate types of issues that can be automated):

• Change management
• Configuration management
• Provisioning
• Routine maintenance
• Identity & access management

So which processes should I automate?

Now that you know a bit what others think should be automated, we’re back to our initial question – which processes should you automate?

As a first step, start with mapping your current processes and their key operational metrics for each of the service and business applications.

Once you create such a list, try to prioritize them based on the following two questions:

• Time. What are the quantifiable benefits from automating each process? Consider how many hours are currently spent on the manual process – both by IT employees, as well by management for each such process.
• Effort to automate. What would be the required effort to implement automation, as well as maintain the automated process? Obviously, this question is more difficult to answer, since it requires a familiarity with one or more tools, and depends as well on the skills of your team. More about this in my next post.

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Operations Manager will help you identify and resolve problems by telling you which monitored objects are not healthy. It will send alerts when problems are detected, and provide information to help you identify the cause of a problem and possible solutions.

Ayehu eyeShare IT Process Automation

However, if you got this far, why not take one step further and automate the resolution of problems too? Why not remediate IT incidents automatically, and proactively schedule IT maintenance tasks?

eyeShare lets you do all this, with a smooth SCOM 2012 integration. For example, you can schedule repetitive IT tasks such as disk space cleanup and file operations, or you can automatically remediate problems such as locked Active Directory accounts.

Using eyeShare’s bi-directional communication you can control the execution of automated processes remotely from your mobile device. For example, instruct a process whether to restart a service or not. Bi-directional communication also enables a closed-loop incident remediation between eyeShare and SCOM 2012, by passing alerts and status notifications between the two programs.

Take a look at the IT process automation integration to learn more about the pre-packaged tasks that you can automate out of the box, without any effort or scripting.

Watch the SCOM 2012 Integration on YouTube:

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Palo Alto, CA – April 11, 2012 /Targetwire/ – Ayehu, provider of IT process automation solutions, today launched its IT process automation pinpoint solutions – prepackaged workflows for the rapid automation of planned, repetitive IT tasks. The solutions extend Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager (SCOM 2012) capabilities and will be demonstrated at the Microsoft Management Summit.

Ayehu’s pinpoint solutions automate a range of repetitive daily IT tasks within data centers, cloud and virtualized environments – from freeing up server disk space, through unlocking active directory accounts, performing file operations, restarting services and many more. Delivered as pre-packaged workflows, the solutions are designed for automating specific task operations across systems and can be easily tailored without any coding. IT tasks can be scheduled or triggered automatically upon system events. Additionally, execution can be controlled from mobile devices, so that automated workflows pause and branch based on remote SMS instructions.

“As implied by their name, pinpoint solutions are aimed at simplicity, and focused on automating the most common IT tasks, without requiring any scripting or implementation efforts” said Yaron Levy, Vice President of Products at Ayehu. “There is a large pool of mundane IT tasks that are shared by many professionals, regardless of industry. We realized we could automate and productize these tasks, and still offer enough options to accommodate different environments and needs”.

The new IT process automation pinpoint solutions which are a part of Ayehu eyeShare™ version 4.1, will be demonstrated at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012, taking place on April 16, 2012 at the Venetian Hotel in Les Vegas, NV.

To find out more about Ayehu eyeShare watch the demo:

_{About Ayehu Software
Ayehu. develops and markets eyeShare™, a lightweight, enterprise-grade IT process automation software. Deployed at major enterprises and supporting thousands of users, Ayehu eyeShare helps IT professionals automate IT tasks, free up scarce resources and improve service levels. For more information, visit www.ayehu.com.} 

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Ayehu will be launching IT Process Automation Pinpoint Solutions – prepackaged workflows for the rapid automation of planned, repetitive IT tasks. These solutions extend Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2012 capabilities and will be demonstrated at the Summit.

We give this awesome T-shirt for FREE!

Stop by our booth #130, to get yourself the “IT Automation Superhero” Cool T-shirt! It’s Free!

** You can also send us an e-mail to meet us at the show**

Hope to see you there!

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What are the operational, structured processes that you should implement for effective and repeatable results? Here are our top ones.

Escalation

A table of escalation will ensure that all team members are clear on the proper protocol and channels for escalating issues. This table should also include all areas and skills covered by the NOC and the people who are trained to cover those areas.

For example, see the table below defining the escalation procedures for DB related problems.

A critical problem that was not solved within 30 minutes is escalated up the management ladder, until a response and/or ownership is taken. At every step of the process, it is recommended to involve all personnel up to the current level. So when an SMS is sent to the project manager, it is also sent the DB on call and Group Leader.

Prioritization

The process of prioritizing incidents is different in each NOC, and therefore should be clearly defined. Incidents should never be handled on a first come, first served basis. Instead, the shift manager should prioritize incidents and cases based on the importance and impact on the business. Issues that have a greater impact on the business should obviously be handled first.

Understanding the prioritization of incidents in terms of their business impact should be part of the NOC training. The entire team should be familiar with the NOC “Top 10” projects, and have an understanding of what signifies a critical incident. It could be the temperature rising in the data center, a major network cable breaking or a service going down.

Obviously, common sense is very useful. Clearly the shift leader should be able to determine that an incident that jeopardizes the entire data center has a higher priority than a request to verify why an individual server is down.

Incident handling

The process of handling incidents applies both to NOC operators and shift managers. Both roles should be familiar with the specific process of handling incidents with the greatest impact on users.

Incident handling process should cover issues such as:

• Full technical solution, if available.
• Escalation of issue to appropriate personnel.
• Notification of other users who may be directly or indirectly affected by issues.
• ‘Quick solution’ procedures or temporary workarounds for more complex problems that may take longer to completely resolve.
• Incident reporting. An incident report, completed once the incident is resolved, helps improves the service when the next incident occur, or may also prevent the recurrence of the same incident.

Employing the proper tools, skills and processes in your NOC will allow you to run more efficient network operations and ensure smooth day to day operations as well as meeting the demands from the IT department.

  A 360° of Network Operation Center in action using IT Process Automation tool.

What other processes are you familiar with and would recommend to other NOC managers?

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This is the second of our 3 parts blog series discussing Network Operation Centers (NOC’s) best practices. The first post was dedicated to NOC tools. This part is dedicated to knowledge and skills. By ‘knowledge and skills’ we do not mean the obvious technical knowledge, network ‘know-how’  your team members must hold in order to run day-to-day operations, but rather –

How you can ensure your team’s skills are used to their best potential, and how to keep those skills up to date over time.

Clearly define roles

Definition of roles may vary between data centers and will depend on team size, the IT environment and tasks. Still, there should be a clear distinction between the roles and responsibilities of operators vs. shift supervisors in the NOC.

Why does it matter?

Mainly matters because of Decisions making. Without clearly defined roles and responsibilities, a disagreement between operators may lead to late decisions and actions, or to no decisions taken at all. This may affect customers, critical business services, and urgent requests during off hours.

It should be clearly defined, therefore, that a shift manager makes the final decisions.

Tasks division

Another potential problem caused by a lack of role definition is the division of tasks between operators and the shift leader.

A shift manager should be responsible for: prioritizing tasks, assigning work to operators based on their skills, verifying that tickets are opened properly and that relevant personnel are notified when required, escalating problems, communicating with management during important NOC events, sending notifications to the entire organization, preparing reports, and making critical decisions that impact many services, such as shutting down the data center in case of an emergency.

Operators, on the other hand, are responsible for handling the technical aspect of incidents – either independently or by escalating to another team member with the required skills. Operators are also responsible for following up and keep tickets up to date.

While it might sound as if operators lack independence and responsibility, this is not the case. When faced with technical challenges, operators’ input and skills are probably the most critical for resolution and smooth NOC operation. Operators provide additional insights into problems, and can provide creative solutions when the standard procedures fail to work.

Invest in orientation program for new NOC employees

How often have you started a new job, without receiving any orientation, mentoring or guided training?

Failing to provide proper training to new NOC operators always has consequences. A new NOC operator may not know where to find a procedure or how to execute it; be confused about who should handle a task – the NOC, service desk, or higher level of support; or in a more severe case, take a decision that causes equipment damage or results in downtime of critical business services.

Therefore, an extensive training program should be put in place for new NOC employees. This is definitely a challenge, considering the lack of resources, particularly in small NOCs. Ideally, such a program would consist of one week of classroom training followed by three weeks of hands-on training under the supervision of a designated trainer.

A new employee should only be trained by an experienced member of the NOC, preferably a shift leader. The trainer should be released from all duties during the entire period of the training – in order to ensure that the training does not gradually fade between all the urgent shift tasks.

The training program should be updated on an ongoing basis, and should include topics such as required users and permissions, technical knowledge, known problems, troubleshooting, teams and important contacts.

Communication and collaboration

Within your Organization

Establishing a solid communication flow between NOC members and other IT teams has many advantages. It propels professional growth, provides opportunities for advancement in the organization, and makes it easier to approach other teams when requiring assistance.  But most importantly – it allows NOC personnel to see the larger picture. NOC members that are aware of projects, services and customers’ needs, simply provide better service.

A designated member of the NOC should attend weekly change management meetings. That person should communicate any issues or upcoming activities, such as planned downtime, to the rest of the team.

Define NOC members as focal points for important IT areas, such as NT, UNIX, Network, or a specific project is another good practice. These members should attend the meetings of the relevant teams, deliver new information and knowledge to the rest of the NOC, and handle specific professional challenges.

Within NOC Team

Another important form of communication is within the NOC team itself. There are clear advantages to having a strong connection and collaboration between NOC team members. Members are more willing to help each other, information is shared more easily, and the general atmosphere encourages collaboration when addressing problems, as opposed to an individualized approach.

Team communication is a challenge when the NOC team is geographically spread out or located in different countries. Because cultural and language differences can cause confusion and misunderstandings, spending efforts on building team communication and collaboration are even more critical.

Which additional skills and knowledge would you recommend for a NOC?

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In this 3 parts blog post series, we will provide tips on how to ensure you have the right tools, knowledge and processes in place to improve and manage your NOC’s performance and response time.

This first part of our ‘NOC best practices’ series is dedicated to tools, which are an essential element in NOC management and a key feature for improvement.

A ticketing system

A ticketing system will enable you to keep track of all open issues, according to severity, urgency and the person assigned to handle each task. Knowing all pending issues will help you to prioritize the shift’s tasks and provide the best service to your customers.

Knowledge-base system

Keep a one centralized source for all knowledge and documentation that is accessible to your entire team. This knowledge base should be a fluid information source to be continuously updated with experiences and lessons learned for future reference and improvements.

Reporting and measurements

Create reports on a daily and monthly basis. A daily report should include all major incidents of the past 24 hours and a root cause for every resolved incident. This report is useful and essential for the shift leaders and NOC managers. It also keeps the rest of the IT department informed about the NOC activities and of major incidents. Compiling the daily reports into a monthly report will help measure the team’s progress. It will also show areas where improvements can be made or indicate any positive or negative trends in performance.

Monitoring

There are two types of monitoring processes relevant to NOC:
(1) Monitoring infrastructure and (2) User experience.

A monitoring infrastructure can consist of the servers, the network or the data center environment. User experience monitoring involves the simulation of user behavior and activities in order to replicate problems and find the most effective solutions. Implementing a service tree model that connects the monitoring infrastructure with an affected service will allow your team to alert other areas that may be affected by the problems experienced.

IT Process Automation

Implementing IT Process Automation significantly reduces mean time to recovery (MTTR) and helps NOCs meet SLA’s by having a procedure in place to handle incident resolution and to consistently provide high quality response regardless of complexity of the process. IT Process Automation empowers a Level-one team to deal with tasks that otherwise might require a Level-two team. Some examples include password reset, disk space clean-up, reset services etc. IT Process Automation is also a major help with reducing the number of manual, routine IT tasks and free up time for more strategic projects.

Which other tools do you think a NOC should be using?

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In complex IT environments – particularly when systems are virtualized or cloud based – implementing IT process automation can be challenging. You may need to spend quite a lot of efforts to integrate with multiple IT systems – which brings up the question of ROI.

When does it make sense to implement automation, and in which cases is it too complex or costly to be justified?

System complexity is just one of many concerns raised with IT Automation. Here are the top 5 IT Process Automation challenges and objections we encounter, followed by some tips on how they can be best handled:

1- Integration with existing systems and tools is too difficult

2- Our IT processes are not well defined or mature enough for Automation

3-  Automation tools are too complicated to implement and too expensive

4- Automation makes us lose control over processes

5- Automation will eliminate IT jobs

Start with creating quick wins

Instead of starting with large and complex IT automation projects, begin by identifying few quick wins – small automation pilots that can be implemented very quickly, and can get immediate value.

Examine current manual activities and time spent vs. the estimated effort required for automation and potential savings.

Some “pinpoint” examples for quick automation wins include:

• Active Directory integration – reset password, unlock account, delete orphan accounts, etc…
• Backup Log monitoring – monitoring failed backup jobs and restarting backups
• Service failures – restart failed services, start failover systems
• Incident management -  creating trouble tickets, setup response to service outage,  notification and escalation processes
• Troubleshooting – System problem identification and remediation

Select a tool that lets you start quickly (20/80 and grow later)

With IT automation you can find a wide range of tools – from gigantic systems to tiny utilities designed for 1-2 tasks.

Select a tool that enables you to begin small, without a large upfront investment and the ability to get quick ROI, but also a tool that supports enhancements, more complex automation across systems down the road.

Implement IT Automation with control

Automating IT tasks does not mean losing control over processes. Whether you’re using scripts, or an IT Process Automation solution, you can always ensure that prior to performing any sensitive data-related activity, the automated process pauses to receive a ‘human’ confirmation and acknowledgment.

IT Automation improves, rather than eliminate jobs

In our implementations among tens of customers, we have eliminated thousands of hours of repetitive manual tasks. Nevertheless, we have not witnessed a single case of a headcount drop due to automation. On the contrary, employees are empowered to automate tasks that were never addressed before.  As Glen O’Donnell,a senior analyst for Forrester Research, urges IT folks to “be the automator, not the automated.” O’Donnell asks, “Who better to automate your job than you?”

Put differently, IT process automation eliminates the mundane, repetitive parts of your job, freeing up your time for more strategic IT tasks that cannot be automated – making you more effective and important to your business

What challenges do you have in implementing IT automation?

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In many cases, it’s the help desk that receives the open ticket request. Yet it’s an IT person who needs to resolve the issue – at the expense of other, more urgent tasks.

Here’s one method to automate this daily, repetitive task. It uses an eyeShare pre-packaged password reset automated workflow. You can use the process as is, or tailor it to your needs.

In the Active Directly password rest workflow:

1. The help desk person sends out an email, with the user name to eyeShare.
2. eyeShare runs the automated workflow in which it resets the user in Active Directory and sends out a mail with new password to the help desk
3. The help desk person notifies the user about the new password

This process can be easily be adjusted to your needs: add a notification step so that an SMS or mail is sent to an IT person; have eyeShare deliver the password directly to users via mail/SMS; or let eyeShare perform any additional action, such as closing a support ticket, as part of the process. Of course, all these by visually dragging and dropping steps, without any scripting.

Want to learn more about what eyeShare can do? Read more about eyeShare IT process automation capabilities, or view the eyeShare movie.

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