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In the fields of
information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...
(IT) and
systems management Systems management is enterprise-wide System administration, administration of distributed systems including (and commonly in practice) computer systems. Systems management is strongly influenced by network management initiatives in telecommunic ...
, IT operations analytics (ITOA) is an approach or method to retrieve, analyze, and report data for IT operations. ITOA may apply big data analytics to large datasets to produce business insights. In 2014,
Gartner Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics. Gartner provides its products and services through research reports, conferences, and consulting. Its clients include large corporations, gover ...
predicted its use might increase revenue or reduce costs. By 2017, it predicted that 15% of enterprises will use IT operations analytics technologies.


Definition

IT operations analytics (ITOA) (also known as advanced operational analytics, or IT data analytics) technologies are primarily used to discover complex patterns in high volumes of often "noisy" IT system availability and performance data.
Forrester Research Forrester Research, Inc. is a research and advisory firm. Forrester serves clients in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The firm is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA with global offices in Amsterdam, London, New D ...
defined IT analytics as "The use of mathematical algorithms and other innovations to extract meaningful information from the sea of raw data collected by management and monitoring technologies." Note, ITOA is different than AIOps, which focuses on applying
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
and
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
to the applications of ITOA.


History

Operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve management and ...
as a discipline emerged from the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
to improve military efficiency and decision-making on the battlefield. However, only with the emergence of
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
tech in the early 2000s could an
artificially intelligent Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
operational analytics platform actually begin to engage in the high-level
pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the task of assigning a class to an observation based on patterns extracted from data. While similar, pattern recognition (PR) is not to be confused with pattern machines (PM) which may possess PR capabilities but their p ...
that could adequately serve business needs. A critical catalyst towards ITOA development was the rise of
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, which pioneered a
predictive analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of Statistics, statistical techniques from data mining, Predictive modelling, predictive modeling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or other ...
model that represented the first attempt to read into patterns of human behavior on the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. IT specialists then applied predictive analytics to the IT Industry, coming forward with platforms that can sift through data to generate insights without the need for human intervention. Due to the mainstream embrace of
cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
and the increasing desire for businesses to adopt more
big data Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data processing, data-processing application software, software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with ...
practices, the ITOA industry has grown significantly since 2010. A 2016 ExtraHop survey of large and mid-size corporations indicates that 65 percent of the businesses surveyed will seek to integrate their data silos either this year or the next. The current goals of ITOA platforms are to improve the accuracy of their
APM APM, apm, or Apm may refer to: Technology Computer technology *Active policy management, a discipline within enterprise software *Advanced Power Management, a legacy technology in personal computers * Apple Partition Map, computer disk partiti ...
services, facilitate better integration with the data, and to enhance their predictive analytics capabilities.


Applications

ITOA systems tend to be used by IT operations teams, and
Gartner Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics. Gartner provides its products and services through research reports, conferences, and consulting. Its clients include large corporations, gover ...
describes seven applications of ITOA systems: * Root cause analysis: The models, structures and pattern descriptions of IT infrastructure or application stack being monitored can help users pinpoint fine-grained and previously unknown root causes of overall system behavior pathologies. * Proactive control of service performance and availability: Predicts future system states and the impact of those states on performance. * Problem assignment: Determines how problems may be resolved or, at least, direct the results of inferences to the most appropriate individuals, or communities in the enterprise for problem resolution. * Service impact analysis: When multiple root causes are known, the analytics system's output is used to determine and rank the relative impact, so that resources can be devoted to correcting the fault in the most timely and cost-effective way possible. * Complement best-of-breed technology: The models, structures and pattern descriptions of IT infrastructure or application stack being monitored are used to correct or extend the outputs of other discovery-oriented tools to improve the fidelity of information used in operational tasks (e.g., service dependency maps, application runtime architecture topologies, network topologies). * Real time application behavior learning: Learns & correlates the behavior of Application based on user pattern and underlying Infrastructure on various application patterns, create metrics of such correlated patterns and store it for further analysis. * Dynamically baselines threshold: Learns behavior of Infrastructure on various application user patterns and determines the Optimal behavior of the Infra and technological components, bench marks and baselines the low and high water mark for the specific environments and dynamically changes the bench mark baselines with the changing infra and user patterns without any manual intervention.


Types

In their ''Data Growth Demands a Single, Architected IT Operations Analytics Platform'',
Gartner Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics. Gartner provides its products and services through research reports, conferences, and consulting. Its clients include large corporations, gover ...
Research describes five types of analytics technologies: * Log analysis * Unstructured text indexing, search and inference (UTISI) * Topological analysis (TA) * Multidimensional database search and analysis (MDSA) * Complex operations event processing (COEP) * Statistical pattern discovery and recognition (SPDR)


Tools and ITOA platforms

A number of vendors operate in the ITOA space: *
AppDynamics AppDynamics is a full-stack application performance management (APM) and IT operations analytics (ITOA) company based in San Francisco. The company focuses on managing the performance and availability of applications across cloud computing envir ...
* BMC * CA * Dynatrace *
Elastic Elastic is a word often used to describe or identify certain types of elastomer, Elastic (notion), elastic used in garments or stretch fabric, stretchable fabrics. Elastic may also refer to: Alternative name * Rubber band, ring-shaped band of rub ...
* EMC *Evolven * ExtraHop Networks * HP *
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
*
Micro Focus Micro Focus International plc was a British multinational software and information technology business based in Newbury, Berkshire, England. The firm provided software and consultancy. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and t ...
* Nastel *
NetApp NetApp, Inc. is an American data infrastructure company that provides unified data storage, integrated data services, and cloud operations (CloudOps) solutions to enterprise customers. The company is based in San Jose, California. It has ranked ...
*
Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...
* Riverbed *
SAP SE Sap is a fluid transported in the xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a s ...
* ScienceLogic * SignalFx *
SolarWinds SolarWinds Corporation is an American company that develops software for businesses to help manage their networks, systems, and information technology infrastructure. It is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with sales and product development offi ...
*
Splunk Splunk Inc. is an American software company based in San Francisco, California, that produces software for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data via a web-style interface. Its software helps capture, index and correlate re ...
* Sumo Logic * TeamQuest * VMTurbo * VMware


See also

*
Application performance management In the fields of information technology and systems management, application performance management (APM) is the monitoring and management of the performance and availability of software applications. APM strives to detect and diagnose complex appli ...
*
Big data Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data processing, data-processing application software, software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with ...
*
Business intelligence tools Business intelligence software is a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze, transform and report data for business intelligence (BI). The applications generally read data that has been previously stored, often - though not nece ...
*
Information technology operations Data center management is the collection of tasks performed by those responsible for managing ongoing operation of a data center. This includes ''Business service management'' and planning for the future. Historically, "data center management" w ...


References

{{Reflist


External links

* ITOA Landscape:
ITOA Landscape
' * International Data Corporation (IDC):
Service Management: Big Data Opportunities Abound for IT Operations Analytics
' (May 2014) * NetworkWorld:

' (July 7, 2014) * Enterprise Management Associates (EMA):
The Many Faces of Advanced Operations Analytics
' (September 23, 2014) * ITOperationsAnalytics.net
The Basics of IT Operations Analytics
Application software Analytics Big data Enterprise architecture