Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Case for EM7

I have been monitoring alot of activity around various products that I have had my head wrapped around for years. See, I have been a Consultant, Engineer, end user, OSS Developer/Architect and even Chief Technologist. I've developed apps and I've done a TON of integration across the years and problem sets. I have worked with, implemented, and supported a ton of different products and functions.

I think about all of the engagements I worked on where we spent 4-6 weeks just getting together the requirements doc and start down the road of doing a BOM. Then, after somebody approved the design, we get down to ordering hardware and software.

Then, we'd go about bringing up the systems, loading the software, and tuning the systems.

Before you knew it, we were 6 months on site.

This has been standard operations for EONS. For as long as I remember.

While the boom was on, this was acceptable. Business needed capabilities and that came from tools and technology. But now, money is tight and times are hard. However, companies still need IT capabilities that are managed and reliable.

Now days, customers want results. Not in 6 months. Not even next month. NOW! When you look at the prospects of Cloud, what attracts business and IT alike is that in a cloud, you can deploy applications quickly!

Enter EM7. What if I told you I could bring a couple of appliances (well, depends on the size of your environment...), rack and stack, and have you seeing results right away? Events. Performance. Ticketing. Discovery. Reports.

EM7 lives in this Rapid Deployment, lots of capabilities up front sort of scenario. Literally, in a few hours, you have a management platform.

Question: How long does it take for you to get changes into your network management platform? Days? Weeks?

Question: How long does it take for you to get a new report in place on your existing system?

Question: Are you dependent upon receiving traps and events only as your interface into receiving problem triggers? Do you even perform polls?

Question: How many FTEs are used just to maintain the monitoring system? How many Consultants with that?

Now, the question is WHY should you check out EM7?

First and foremost, you want whats best for your environment. The term "Best" changes over time. And while many companies will tell you best of breed is dead and that you need a single throat to choke, its because they KNOW they are not Best of Breed and they HATE competition. But competition is good for customers. It keeps value in perspective.

Without a bit of competition, you don't know best. Your environment has been evolving and so have the management capabilities and platforms (well some have!)

In some environments, politics keep new products and capabilities at bay. You can't find capital or you know you'll step on toes if you propose new products. So, you need to have some lab time. With EM7, you spend more time working with devices and capabilities in your lab than you do installing, administering, and integrating the management platform. EM7 is significantly faster to USE than others.

EM7 has a lot of the management applications you need to manage an IT / Network Infrastructure, in an APPLIANCE model. All of the sizing, OS tuning, Database architecture, etc. is done up front in defineable methods. We do this part and you get to spend your time adding value to your environment instead of the management platform.

In a politically charged environment, EM7 can be installed, up and running, and adding SIGNIFICANT value before the fifedom owners even know. Em7 becomes the stndard quickly in buy vs. build scenario as there are alot of capabilities up front. But there feature rich ways to extend management and reporting beyond the stock product. Dynamic applications enable the same developers to build upon the EM7 foundation rather than attempting to redevelop foundation, then the advanced capabilities.

If you're adapting and integrating Cloud capabilities, EM7 makes sense early on. Lots of both agent and agentless capabilities, service polling, mapping and dashboards, run book automation, ticketing, dynamic applications... the list goes on and on. Cloud and virtualization software and APIs can change very quickly. Standards are not always first. So, you have to be able to adapt and overcome challenges quickly.

If you're in the managed services world, you need to be vigilant in your quest for capabilites that turn into revenue. If you can generate revenue with a solution, it is entirely possible to make more than it costs. Do you know how much revenue is generated by your management platform? Now compare that to what it costs in maintenance and support.

Now, go back and look at things you've done to generate and instance new product. How long did it take from concept to offering? How much did it cost resource wise?

In these times, when margins are lean and business is very competitive, if you aren't moving forward to compete, you're probably facing losing market share.

With EM7, you get to COMPETE. You get a solid foundation with which to discriminate and differentiate your services from your competition. Quickly. Efficiently.