Research study based on insights from more than 900 organizations.

Includes analysis of 14 key areas for making IT Operations effective in Digital Economy

Modernizing IT Operations for Digital EconomyResearch Study

Digital Transformation leaders:• Use technology as a source of

competitive advantage (61%)

• Make IT more strategic (57%)

• Enable seamless deployments of new technologies (38%)

• Reduce cost of running & maintaining enterprise technology (53%)

Goals of IT Operations professionals and Digital Transformation leaders (CIOs, CDOs, etc.) are fairly similar

62% of organizations are reporting that lack of IT resources is the main obstacle for digital transformation

Only 19% of organizations include modernizing IT Operations in their digital transformation strategy

IT Operations & Digital Transformation

Study background

Drivers1

Modernization2

14 Key Areas3 Analysis of 14 key areas that organizations should focus on to make IT Operations effective in Digital Economy

The perfect storm of market pressures and technologies that are driving entire organizations to change how they operate and become digital businesses is making the same, if not the stronger, impact on IT Operations

Road to becoming a digital business runs through IT Operations, but IT Operations need to be modernized to enable Digital Transformation

Research results, analysis and performance impact results

14 Key Areasfor making IT Operations effective in

Digital Economy

Context of monitoring data

reported that making data more actionable is their key goal for IT performance monitoring (ranked #1 overall)

59%Delivering IT monitoring data in the right context is the key differentiator between sole reporting and getting true insights for IT Operations.

Series1

48%48%

Lack of information needed to solve problemHaving to process larger amounts of data

82%

reported that the amount of IT performance data collected increased over last 12 months. However, only 38% of them reported significant performance improvements in key IT management areas

There is no correlation between the amount of IT monitoring data that is being collected and changes in key performance indicators. In order to get the most out of their IT Operations management efforts, organizations need to put capabilities and processes in place to ensure that the context in which data is delivered and accessed is actionable and relevant.

IT Monitoring challenges

Hybrid and agile infrastructures monitoring

reported that the approach of using different tool sets for monitoring the Cloud and on- premise environments is ineffective

52%

As organizations are leveraging more hybrid cloud environments and adopting agile IT platforms, they are looking for flexibility from their IT monitoring solutions to be agnostic of the types of infrastructures that are being managed (on premise, Cloud, hybrid, etc.).

Single platformSpeciality tools

83%91%

31%

redefined their monitoring strategy in 6 months or less after deploying agile IT infrastructures

Agile, dynamic and hybrid infrastructures are some of the key technology attributes of digital transformation, but organizations are also aware that the transformation can be a long and complex process and IT environments cannot be changed overnight. Therefore, organizations need to build technology capabilities that will allow them to modernize their infrastructure while mitigating the risk of deterioration in the performance of their existing IT services.

Visibility into IT infrastructure in hybrid environments

Advanced analytics and data management

reported a success rate of 80% or better in preventing performance issues before users are impacted

22%

Data management and analytics capabilities are becoming the key factor in determining levels of success for IT operations management in a digital economy. Organizations are increasingly looking to deploy capabilities such as predictive analytics, forecasting, optimization, etc., as well as Big Data management techniques in their IT Operations.

24%

of organizations are looking to deploy or build Big Data infrastructure that is tailored to IT performance monitoring

Organizations that are truly looking to transform and modernize IT Operations are realizing that the next step in the evolution of IT management is data analytics and management. DEJ's research shows that advanced analytics for IT monitoring are not only the #1 growth area in 2017, but also a technology class that had the strongest impact on key performance indicators in 2016.19% 21%

49% 48%

Ability to project trends Ability to conduct "what if" analysis

Deployed Looking to deploy

Machine learning

of organizations looking to deploy IT monitoring solution based on machine learning in next 12 months

35%

A growing amount of data to be collected and processed makes the analysis and triggering of the right actions, sometimes, not humanly possible. Machine learning provides IT operations scale, speed and intelligence and it has become one the key ingredients for successfully managing modern IT operations.

39%

Average increase in resources available for growth and innovation after deploying machine learning based solution

Machine learning is a powerful approach for addressing some of the key challenges of IT monitoring, but it also opens up numerous opportunities for IT operations teams to better leverage their expertise and become even more valuable to their organizations. Combining human defined rules with machine learning creates another field for innovation and differentiation and, for many organizations, will determine the value that they get out of machine learning capabilities.

63%52%

21% 19%

Time to Resolution Success in preventing performance issues

Improvements by 50% or more

Leveraging machine learning All others

Correlation

reported a lack of correlation between systems elements as the key challenge

49%With increased heterogeneity of data sources, metrics and systems elements, having capabilities for correlating and normalizing IT data becomes the key requirement for making this data usable, relevant and actionable.

41% reported that they are using 10 or more

tools for IT performance monitoring

Bringing together data collected by different tools is only one aspect as to why correlation capabilities are critical, but it is also a good example of the need for finding a common language between technologies within the IT that were never designed to work together.

20% 18%

37%32%

Platform for correlating IT and Business data

Single platform for correlating dev and ops data

Deployed Looking to deploy

Business impact

of organizations looking to leverage IT data outside of the IT

41%

There is unlocked potential in IT operations to impact the business by, not only performing their traditional tasks more effectively, but also by having more visibility into the business value they are creating, providing additional dimension to BI efforts, improving business decision making process, etc.

47%

of IT Operations professionals are looking to get more visibility into the business value delivered

One of the key goals of organizations that are looking to become a digital business is to use technology as a source of competitive advantage. However, many digital transformation leaders are often unaware of how IT operations can support that goal. IT operations teams are looking to not only have more visibility into how their work impacts this and other business goals, but also looking for technology capabilities that would help them communicate to the executive team about the business value that they are creating.

47%36%38%

25%

Customer engagement Business agility

Leveraging IT data for business purposes All others

Microservices monitoring

reported planned increases in deployments of container-based architectures in next 12 months

61%Deploying microservices infrastructures results in multiple business and operational benefits, but from a management perspective is driving a new set of challenges and requires a different monitoring approach.

46%

of organizations reported that their existing IT monitoring tools are not as effective when monitoring microservices

IT leaders need to be mindful that monitoring microservices requires a new approach before they start leveraging these types of infrastructures in production. A "trial and error" approach for monitoring microservices with legacy tools in production can be very costly and negatively impact all key performance indicators, while creating a number of business-centric issues.

96%74%

Pre-production Production

Average availability of microservices

Alerting and notification

looking to improve accuracy, timeliness and relevance of IT alerting and notification

55%

Managing IT alerts has been one of the main issues of IT monitoring for many years, but the increasing complexity and need for timely problem resolution is making this challenge even more prominent and it is one of the key areas that organizations need to address.

39%

looking to deploy capabilities that would provide more context (priority, severity, etc.) around IT alerting

Alerting and notification capabilities are designed to be a part of a solution for preventing and resolving issues, but they are now becoming a part of that same issue. Organizations are looking for more intelligence and context from IT alerting, as well as a more clear path from a notification to a resolution of a problem.

37%

22%31% 28%

Ability to automate escalations Alerting based on anomaly detection

Deployed Looking to deploy

New technology readiness

of IT Operations professionals listed supporting deployment of new technologies as their key goal (ranked #1)

54%Digital transformation is driving IT teams to build capabilities for quickly and seamlessly adopting new technologies in a fashion where they don't disrupt their existing operations, but are enhancing the business value that IT delivers.

29%

of organizations listed the "lack of ability to assimilate new technologies" as the reason why they replaced their IT monitoring solutions in 2016

One of the key drivers for digital transformation is a perfect storm of technologies that are entering, or have entered, the enterprise at a rapid pace (Big Data, Cloud, IoT, SD-Everything, etc.). Enterprises have to take a proactive approach when building their IT monitoring capabilities and ensure that they are prepared to address technology changes that are impacting environments they are managing.41% 44%

61%

SD-WAN IoT Microservices

Planned increases in deployments

Automation

increase in interest in automation capabilities for IT monitoring since 2011

71%The need to improve the effectiveness of IT monitoring is calling more and more for automation of not only repeatable tasks, but also parts of a knowledge work performed by IT operations.

57% Of organizations are deploying automation

capabilities to reduce cost of IT operations

DEJ's research shows that organizations are currently spending 72% of their IT budgets on running and maintaining existing services. Automation is an important part of a strategy to reduce that number and changing how their IT departments operate, but that doesn't necessarily lead to the shrinking of IT operations groups. What it does mean is that automation will drive the need for new skill sets, changes in processes, responsibilities and getting the most out of the expertise and talent of IT operations professionals.

Full visibility

reported 5 or more blind spots in the IT service delivery chain65%

With increased complexity and ongoing change, it becomes increasingly important that IT operations are able to monitor all infrastructure elements, events and an entire infrastructure stack.

82%

reported the inability to manage large amounts of data as the key reasons for not monitoring all the events and system elements

Organizations do see the value in monitoring everything that is happening in their IT environments, but often lack capabilities for processing, storing and analyzing terabytes and petabytes of data and, therefore, are choosing to focus only on events that they perceive to be the most critical.

89%76%

63%

90%+ visibility 50-75% visibility 50% or less visibility

Success rate in preventing issues

Optimization

looking to deploy capabilities for the "what if" analysis of IT infrastructure utilization and performance impact

65%Organizations are looking to make educated decisions about optimizing the number and value of IT monitoring tools they are using so that they can improve both cost efficiency and performance.

44%

average IT monitoring capabilities that organizations are currently paying for but not using

Optimization goes beyond just consolidating IT monitoring tools. It should include technology and organizational capabilities that will enable organizations to find the right balance between resource (both physical and human) and asset utilization, cost of running the IT and desired performance levels.

Streaming, real-time data and speed of access

increase in the need for streaming IT monitoring data over the last 12 months

37%In order to meet the requirements of a fast changing digital economy, it is becoming critical for organizations to not only process and analyze larger amounts of IT monitoring data, but to do so with real-time data streams.

41%

reported the speed of access to data needed to solve IT performance issues as the key selection criteria when evaluating IT monitoring solutions

With higher user expectations for performance and more IT sources to pull data from, IT operations teams need to make more accurate decisions, faster and at scale. The ability to take actions based on real-time data and improve the speed of queries for historical data are becoming key requirements for IT operations teams to meet their goals.

50%55%60%65%70%75%80%85%90%95%

100%

Y 2009 Y 2013 Y 2016

High importance of processing IT monitoring data in real time

Network performance

reported that the role of network has become more strategic over the last 12 months

68%

As organizations are deploying more technologies, the network is increasingly being perceived as a strategic asset by IT leaders. However, DEJ's research shows that organizations are experiencing only marginal improvements in network performance over last 4 years. In order to support their key IT initiatives, organizations should rethink their approach for managing network performance.

46% reported that they are looking to extract

network data for business purposes

A new approach for network performance management should take into consideration the network beyond connectivity and look at it as a rich source of highly important operational and business data. That approach should also consider that 40% organizations are reporting that the cost and complexity of network performance monitoring tools is one of the key challenges for improving network performance.

Why it matters?

43%Reported that their competitive position deteriorated due to performance of IT services

48%of organizations reported that, on average, they spend more than 60 minutes on repairing performance issues per incidentAnalysis includes companies with average revenue size of $243 million

$72,000Is being lost per

minute of service outages

Cost of non acting

DEJ’s research methodology identifies top 20% organizations based on KPIs and compares their capabilities, actions and strategy to that of their peers.

86%More likely to have full visibility of their IT infrastructure

2.6xMore likely to be deploying machine learning

1.7xMore likely to analyze streaming and real-time data

2.8xMore likely to improve Mean Time to Resolution

Top performing organizations

The study includes insights from 923 organizations worldwide.

Study background

Geography – 53% North America; 24% EMEACompany size – 38% large; 36% mediumJob roles – Mix of IT and business usersTimeframe of research – May-November of 2016

26%

In H1 of 2017, DEJ will be conducting research on a number of similar topics.

DEJ’s follow up publishing

Microservices MonitoringDigital Performance ManagementAdvanced IT Operations AnalyticsMachine Learning in IT PerformanceBusiness View of IT Operations

Q1 2017Q1 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q2 2017

93%

Of participants are at VP level or above

Month-over-month increase in survey data collected in 2017

Study background and follow up publishing

Technology as a Competitive Advantage (TaCA)

Research-analyst-media

fusionDigital Transformatio

n Journey

01

Beyond technolog

y “buckets”

02

Situational analysis

03Primary research

04

Ongoing data

collection

05

About DEJ

Digital Enterprise Journal

Digital Enterprise Journal (DEJ) is a media and research firm focused on digital transformation and

the business value of technology deployments. .

Visit us at dej.io

October, 2016 Copyright © 2016 Digital Enterprise Journal