Table of Contents
- The growing need for IT automation
- Benefits of IT automation
- Virima and Ivanti partnership perspective on IT automation
- Virima integration: A pathway to IT automation
Implementing IT automation is a struggle, more so for big organizations. Foremost, there can be employees’ resistance to change. Then the struggle to implement automation in complex IT infrastructures with diverse systems and legacy applications. Even if that seems manageable, a shortage of skilled professionals with automation expertise can add further difficulty. Then, you’ve to be careful of the security and compliance risks.
Yet, the immense benefits brought by IT automation outweigh the challenges. By embracing automation, organizations can streamline processes and stay competitive in the fast-paced digital landscape.
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at how the Virima and Ivanti partnership is revolutionizing the way organizations manage and automate their IT environments. But before that, we’ll explore the growing needs and benefits of IT automation in detail.
The growing need for IT automation
The most pressing need is felt in IT service management. IT automation is responsible for designing, implementing, and managing the delivery of IT services. As for its success in supporting business processes, it depends on a robust, efficient, and reliable IT infrastructure. Also, organizations need to maintain the performance and availability of various IT systems and applications.
And that’s where the challenge is– managing IT infrastructure. However, the solution lies in IT automation. Here’s how: IT teams often face issues such as–
- A lack of visibility into the entire IT environment. So it becomes difficult to identify and resolve issues promptly. This is where automated service maps generated from discovery data help.
- The next challenge is the need to manage a wide range of hardware, software, and network components, each with its own unique set of requirements and complexities. However, various automated components of IT asset management such as server, cloud and network data make Ivanti ITAM get more streamlined management and reduce complexity.
- One more pressing issue is to balance the competing demands of maintaining existing systems and applications while also implementing new technologies and innovations.
On top of these challenges, the rapid pace of technological advancements, the growth of cloud computing, and the rise of remote work have all contributed to a more intricate IT landscape. As a result, IT teams are struggling to keep up with the growing number of tasks and responsibilities that come with managing this complex environment.
This is where IT automation comes into play. By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks within incident management, change management, request fulfillment, and others, IT teams can streamline their workflows, and save time to focus on more strategic and high-value activities.
And that’s not all. IT automation can unlock the full potential of IT operations that drives better business outcomes.
Now before we move into how Virima and Ivanti’s partnership facilitates IT automation, let’s dwell on some specific benefits.
Benefits of IT automation
Automation is already there. It’s up to you to implement automation in various processes by choosing the right platform. Here are the few broad benefits that IT automation delivers:
Improved efficiency
Automating various IT processes or components within leads to a more effective and agile IT environment; streamlined workflows, manual tasks, and human errors are reduced, and faster response and resolution time are achieved. The examples can be found in various facets of IT service delivery. For instance, IT teams can ensure consistent and accurate server provisioning, software deployment, and network configuration with automated tools.
Whereas human error leads to costly mistakes and system downtime can be avoided by automating error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks such as patch management. The automation ensures that all systems are up-to-date with the latest security patches. So it’ll reduce the likelihood of a security breach caused by an unpatched vulnerability.
As for achieving faster response and resolution, IT automation can help by automating incident detection, diagnosis, and remediation. Take the example of automated monitoring tools that can quickly identify performance issues or system failures and trigger automated workflows to address the problem. This not only reduces the time it takes to resolve incidents but also helps maintain high levels of system availability and performance.
Reduced costs
In addition to improved efficiency, IT automation can also lead to significant cost savings for organizations; optimized resource utilization, lower operational expenses, and minimized downtime and its associated costs.
Optimizing IT resource utilization
Automation allows IT teams to better allocate resources. For example, automated server provisioning can help organizations dynamically allocate server resources based on demand. This will prevent over-provisioning and reduce the need for additional hardware investments.
Lowering operational expenses
By automating routine tasks, such as software updates, backups, and network management, IT teams can save time and labor costs. This not only frees up IT personnel to focus on more strategic initiatives but also reduces the likelihood of costly errors caused by manual processes.
Minimizing downtime and its associated costs
IT automation helps to proactively identify and address potential issues before they escalate into critical incidents. For instance, automated monitoring and alerting tools can detect performance anomalies or system failures and trigger automated remediation workflows. As a result, it reduces the time it takes to resolve issues and restore normal operations. All this avoids the significant costs associated with system outages.
Enhanced Security
Proactive identification and remediation of vulnerabilities
Vulnerability management tools (such as a CSAM) or ITAM to a large extent can regularly assess systems and applications for potential security risks. So IT teams remain always up-to-date with their security posture. Likewise, automated remediation processes can also be set up. For instance, an automated workflow could be triggered to update firewall rules or reconfigure system settings in response to a detected vulnerability.
Moreover, automated patch management, as stated earlier, derisk patch management from human errors. The automatic detection and deployment of necessary patches across the entire IT infrastructure ensure that all systems are consistently protected against known security threats.
Ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations
Adhering to compliance requirements can be complex and time-consuming. More so when we’re talking about General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). But IT automation can help simplify this task. IT automation can continuously check for adherence to predefined policies and generate reports to demonstrate compliance. In case of any deviations from the desired compliance state, IT automation can trigger remediation actions.
Virima and Ivanti partnership perspective on IT automation
Automated discovery of physical and virtual assets
You could be an Ivanti Neurons for ITSM customer. You may have varied objectives– such as using automation for cost saving to minimize security risk or improving service delivery. Irrespective of what you’re trying to achieve with IT automation, step one is always to have accurate and actionable insights into assets.
In this regard, the Ivanti branded and supported Virima Discovery and Service Mapping (named Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping) uses automated discovery probes to provide complete visibility of your IT infrastructure. It discovers thousands of virtual and physical computers, storage assets, and networks in very little time. Also, naturally updates the asset data as new or unknown devices join the network. So you find a well-documented picture of your entire IT estate.
On the other end, the service map automatically establishes the linkages between these discovered assets and shows the applications and services that depend on them. Consequently, the complete picture of IT assets and mapping complement various automated workflows in incident management, change management, and security compliance as part of Ivanti Neurons for ITSM.
Automated IT service management workflows
Virima incident management automatically creates incidents from self-service portals, emails, and system monitoring. Now Virima service mapping will automatically overlay these incidents on the CI maps within the Ivanti CMDB. So after opening the incidents, the IT teams can easily understand the current dependencies and relationships between services while not overlooking presently affected ones. So this automation can make their aims for speedier resumption of affected systems a reality.
Business scaling
One more area where Virima and Ivanti’s partnership helps is infusing IT automation into scaling your business operations. Enabled by the modern IT infrastructure and cloud services, you could rapidly request and activate new business services. But it’s vital to quickly understand potential risks to application and service availability while adding those. Because this overview will tell whether your organization and customers have operational resiliency, effective risk management, and security to support the addition.
And this is where Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping comes into play (Ivanti branded and supported Virima Discovery and Service Mapping feature). The consumable views of automatically generated application/service dependencies, infrastructure relationships, system communications, and network topologies by ViVID™ service maps provide the overview you need for scaling your operations.
Virima integration: A pathway to IT automation
The benefits of IT automation on IT service management, and IT operations are far-reaching. Especially when its impact is measured in terms of increased efficiency, reduced cost, and improved security of IT infrastructures in organizations. As explained in the last section, Virima, and Ivanti’s partnership greatly aids Ivanti Neurons for ITSM customers. This is particularly visible when you see how Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping aids asset discovery, workflow automation, and business scaling.
So when it comes to Ivanti Neurons for ITSM customers, they already have the Virima discovery and service mapping solution integrated.
However, if you’re using ServiceNow, Jira, or Cherwell platforms and want to end the chaos of managing and securing cloud-based and on-premise assets, IT services, and applications, then Virima is here to help. You can easily integrate discovery and service mapping with these platforms and reap the benefits of IT automation. Virima discovery and service mapping is also a perfect complement to Azure and AWS environments.
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You can also test out our full platform with sample data through Virima Sandbox.
