New Era - ITSM in the Cloud with Azure OpInsights

  • Article

Samuel Erskine is driven and solutions focused IT Professional at ITProcessed Limited. 

The journey to the "cloud" has many roads and different modes of transport.

One misconception of the cloud, I believe is, the thought that you are either a cloud consuming/providing organization or stuck in the dark ages with an on-premise infrastructure.

I believe all organizations regardless of size benefit immediately when they apply the principles of cloud computing underpinned by IT Service Management (ITSM) disciplines.

The principles of cloud computing is more about the how rather than the what; this is why we have private, public and Hybrid clouds. What is common across all types of clouds is how you manage and measure in order to continually improve and use IT as a strategic asset. This common facet is the core goal of ITSM. Microsoft is continually improving its cloud offerings and more importantly the ability to employ ITSM regardless of environment using Azure Operational Insights

This article is about Azure Operational Insights and how it provides a fundamental pillar common across the three cloud types.

Why Azure OpInsights?

Most organizations ask these examples of a common set of questions

  • Are our server configurations standards maintained consistently over the life time (deploy - decommission)?
  • What is the security compliance status across all infrastructure environments?
  • What is the last thing that changed on a system prior to the service outage?
  • Are we following the recommended practises for this particular technology based on practical industry experiences?
  • Are we utilizing resources efficiently and can we accommodate new servers for our planned flag ship service?

Azure OpInsights addresses these questions and continues to provide more answers to questions you have not asked yet!

What is Azure OpInsights and how do you get it?

Microsoft Azure Operational Insights is a single pane of glass cloud service you consume fuelled by your environment(s). The picture below provides a summary and overview of what Azure OpInsights is today. The FAQ on the official Microsoft site provides you with information directly from the source.

You can find out more on the 4th Feb 2015 as part of the 3 day UK TechDays Online event - see the TechDays Online Agenda. I will be presenting a session on the topic

When should you use Azure OpInsights

The preview is available now, so what are you waiting for?