Operational intelligence as a value-add

Bob Tarzey, Analyst and Director

Quocirca Comment August 2014


Operational intelligence as a value-
add
http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd

IT operational intelligence is both an opportunity
for resellers to improve their services and sell
customers a new information stream for business
insight. This was the subject of a recent Quocirca
report titled Masters of Machines, freely
available to CRN readers at the link given at the
end of this article.

The report defines operational intelligence as
the harnessing of machine data to gain real-
time insights into operations to access, tune and
improve IT and business processes, to identify
security threats, highlight performance issues
and see emerging customer trends. Machine
data being the stuff automatically generated as
IT systems log their own activity; what data
went via which router, who accessed which
application and when, the IP addresses, URLs
and devices via which web sites are accessed and
so on.

Operational intelligence fits the 5 Vs often used
to define big data, making it a true big data
problem and opportunity. The volumeof records
involved can run into billions per year for a
given organisation, the data is derived from a
wide variety of sources. The opportunity is to
use the data in near real-time (velocity), to
provide accurate insight (veracity) to add value
to a given organisations operational capability.

The report delves in to a wide range of issues
with regard to the operational intelligence
capabilities of Europe organisations across a
variety of sectors and business sizes. An index is
defined for operational intelligence maturity and
this is used to measure how organisations vary in
their ability to capitalise on all the machine data
that is available to them.

One area that was examined was the sharing of
operational intelligence with partners. The more
likely an organisation was to outsource the
management of its IT infrastructure the more
value it placed on operational intelligence
capability (Figure 1). This is because there is
plenty of value to be had in sharing operational
intelligence and experienced service providers
will be more likely to know about this than an IT
department that operates in relative isolation.







Operational intelligence as a value-
add
http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd

However, overall the sharing of operational
intelligence with partners was low (Figure 2). Of
all the roles that have access IT managers top the
list with partners and service providers coming
near the bottom. That may change with
awareness; the data shows that where there has
been investment in operational intelligence
(leading to the greatest maturity) value has
followed well beyond internal IT, 82% of those
with the maximum maturity are making
operational intelligence available to board level
execs for business decision making (Figure 3).




The report goes on to look at the ways machine
data is gathered and processed to provide
operational intelligence. Most organisation still
use ad hoc tools such as spreadsheets, general
purpose business intelligence tools and database
systems. Few are currently using purpose built
tools, but those that do already collect and
analyse more machine data and the figures will
likely improve as the use of tools that are
relatively new to many matures.

The sponsor of Quocircas report, was the San
Francisco-based Splunk Inc. As arguably the
leading operational intelligence tools provider,
Splunks main competition, is the use of home
grown methods and tools designed to do other
jobs. It also overlaps with providers in other
areas that have some of the same capabilities;
this includes system management, application
and network performance monitoring, user
experience monitoring and security information
and event management (SIEM).

So, those two new reseller opportunities again:
first, if your services extend to managing
elements of your customers IT infrastructure,
sharing operational intelligence through capable
tools can provide better insight in to problems
and mean they are anticipated in advance and
more quickly fixed. Second, improved
operational intelligence opens up a new stream
of business insight for your customers non-IT
execs. A win-win if ever there was one.

Quocircas report, Masters of Machines, if freely
available at this link:
http://www.quocirca.com/reports/955/masters-
of-machines--business-insight-from-it-
operational-intelligence

This article first appeared in CRN UK and on:
http://www.channelweb.co.uk






Operational intelligence as a value-
add
http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd



About Quocirca
Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology
and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the
views of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real-
world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry
and its real usage in the markets.

Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption the personal and
political aspects of an organisations environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value in
any implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables
Quocirca to advise on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises.

Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC
has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocircas
mission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of
understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time.

Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITC
products and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of
long term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community.

Quocirca works with global and local providers of ITC products and services to help them deliver on the promise
that ITC holds for business. Quocircas clients include Oracle, IBM, CA, O2, T-Mobile, HP, Xerox, Ricoh and
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