Are you the Master of the Machines?

Bob Tarzey, Analyst and Director

Quocirca Comment July 2014


Are you the Master of the Machines? http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd

It will not come as much surprise that recent
Quocirca research
1
shows most European
businesses are reliant on their IT systems to
drive commercial transactions. However,
measuring a given businesss transactiveness
(the degree of this reliance) is a useful gauge for
looking deeper in to how IT systems are
managed to ensure responsiveness and a good
customer experience.

The first observation is that highly transactive
businesses are more likely to be using flexible IT
platforms; that is, virtualisation and on-demand
infrastructure (platform and/or infrastructure as a
service PaaS/IaaS). A second observation is
that this goes hand in hand with a recognition
that IT operational intelligence has an important
role to play, not just in ensuring IT systems are
responsive, but that they are reacting to
commercial requirements and that all relevant
staff have a view of this.

For the purposes of the research, IT operational
intelligence was defined as follows: harnessing
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. To get a measure of the
capability that the organisations represented by
the respondents had in place, an operational
intelligence index (OI-index) was created with a
range from 0-3. The index measured the
capability organisations had to use such
intelligence in the following areas:

1. Search and investigate
2. Proactive monitoring
3. Operational visibility
4. Real-time business insights
The more capability they had in each area; the
higher the overall OI-index value. Scores varied
widely, but went up in line with transactiveness
and the use of flexible infrastructure. Those
organisations using flexible infrastructure as a
primary way of deploying IT had an average OI
index over 2, whilst for others it was less than 2.
In other words, flexible infrastructure provides
the business agility needed by transactive
businesses but supporting operational
intelligence tools are needed to make it all work.

However, it goes well beyond just having the
tools in place; as important is the job roles that
get to view the intelligence provided. Most
provide some level of insight around operational
intelligence to IT managers. However, those
with a high OI-index are much more likely to go
beyond this and provide a view to other job roles
including those at board level. This is because
they are using IT operational intelligence to
provide real time business insights which is of
value across an organisation.

Operational intelligence relies on machine data
as its raw material and as with any intelligence,
it is only as good as the data gathered. The
volumes generate by an organisations IT
systems can be huge. Over the period of a year,
for an average enterprise it can run into billions
of data items. This includes things like 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. This makes operational intelligence a big
data problem and it fits all the 5 Vs definition of
big data well.

These are v for volume as described above; v for
variety, covering the range of sources, with their



Are you the Master of the Machines? http://www.quocirca.com 2014 Quocirca Ltd

wide variety of formats. If machine data can be
used in near real time, it gives v for velocity; and
it can add lots of v for value to operational
decision making. All of which gets an
organisation closer to the truth about what is
happening behind the scenes on their IT systems;
the last v for veracity. Machine data is what it is;
you cannot hide from the facts that analysing it
exposes.

That said, much is missed, even those with a
maximum OI-index only gather machine data
from about 65% of their IT infrastructure; for
those with a very low index it is about 15%.
Clearly, something is missing to deliver the
vision even among the most capable and
ambitious and that turns out to be the supporting
tools which are often not up to the job.

Mostly, organisations are relying on general
purpose business intelligence tools, backed with
an assortment of spreadsheets and general
purpose databases. Only 27% use purpose built
tools; however, those that have implemented
specialist tools do gather considerably greater
volumes of machine data and will therefore have
access to better operational intelligence.

For many it is early days; those with specialist
tools in place will extend their use to improve
machine data capture the resulting intelligence
gathering. The reach of the tools use has to
include on-demand IT resources as well as those
deployed in-house as the most transactive
businesses turn more and more to flexible
infrastructure to ensure a great user experience
and maintain competitive edge.

1 Quocircas report Masters of Machines is
freely available to readers of The Stack at the
following link
http://www.splunk.com/goto/masters_of_machin
es_whitepaper

This article first appeared on The Stack:
http://www.thestack.com/are-you-the-
master-of-the-machines






Are you the Master of the Machines? 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.

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