Best practice in infrastructure scanning                

Having up-to-date and meaningful data about your entire infrastructure is fundamental to ensuring you can control, manage and deliver the IT services your business depends on. Operational issues such as configuration and change management, software license management and data center automation call for information that is meaningful, timely and in the right format.

There are far too many drawbacks to the usual process of collecting and compiling data as a by-product of special operations (e.g. network management or software distribution). Besides the fact that this data is not synchronized, it also lacks compatibility in terms of content and structure. And, the content you need might not be there at all. Your bottom line will feel the consequences in the form of extremely high costs (often distributed and not directly visible) of manual processes and poor service performance.

What is the best practice here? We need to switch from a reactive approach whereby various source data is processed and reconciled after the fact, to a proactive model in which defined standards are used to immediately process the data as it is scanned in order to deliver exactly the information that’s needed. In this way, data procurement becomes manageable, the results can be used at once, and business contexts and interrelationships become more understandable. 

HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping (DDMi) software delivers precisely the kind of powerful, cross-platform scanning capability that discovers and maps data and dependencies across such platforms as MS, UNIX, Linux and MAC. The data is processed and presented using sophisticated mapping and enrichment programs to deliver exactly the right information. Its special features include rules-based filtering and enhancement of the scanned data.

              
The result is customized information to meet your unique needs, such as for software license management or optimizing the energy consumption of large server farms.

The rules used for enrichment and mapping are regularly updated and supplemented as part of a maintenance agreement with HP. Powerful teaching features can even help you define your organization’s own specific standards.

DDMi lets you introduce a proactive data collection process across your entire infrastructure. By implementing standards for preparing data, you can gain visibility and control over your business services, and put an end to the “data maintenance nightmare” and the chaos it causes in your company.

Clientfocus is the expert in consulting, implementation and administration services for using DDMi.