IT Analytics is a main topic of conversation in many of the monitoring and APM briefings and inquiries that I have taken part in last year. If you are reviewing solutions or looking to make decisions in regards to your analytics strategy then here are some points to take into consideration based on solutions I have seen:
1. IT Analytics from a technology perspective
Any analytics solution that you evaluate must be able to store vast amounts of data economically. This means that traditional relational database approaches are not adequate, and non-relational data stores should be the basis of the solution that take into consideration storage and retrieval principles of Hadoop, Cassandra, MapReduce etc.
One of the feature requirements is how quickly data can be queried and pulled back from the data store, as analytics is about providing competitive insight and therefore speed is a priority. Linked to this, the query language should be simple and intuitive.
2. IT Analytics from a process perspective
While having a good IT analytics technology solution is no doubt the foundation to an analytics strategy, the real value comes from making the right insight. The IT analytics technology solution will allow the operator to turn data into information but it's important that you query or ask the right questions.
So what initial questions will you ask? What information will potentially show the business value of an IT analytics strategy and show the strengths of the solution? These questions are critical if you are going to achieve Return On Investment and are essential in order to get business support.
3. IT Analytics from a people perspective
Even if you know what initial questions to ask, how are you going to present it in context of your audience in order to generate knowledge and insight? The standard IT professional way of doing this is to create a visual dashboard.
But I believe that this is only the first step because in order to ensure that everyone understands the value in the insights being shown it’s important to wrap around the visual dashboard with a true to life, company/industry specific story thus avoiding any misinterpretation of the information being shown. Only when the information is interpreted correctly by the audience can it be turned into competitive knowledge, insight and be the basis of appropriate actions – the real value of IT analytics.
So, yes, you should be excited by IT Analytics but just remember that the solution is only part of the answer.
John Rakowski is Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations, at Forrester.
Related Links:
blogs.forrester.com/john_rakowski
Forrester Report: Turn Big Data Inward With IT Analytics