How can IT generate more time in order to focus on strategic initiatives that actually solve real business problems?
I'm a big fan of XKCD.com and especially two graphics caught my attention. The first one describes how much time you can spend on optimizing an activity before you spend more time than you save.
The above graph shows that is is very obvious to start automating your daily activities and the fact that you can spend quite large amount of time on the optimization activity itself to free up your time.
The only thing you now have to do is find a solution that quickly will help you automate away your daily manual IT activities. Easy?
Here's the catch: I often see that instead of finding a solution that will free up time, in reality, a widely adopted solution is chosen and people spend more time and resources on the solution than the actual problem itself.
The first step to break away from this destructive pattern is to dare finding another solution. To win you have to dare and to dare you have to do.
Ever bought a solution that you thought would help you do more with less? Did it disappoint you? If so please pay close attention to what I hope will be one of the most gratifying experiences in your professional life!
What if you could, for once, purchase a tool that is easy to use and is actually designed to get the job done?
I've seen many tools that looks shiny on the outside but when you open the can it is not what you've expected. You think you've purchased a conveyor belt with robots - a fully automated solution with little to no human interaction?
But what you actually got was, indeed an conveyor belt, but you still have to assign a lot of people getting things done! Not very efficient!
Well, here's a solution to the problem: RES Automation Manager.
RES Automation Manager is designed to get things done! It is easy to use, has a very lightweight and easy to deploy infrastructure that works seamlessly in multi-tenant environments. It has extensive built-in knowledge and requires little training to use. A complete list of all the built-in tasks can be downloaded here.
With RES Automation Manager you can encapsulate your administrators change knowledge in secure, effective modules or runbooks. The modules or runbooks can easily be delegated to people with no IT skills and no administrative access to any system but still allowing them to perform advanced, controlled and audited changes. Some of the changes might be suitable to offer as services through an Enterprise Service Store - Service Orchestration.
Nowadays vendors offer a scripting interface such as PowerShell into most of their products. This is great but requires advanced skills to manage and maintain. The scripts will also often be custom made for a specific task. With the use of Parameters you can make changes reusable. Parameters can even be used within scripts. When a script is executed (by people with no administrative access or script knowledge) they will be asked to input custom data into a locked down script. RES Automation Manager will execute the script locally where needed and the change is controlled by the administrator.
If you the also work with change management best practices you have different environments for developing and testing your changes. How do you easily move the settings from one environment to another? RES Automation Manager offers building block technology that allows easy move of modules or runbooks from one environment to another.
How about documenting changes? Is this always done? Are scripters documenting their scripts in a consistent way? All of them? All the time? In RES Automation Manager everything is automatically documented, all the time, consistent...
And what if you manage more than one customer or multiple Active Directories? No problem! RES Automation Manager is Windows Domain independent and proven to work in very large and complex networking infrastructures.
Have a look at one of the videos I've created on how to use RES Automation Manager.
And when you're done watching, download a trial of the software here:
RES Automation Manager 2012 enhances existing capabilities with the following:
Cross platform support (including Red Hat & SuSE) Take all your existing management scripts, copy & paste them into controlled and secure modules. Can be included in RunBooks to make changes in multi-tenant systems & services. New Linux Tasks:
Execute Command
Reboot
Shutdown
Download Resource
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager integration Utilize the Automation Manager Self Service Portal to install applications through collections in ConfigMgr. You can also query the ConfigMgr client status (version, available services, cache options etc).
Scalability and performance improvements, including native 64-bit support Unlimited scalability through the new Dispatcher+. Previous recommended limit per Dispatcher was 150 CCA (concurrent agents). This limit has been removed.
Launch window support Control when jobs can be launched on systems to prevent changes during business hours. This can be overruled in the delegation model (for emergency maintenance).
Agent, Team and evaluator relationship enhancements Allows for running queries and then automatically perform an action based on the outcome. Evaluators now included:
=
>
<
<=
>=
<>
LIKE
NOT LIKE
Enhanced support for evaluators in the following queries:
Query AD Computer
Query AD Group
Query AD Object
Query AD Organizational Unit
Query AD User
Query Computer Properties
Query Disk Space
Query Installed Programs
Query Service Properties
Query TCP/IP Properties
New Task: Change Team Membership Add or remove agents from teams directly in a task.
New Global Setting: Default Schedule To have an additional safe net the default scheduling can be changed from Scheduled to On Hold. This also applies to rescheduled jobs.
Job Scheduling The option to schedule offline agents at next boot is enhanced with; or when Agent is resumed after hibernate, sleep or standby. this is very useful for managing laptops.
RunBook Scheduling The option to use RunBook parameter has been enhanced with the following;
to select Agents on computer name
to select Agents on active Console user
to select Agents on last Console user
to select most recent Agent on last Console User
Global Variables When configuring a Task, the values of many fields can now optionally be replaced with Variables. Similar to parameters, Variables function as placeholders for customer-specific values, such as, server names, passwords or credentials. Different from parameters however, Variables are resolved at the moment of Job execution, rather than at the moment of Job scheduling.
According to Gartner, 40% of unplanned downtime is caused by human errors. This is also the only way for IT to do more with less! Besides greatly reducing unplanned downtime, automating your daily IT tasks will;
Standardize IT
Increase Quality of Service
Free up time to focus on strategic responsibilities
Grow IT maturity
Increase security
RES Software Automation Manager gives you an easy way of automating daily IT tasks without adding to complexity or increasing the administrative overhead. There is NO point in selecting a solution that is complex - not if you have any of the above goals.
The following videos will explain the three steps that will help you move from a Basic to a Dynamic IT as a Service environment.
Step 1 - Take an existing manual task and automate it:
Step 2 - Create Run Books and delegate them to help desk:
Step 3 - Delegate IT changes back to the organisation through self service:
By taking this practical, non-complex and easy approach to IT maturity and Microsoft I/O model, It staff will be less stressed and users more happy. Nirvana?
The final video in the series on 'How to relieve IT stress' explains how RES Automation Manager and Service Orchestration further removes the need of human interaction when implementing changes in the IT infrastructure. The Run Book we created in the previous video can now be delegated back to the organization as a service. This will;
Allow the organisation to decide when changes are needed
IT will still be in control on how the changes are implemented
Free up time for both the IT administrator and the service desk
This is the third and final step in the maturity process moving from a rationalized to a dynamic IT environment.
Compare the 'Before Automation' video with the 'Step -3' video. How much time did IT spend on making the actual change in the 'Step -3' video?
This means more time to deliver on strategic responsibilities and less resources needed for mundane repeatable tasks.
This third video in the series on 'How to relieve IT stress' explains how the previously created task in RES Automation Manager can be turned into a run book and delegated to service desk. This will;
Minimize IT administrator workload
Create more time for strategic initiatives.
This is the second step in the maturity model moving from a standardized to a rationalized IT infrastructure.
In the next video I will show how these Run Books can be delegated back into the organisation through self service. This will not only offload the service desk but also allow the organisation to be in control on when changes will be made while IT still are in control on how the changes are implemented. Stay tuned...
This video shows that automating daily IT tasks with RES Automation Manager can make changes;
Predictable
More secure
Increase Quality of Service
This is also the first step in the maturity model moving from a basic IT environment to a standardized IT environment.
In the next video, I will show how you can create Run Books of the standardized tasks and delegate them to service desk. This will further relieve stress from the IT administrator.
The only way to do more with less is to automate daily IT tasks. I will show, in four different videos, how easy this is done with RES Automation Manager.
Before scenario: No processes or automation in place. Changes are being done ad hoc and 'uncontrolled'. User request a change that has to be done in Active Directory by an IT administrator.
This video shows how changes could be done in the above scenario.
In the next video I will explain how risk can be reduced by automating daily IT tasks. Step 1 in the maturity model.
Delivering It services is not an easy thing. Sometimes we make it even more difficult than necessary. We will have to live in a world of multiple service delivery mechanisms. Users will have multiple ways of accessing services. VDI, TS, desktops, laptops and other mobile devices. For IT to keep up with new demands they must invest in new technologies. The problem is that this only adds to complexity and the difficulty managing the users.
Take a look at the list below and think about delivering IT services and what is most important;
Having a technical background I know that it is easy to fall back into your comfort zone - technology. But is this always best for the company?
My preference would be like this;
What? Why? Where? When? How?
With this I am not saying that how is unimportant but it should not be priority one!
What potentially could happen is that the technology itself will limit on what you must deliver. You should be able to select the best technology for every purpose and not let this result in a more complex environment to manage.
You need a solution that helps you focus on what to deliver instead of how - i.e. managing a hybrid environment.
Such solution could be RES Workspace Manager. RES Workspace Manager helps you manage the desired state of the user. Decoupling all user related settings from the underlaying technology stack. You can call it virtualization, but we call it User Workspace Management. The context of the user (ID/role, location and time) will determine what will be delivered using a hybrid delivery technology.
A lot of administration, particularly on servers, is used with scripts either with Powershell, VB or Secure Shell (SSH). You can basically do anything with scripts and more and more features are exposed to scripting.
The problem with scripts is that they are usually hard to maintain and troubleshoot. They are rarely documented which results in painful hand overs to new administrators. Scripts are also often created for one distinct purpose and cannot be reused.
So how can you take existing scripts and make them dynamic and reusable?
The answer is RES Automation Manager.
In RES Automation Manager you can easily import your existing scripts and turn them into a module/task. This task can then be scheduled in a controlled fashion by administrators with no administrative rights on the systems the script is being executed on. By using parameters in RES Automation Manager the scripts can be generic, dynamic and reusable. I will explain exactly how it works in the below video.
If you want to know more on how to get in control, please visit RES Software on the web.
I got a question last week from a company if they, with RES Automation Manager, could easily query uptime on their Windows servers and then perform a controlled reboot.
I have created a video that demonstrates how this can be done.
Beware that this is a very powerful tool and could cause unwanted results if used in the wrong way.
This can be avoided by delegating control and setting a scope on possible systems where the task can be executed.
If you want to know more about RES Automation Manager please visit RES Software on the web.
Removing local administrator rights from desktops and laptops have a huge impact! According to Gartner you could reduce the TCO with as much as $1237 per user per year! It could also, according to Microsoft, mitigate the effect of 92% of critical vulnerabilities.
There are a lot of reasons why local administrative rights is needed. It could be legacy applications, access to specific Control Panel applets or applications that need to change hardware settings.
What are we waiting for? Let's go ahead and see how it can be done.
RES Workspace Manager 2011 have the possibility to add Dynamic Privileges to specific processes for specific users.
In the video I demonstrate how it is configured and the way it works.
If you want to know more, please visit RES Software.
