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Automation to the rescue

 
Content starts here Automation allows IT staff to do more while lowering cost, risk and complexity
Learn how IT leaders at EDS are achieving benefits every day with business service automation. Attend HP’s BSA webinar Non-HP site.
Few things strain an IT organization as much as growth. As more hardware and software is added, simple tasks like provisioning and change management start consuming a disproportionate share of resources. Adding staff is a quick fix, but that increases costs and creates a drag on efficiency. In a resource–constrained economy, automation makes more sense than ever.

IT departments can keep costs low and improve staff efficiency by adopting a comprehensive automation strategy. Automating routine IT tasks not only lowers costs but minimizes complexity and the risk of errors. With automation, you can also manage processes across different IT functions, making IT environments as a whole easier to manage. This approach is known as business service automation (BSA).

Spending time wisely

BSA improves IT staff efficiency because repetitive tasks, such as patching, provisioning and configuration management, are carried out automatically. IT staff can then focus more on strategic initiatives that create competitive advantage.

"We've used BSA to script a lot of simple tasks, such as checking the size of file systems across 100 servers," explains Chris Masse, CIO with global solutions provider EDS, which has been using BSA since 2003. "It allows us to focus our labor a lot more and push entry-level tasks downward."

With BSA, EDS has also driven dramatic improvement to its server-to-administrator ratio, which is an excellent indicator of raw efficiency gains. Prior to implementing BSA, EDS had approximately one system administrator for 30 servers. Today EDS’ system administrators manage an average of 100 servers for Unix ® and up to 200 for Windows ®.

BSA helps with compliance too

For many companies, compliance is an equally important cause for BSA. Often, a company will prepare for an audit by adding temporary IT resources to check patch levels and configuration settings. Using BSA, a company can do this more efficiently by establishing consistent standards and best-practices, which can be applied throughout the enterprise.

At Fiserv, a large financial services solutions provider, using a homegrown library of provisioning information such as required configuration settings became less practical as transaction volume grew and software and hardware proliferated. Over time, critical knowledge of how to use and maintain the system began to amass among just a few individuals.

"We knew this process was not sustainable over the long term," says Brian Baggett, IT architect for Fiserv. "Training people how to use the system and how to expand it was going to be a full-time job.”

By adopting BSA, Fiserv was able to eliminate its reliance on proprietary information and make newly provisioned resources compliant with its corporate standards.

Additional benefits

With a comprehensive BSA solution in place, automation can help IT organizations achieve a host of benefits:
  • Improved efficiency through the automation of routine tasks and processes
  • Fewer service disruptions and less downtime
  • Faster and more accurate change management
  • Better visibility and control over IT resources

Where to begin with BSA

It's important to start with your biggest pain point. For some customers, that may be network, client, server or storage management. For others, it may be compliance or closed-loop change management. Starting with an ROI study often makes most sense. Begin by assessing the cost of your current business services. Then do ROI analyses to determine the possible savings for a variety of automation scenarios.

How HP Can Help

HP Business Service Automation software is one of the most sophisticated BSA solutions in the industry. It provides extensive automation capabilities for each tier of infrastructure, allowing enterprises the flexibility to invest in automation where it’s need most. Plus, it enables automation of key processes which span the infrastructure tiers and integrates with HP and third party change-and-incident-management systems. The suite features:

In addition, HP Software’s professional services consultants have deep experience helping customers with a variety of BSA implementations.

Learn more about the benefits of BSA. Register to attend The Power of Automation: The EDS Story Non-HP site . In this HP webinar, IT leaders from EDS will share the best practices and benefits they’re achieving with business service automation.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Windows is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

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Follow the series

This article is the final segment of a four-part series on cost optimization. IT cost optimization can be achieved through four initiatives, including IT financial management, management software consolidation, virtualization management and automation (this article).

IT cost optimization

How do you spend less during a downturn, while laying the groundwork to exit stronger, more efficient and competitive when the economy recovers? It’s a critical question facing many IT organizations today. IT cost optimization can help you overcome this challenge. By maintaining focus on an organization’s operational and financial health, IT cost optimization enables smart cost reductions that don’t undermine business performance or competitive edge. While transformational cost optimization projects are a tough sell while budgets are tight, operational initiatives can produce results in six to 12 months while laying the groundwork for future endeavors. Operational initiatives include IT financial management (ITFM), virtualization management, automation and management software consolidation. Learn more about how HP’s IT cost optimization solutions can help you gain operational advantageNon-HP site.