IT Management as a service - ITMaaS

IT Management as a service (ITMaaS) 451 Research, November 2011* Compliments of Nimsoft Nimsoft has emerged as a leading provider of IT management as a service (ITMaaS). We offer a cloud-based platform that features unified monitoring and service desk management capabilities. ITMaaS represents a vital emerging segment in IT, an innovative way to tackle both the traditional and unprecedented challenges that IT organizations face today. Therefore we asked analyst firm 451 Research to bring you definitions and insights around this new and growing market. Nimsoft is proud to share the insight, market perspective, and customer analysis of 451 Research. *The data, text and quotations contained in this document are sourced from the syndicated published research of 451 Research; specifically from the Cloud Computing Market Monitor, the Market Insight Service and TheInfoPro’s Cloud program Nimsoft White Paper “It’s much easier and more effective to manage the cloud from the cloud.” Dennis Callaghan, Senior Software analyst, 451 Research, Feb 18 2011 ITMaaS vendors provide the essential management tools that enable users to access and view an IT environment, monitor and evaluate performance, and ultimately improve the functionality of IT environments through a cloud delivery model. The ability to gain visibility into an internal IT structure and deliver the performance data is a critical component within the management process. Through ITMaaS offerings, enterprises are able to easily capture, analyze and monitor the risks, costs, capacity constraints and other performance metrics that help ensure the optimization of IT resources. The ITMaaS segment is a part of the broader SaaS world. However, the adoption drivers and emerging market characteristics of the segment mimic those of IaaS and PaaS to a greater degree than the enterprise SaaS market. We currently dissect the ITMaaS segment into three categories: problem management; systems and network monitoring and management; and resource utilization, capacity planning and billing. As seen in the figure below, we expect systems and network monitoring and management to generate more than 50% of the revenue within the ITMaaS market in 2011. It is currently the largest segment within the ITMaaS space because many IT professionals consider monitoring as the first step within the IT management process. ESTIMATED 2011 ITMAAS REVENUE BREAKDOWN Source: The 451 Research and Tier1 Research Although smaller in size, the problem management segment, resource utilization, and capacity plan-ning and billing are gaining traction as the cloud delivery model becomes more widely accepted by IT professionals. We believe that the revenue generated from the ITMaaS market totaled $110m in 2010, and will grow at a CAGR of 53% to reach $603m in 2014. Anatomy of the market: Problem Management: Problem management software tracks, records and manages problems related to the IT infrastructure and operations. This category includes IT helpdesk applications and related problem determination and resolution applications, including knowledge bases. Event management tools automate the analysis and response of the systems to non-scheduled system and application events. Included in this segment are event management applications, event correlation and root-cause analysis software, and event-action engines. 2 | IT Management as a Service Reproduced by permission of The 451 Research; copyright 2011. For additional information on The 451 Research or to apply for trial access, go to: www.451research.com Nimsoft White Paper Systems and Network Monitoring and Management: Cloud-monitoring tools drill down from the application code through the VM to the underlying physical server and network layer. The most effective way to monitor cloud workloads without heavy overhead is with monitoring tools that are themselves cloud services. Cloud analytics tools are used to ensure that performance data can be accurately measured and interpreted. These analytics tools must be able to analyze multitier, multisystem (virtual or physical) and multivendor/OS environments. A good analytics or diagnostic tool runs algorithms over the performance- monitoring products in order to detect correlations. The goal is to identify the root cause of an application slowdown—i.e., the particular server misconfiguration or network device outage that is causing one part of the website to hang. It’s a mathematically complex and difficult task, and the analytics packages that have evolved for in-house enterprise applications will need even more sophisticated capabilities to meet the needs of a multi-tenanted, ‘cloudbursting’ environment. Resource Utilization, Capacity Planning and Billing: Resource utilization enables companies to better utilize server resources by running workloads that are flexible as to when they are run alongside primary applications. These can be workloads such as reporting, data analysis, media conversion, Web crawling, search indexing, and other compute-intensive workloads and maintenance tasks. Capacity-planning vendors provide insight into the cloud environment. This enables customers to establish new workload and capacity management strategies based on previous events. As for billing and chargeback capabilities, simply stated, without them, there can be no cloud. Billing systems must be cloud- aware. There is essentially no way to utilize a general IT billing system because many of the concepts, like granular billing and nonphysical assets, are, if not unique to the cloud, then nearly so. Billing functions are often bundled into a broader cloud product; therefore, the billing vendors included in our analysis are limited to those with a stand-alone billing capability. The Voice of the Customer—What are IT Managers Actually Saying? Widely regarded as “The Voice of the Customer”, TheInfoPro, a division of The 451 Research, provides independent, “real world” intelligence on key IT sectors. Using one-on-one interviews conducted within a proprietary network composed of the world’s largest buyers and users of IT, TheInfoPro provides data and insights that are used for strategic planning, technology benchmarking, competitive analysis and vendor selection/negotiation. Comments Sean Hackett, Research Director for Cloud computing at TheInfoPro: “The end-users that we speak to as part of our on-going research see significant benefits associated with SaaS enabling IT Management software. Much of these benefits are largely associated with the following: ∞ License Economics: Vendors typically offer SaaS with a cost-effective subscription-based or per use scheme. This eliminates the need for substantial capital outlays to purchase perpetual software licenses. ∞ Easier software management: SaaS eliminates the initial outlay and ongoing costs and risks of installing, supporting, and maintaining in-house software and hardware and the associated IT staff. ∞ Performance Improvements: Internet-based, in-demand, 24X7 systems can often dramatically improve user access and application performance. It’s also much quicker to deploy application upgrades, as the provider only has to install the update on the host system.” 3 | IT Management as a Service Reproduced by permission of The 451 Research; copyright 2011. For additional information on The 451 Research or to apply for trial access, go to: www.451research.com Nimsoft White Paper About Nimsoft Nimsoft provides integrated, modern IT management solutions for more than 1,000 enterprise and service provider customers globally, including 1&1, CDW, SoftLayer, SunGard Availability Services, Sur La Table, TriNet, and Virgin America. The company’s Nimsoft Unified Manager is an industry-leading solution that helps organizations easily monitor and manage IT services in increasingly complex business environments. Nimsoft products integrate with existing solutions at any point from the data center to the cloud, and are available on a pay-as-you-go basis. For more information, visit www.nimsoft.com. 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