With rapid digital transformation, most businesses today have adopted or are in the process of adopting technologies to keep pace with the rapidly changing technology landscape. New technologies and solutions such as hybrid or multi-cloud infrastructure increase complexities and challenge traditional IT strategies which may no longer be able to handle the issues arising out of digital transformation. The sheer volume of data being generated today makes it difficult for teams to make use of them in an efficient manner.
AIOps which stands for “Artificial Intelligence in IT Operations” is the emerging technology that helps IT Operations tackle challenges of rapid digital transformation by leveraging artificial intelligence. Apart from filling the gaps, AIOps can also help IT teams work more efficiently.
AIOps combines big data and machine learning to automate IT operations processes, including event correlation, anomaly detection and causality determination."
- Gartner
AIOps platforms are now emerging to assist IT in successfully leveraging AI in their operations. According to Gartner, “AIOps platforms utilize big data, modern machine learning and other advanced analytics technologies to, directly and indirectly, enhance IT operations (monitoring, automation and service desk) functions with proactive, personal and dynamic insight. AIOps platforms enable the concurrent use of multiple data sources, data collection methods, analytical (real-time and deep) technologies, and presentation technologies.”
Typically, IT teams employ a wide range of monitoring tools to capture operational data that can be used to correlate and analyze the cause of infrastructure events, severity, and remedies. But the data generated by these tools are stored in silos, making it exceedingly difficult to work with and extract value from the data. AIOps platform gathers data from multiple sources into a centralized location to enable visibility across departments. Big data aggregates from various silos including data from monitoring systems, job logs (observational data), tickets, event recordings and incidents (engagement data). This data is too complex to be analyzed by manual efforts alone.
AIOps Platform conceptualization by Gartner
AIOps provides comprehensive analytics and machine learning to work on this data, which leads to continuous improvements in the core IT functions through deep insights. AIOps integrates Performance Management (Observe), Service Management (Engage) and Automation (Act) into a single cycle of continuous insights and improvement by leveraging the power of big data and machine learning.
IT environments are becoming complex, teams get inundated with event alarms making it difficult for them to distinguish critical alarms that require immediate attention. With continuous insights from big data and machine learning, AIOps eliminates noise and creates correlated incidents, enabling IT teams to focus on areas requiring immediate attention. Issues are resolved swiftly and efficiently without affecting the business.
Many infrastructure events and failures may be recurring but the data about them is difficult for IT teams to obtain actionable insights from them manually. AIOps analyzes historical data to detect patterns by analyzing real-time data, anticipate incidents and suggest remedies to prevent or resolve them quickly.
AIOps uses past incident failures investigation and resolution data to perform root-cause analysis to resolve issues swiftly thereby decreasing “Mean Time To Repair” (MTTR). Without human intervention, AIOps improves overall IT operational efficiency and significantly reduces downtime and outages.
AIOps doesn't just break down data silos, it also helps IT teams collaborate with each other and teams across the organization. Interactive dashboards and customized reports improve the visibility and transparency into IT operations, which in turn improves collaboration among teams. As IT staff is freed from repetitive and mundane tasks, they can move on with strategic and innovative tasks.
With rapid digitization, IT has become an active business partner, and expectations of IT have increased to offer experiences like other consumer technologies. IT events that can impact user experience need to be addressed quickly and efficiently. In many instances, AIOps with the help of predictive analytics and automation, can anticipate future events and prevent them from occurring. To improve resolution time, AIOps suggests self-service resolutions through knowledge base articles that help users resolve issues without having to wait for IT teams. Even if unpredictable incidents occur, AIOps can help resolve them quickly. This leads to an enhanced user experience.
With businesses adopting new technologies to drive innovation, IT has a more strategic role to play to serve dynamic business needs. In this process, with legacy tools, the pressure in the IT environment is likely to increase. Businesses with foresight need to adopt AIOps to transform IT into an active strategic business partner helping businesses drive better operational efficiency and innovation.