From Chaotic To Value Driven: How To Progress In Your IT Service Management Maturity

09/06/2018 |

Almost 20 years ago Gartner, Inc. introduced the IT Service Management Maturity Model, in order to aid IT operations management in plotting a course to create value in IT Service Management. The model introduced five levels or positions, your IT Service Management might be at Chaotic, Reactive, Proactive, Service and Value. Ideally, you want to be in the final two levels to truly be optimizing your IT service management processes.

So, where are you at?Let’s discuss what each level means and how Opmantek’s solutions can assist you in improving your position.

Level 0 – Chaotic

This is not where you want to be and most likely not where you are if you are reading this blog. Organizations in the Chaotic stage do things ad hoc and in an undocumented and unpredictable manner. They have multiple unconsolidated help desks, where users call to notify of issues and have minimal mature IT operations. These businesses are most likely part of the 21% of organizations who view IT as an expensive overhead, rather than the 45% of organizations who view IT as necessary.

Level 1 – Reactive

Businesses that are operating on the Reactive level have progressed from chaos, they now have basic backup and recovery (phew!), they have basic inventory management and basic topology. There is basic events management and a system of trouble ticketing, but they are still just fighting fires when they occur.

To progress from a Reactive position requires, at the minimum, performance management, change management, problem management, configuration management, automation, job scheduling and availability management. This is where Opmantek’s solutions can assist!

The progression to have proactive IT Service Management is extremely simple, Opmantek’s core open-source software can handle this, there is no financial implications, just potential time to save.

Opmantek’s solution which will help your rise from the Chaotic or Reactive levels to a basic Proactive level include:

Open-AudIT – Open-AudIT is an open-source network discovery, inventory and audit program which can tell you exactly what is on your network, how it is configured and when it changes. You will need a program such as Open-AudIT in place to achieve the Reactive level with sophisticated inventory management. Open-AudIT can assist at the Proactive level for basic configuration and change management, with Open-AudIT Enterprise offering enhanced capabilities utilising baselines and Open-AudIT Professional and Enterprise offering network automation functionality.
NMIS – NMIS is an open-source network management system, which monitors the status and performance of an organization’s IT environment, assists in identification and rectification of faults and provides valuable information for IT departments to plan infrastructure changes and investment. You will need a program such as NMIS in place to achieve the Reactive level and beyond. NMIS can initiate problem management and undertake alert and event management required at the Reactive level. NMIS can also assist with performance management, analyzing trends, thresholding and measuring application availability with automation capabilities.

Opmantek’s commercial modules which will help you achieve a Proactive level (and beyond) include:

opEvents – opEvents enhances NMIS, reducing the business impact of network faults and failures using proactive event management to fast-track problem resolution, reduce outages, improve performance and decrease the cost of managing your IT environment. opEvents can assist you to achieve the Proactive level by automating the handling of events.
opCharts – opCharts is a solution that brings to life NMIS data, that allows you to increase your network visibility, reduce organizational complexity and accelerate root cause discovery by visualizing all of the key information about their environment using dashboards, maps and charts. opCharts assists you to achieve the Proactive level through dashboarding and viewing multiple data sets showing trends, problems and availability with data from NMIS. opCharts also continues to be relevant in your progression to the Service and ultimately Value levels.
opConfig – opConfig assists in disaster recovery, troubleshooting, compliance and change management allowing organizations to compare, track and manage change and compliance, with a full history of configuration information. opConfig can assist you to achieve the Proactive level by providing advanced automated change and compliance management, which then positions you to be able to move on up to the Service or Value stage of maturity.
opFlow – opFlow is a solution designed to rapidly identify the root cause of poor network performance. opFlow can assist you to achieve a mature Proactive level in relation to your performance management processes.
opTrend – opTrend is a solution providing cutting-edge analytics, identifying resources that are showing abnormal activity based on historical behavior and providing organizations with a true trend analysis of critical resources. opTrend can assist you to attain and progress from the Proactive stage by providing a more advanced level of trend analysis than NMIS.

Level 2 – Proactive

In a Proactive state, you are doing well as you have the solutions previously discussed in place and, like many others, you may be happy to just stay here and avoid reverting to a Reactive or Chaotic state. However, there is still room for improvement to further optimize your IT operations processes. You may be predicting problems, analyzing trends and automating tasks, but you could also be viewing IT as a service provider, having guaranteed Service Level Agreements (SLA) in place and measuring service availability.

Level 3 – Service

If you have reached the Service level, awesome work! You have almost completed your journey towards a complete optimization of your IT operations processes. At this stage, you understand the costs involved with IT operations, have SLAs in place and are managing service delivery with solutions such as NMIS and opCharts, that allow you to capture key information and then visualize it with dashboards. You are also undertaking capacity planning. All that is left to do now is to transition towards managing IT as a Business.

In addition to the solutions discussed previously, other Opmantek solutions which can help you attain and exceed the Service stage include:

opReports – opReports extends NMIS, by automating the creation and distribution of detailed operational and executive-level reports. opReports can assist you at the Service by reporting on service availability and capacity management data. It will also in your progression to the Value level with regards to business planning.

Level 4 – Value

To be operating at the highest level, the Value state, you have all the previous measures discussed in place to manage your IT operations. You are also now viewing IT as a strategic business partner, respecting the linkages between IT and business metrics, using management and business application data to improve the business process and inform planning, and experiencing enhanced cost recovery. Solutions such as Opmantek’s opCharts and opReports are allowing you to visualize and report on data you collect through your IT operations, and you are now using such software to inform improved business processes and planning. If you are in this stage of maturity of IT management processes you are likely experiencing a competitive advantage over your competition in your industry.

In conclusion, to achieve optimization of your IT operations processes, it is essential to be operating at the Service or Value level of Gartner, Inc.’s IT Service Management Maturity Model with the help of solutions such as those provided by Opmantek. Progressing through the stages of the model will result in widespread improvements to your overall service management and provide many benefits to your organization. Gartner has reported that in the 1^st year of implementing such framework, organizations experienced a 20% improvement to the initial incident response rate, decreased number of problems requiring multiple man-days, a 66% decrease in the number of major failures and a 20% decrease in human error in releases. After 3 years of implementing the framework, organizations experience a reduction in costs of 30%.

Ultimately, Gartner, Inc.’s IT Service Management Maturity Model can help organizations manage risks, improve decision making, increase productivity and gain a competitive advantage from IT. If you need help progressing your level of maturity with respect to the framework, just reach out, a member of the Opmantek team would be happy to guide you through our solutions in a free product demo.

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Build your cybersecurity capabilities with government support

09/05/2018 |

Australians are avid users of online social media, banking and government services – making individuals and businesses in this country attractive targets for cybercrime.

According to a recent government cybersecurity review, cybercrime costs us about $1 billion in direct costs alone each year. Victims’ business and employment opportunities may dry up, while reputations and well-being are also at risk.

Scammers are increasingly focusing on very small businesses that may lack the resources and expertise to defend themselves against cyberattacks. The Australian Government recently noted a rise in business email scams – particularly targeting businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

The Government has taken a range of measures to build its cybersecurity capabilities. These include the recent launch of a ‘purpose-built’ Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) headquarters to protect critical infrastructure, businesses and the Australian public; integrating the ACSC into the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the organisation that works across intelligence, cybersecurity and offensive operations; and consolidating a range of websites, including those for for ACORN (the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network) and the ACSC, into the cyber.gov.au website.

So how can small businesses take advantage of these consolidated government capabilities to improve their cybersecurity? They can access a range of resources through https://cyber.gov.au/business/, including guides, updates and alert services. They may also advise any workers that may be a victim of a cybersecurity incident to report it and obtain advice through https://cyber.gov.au/individual/report/.

Furthermore, they may access information about partnerships between the ACSC and businesses involved in critical infrastructure or systems of national interest. Eligible businesses may receive threat intelligence and incident management support.

We recommend owners and senior managers at small businesses take the time to understand the government’s measures. They should use the government’s cybersecurity materials to build their own knowledge and capabilities – and ultimately improve the cybersecurity posture of their businesses.

Talk to Roger or one of our experts today on +61 2 9409 7000 about protecting your business.

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Six cybersecurity best practices for your small to medium business

09/04/2018 |

Cybersecurity can be a big problem for small to medium businesses (SMBs). In fact, SMBs account for 43 percent of all cybercrime targets.

And as SMBs increasingly rely on the online world for their day-to-day activities, the potential for systems to be compromised or a loss or breach of data continues to increase. The good news is that business owners can substantially reduce the risk of cyber-attacks by exercising good cyber hygiene.

Here are six cybersecurity best practices for your small to medium business:

Number 1: Take stock of your hardware and software

By documenting these, you will find it easier to hone in on vulnerabilities. For example, unused hardware should be securely wiped and disposed of properly. Likewise, software and apps need to be updated regularly or uninstalled.

Number 2: Educate employees

Your employees are at the frontline of your business. As such, it is critical that they are aware of and sufficiently trained on your company’s network security policies.

Number 3: Enforce using safe passwords

According to the Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report, 63 percent of data breaches happened due to lost, stolen or weak passwords. Strong passwords consist of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. All passwords should be changed every 60 to 90 days.

Number 4: Use multi-factor authentication (MFA)

MFA adds an extra layer of security on top of passwords, providing an additional barrier for an attacker to breach. This is typically done by generating a one-time token (or code) that is sent to the authorised user to enter when logging in.

Number 5: Regularly backup all data

While it’s important to prevent as many attacks as possible, it is still possible to be breached regardless of your precautions. Be sure to also back up all data stored on the cloud.

Number 6: Install anti-virus software

It is essential to have an anti-virus tool installed on all devices and the network, particularly to help protect against phishing attacks.

Conclusion

Securing your business, its data and infrastructure, isn’t a one-off effort – it requires an ongoing commitment to good cyber hygiene practices.

Please call Simon or one of our team today on +61 2 9409 7000 to find out more.

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Three steps to strengthen your cyber security posture

09/04/2018 |

Cyber threats abound in the digital age, and organisations – large and small – must prepare for the fire.

Attacks are not only becoming more frequent and sophisticated, they are also wreaking greater havoc on companies, governments and critical infrastructure – a trend that’s certain to continue over the years to come. Building and maintaining a strong cyber posture is paramount in preparing for the next generation of attacks, and doing this requires the right people and processes, as well as tools and technologies.

The following three steps will help your organisation evolve beyond tactical and short-term cyber security solutions, and focus on more effective, longer-term strategies.

Number 1: Increase awareness

Management needs to take proactive steps to increase their cybersecurity awareness and not only acknowledge the risks, but lead and own actions and decisions. Cybersecurity must also be recognised as everyone’s responsibility rather than that of the IT department alone.

Number 2: Know what’s at risk

Data is one of the most valuable assets of any business. In a breach, internal and confidential data, as well as customers’ data could be leaked, modified or stolen. Detail severity levels and the required responses for each.

Number 3: Deploy cutting-edge cyber solutions

Businesses and government agencies need affordable access to the most advanced, comprehensive and adaptive cloud-based cyber security solutions if they are to mitigate zero-day cyber threats.

At FirstWave, we have developed and deployed machine learning and API technologies that automate, accelerate and optimise cloud-security delivery, threat protection and security management to more than 300 small to medium businesses, as well as enterprise and government customers.

Conclusion

The severity, scope, and cost of a security breach increases with every hour it remains unresolved. And while there is no silver bullet that is guaranteed to stop attacks, your organisation can take effective steps that minimise the damage. Planning and preparation are key to reducing the impact of cyber exploits on your business and its customers so please call us today on +61 2 9409 7000.

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Leveraging The opCharts API With Python Scripts

08/30/2018 |

A potential customer approached us and asked if they could use Python to request from the opCharts API.

You can get yourself up to speed with the API in this community WIKI guide.

The answer was very quick, yes, but then an example was required. Chris Gatlin, an APAC support engineer, wrote a terrific example of how to achieve this that will be outlined below.

For this example, we’ll build an HTML Network Status web page via a CGI script. This page will be comprised of tables; the first table will summarize group status while the subsequent tables will provide node level details for each group.

This example will utilize the following modules:

We also need to define the following variables:

Protocol (HTTP or https)
Server Address
Username
Password

#!/usr/bin/python3

import urllib.request, http.cookiejar, json

PROTOCOL = 'https'

SERVER = 'demo.opmantek.com'

USERNAME = 'nmis'

with open('/var/www/opChartsApi.conf', 'r') as confFile:

USERPASS = confFile.read().strip()

Note: the password is hidden inside the conFile, which is why we read from it.

The next step involves configuring the URL handling;

CJ = http.cookiejar.CookieJar()

OPENER = urllib.request.build_opener(urllib.request.HTTPCookieProcessor(CJ))

loginUrl = (PROTOCOL + '://' + SERVER + '/omk/opCharts/login')

loginDict = {'username' : USERNAME , 'password' : USERPASS}

DATA = urllib.parse.urlencode(loginDict).encode("utf-8")

REQUEST = urllib.request.Request(loginUrl, DATA)

OPENER.open(REQUEST)

Once you have access the next step is to query opCharts for the node status;

nodeData = OPENER.open(PROTOCOL + '://' + SERVER + '/omk/opCharts/nodes.json')

nodeDecoded = nodeData.read().decode()

nodeList = json.loads(nodeDecoded)

Once we have the data, we need to repurpose it into a logical data structure;

groupStatus = { }

for n in nodeList:

if n['group'] not in groupStatus:

groupStatus[n['group']] = {'up' : 0, 'down' : 0}

groupStatus[n['group']]['nodes'] = {}

if n['nodedown'] == 'true':

groupStatus[n['group']]['down'] += 1

else:

groupStatus[n['group']]['up'] += 1

groupStatus[n['group']]['nodes'][n['name']] =

{'name' : n['name'],

'location' : n['location'],

'type' : n['nodeType'],

'net' : n['netType'],

'role' : n['roleType'],

'status' : n['nodestatus']

}

Now to build and display the tables;

print('Content-type: text/html\n\n')

print(‘<html><style>’)

print(‘table, th, td { border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse;}</style>’)

print(‘<head><title>Opmantek Network Status</title></head><body><strong>Opmantek Network Status</strong><br><br>’)

print(‘<table><tr><th>Group</th><th>Nodes Up</th><th>Nodes Down</th></tr>’)

for k in sorted(groupStatus):

print(‘<tr><td>’ + k + ‘</td><td>&nbsp’ + str(groupStatus[k][‘up’]) + ‘</td><td>&nbsp’ + str(groupStatus[k][‘down’]) + ‘</td></tr>’)

print(‘</table><br><br>’)

for k in sorted(groupStatus):

print(‘<strong>Group: ‘ + k + ‘</strong><br>’)

print(‘<table><tr><th>Node</th><th>Location</th><th>Type</th><th>Net</th><th>Role</th><th>Status</th></tr>’)

for g in sorted(groupStatus[k][‘nodes’]):

print(

‘<tr><td>’ + groupStatus[k][‘nodes’][g][‘name’] + ‘</td>

<td>&nbsp’ + groupStatus[k][‘nodes’][g][‘location’] + ‘&nbsp</td>

<td>&nbsp’ + groupStatus[k][‘nodes’][g][‘type’] + ‘&nbsp</td>

<td>&nbsp’ + groupStatus[k][‘nodes’][g][‘net’] + ‘&nbsp</td>

<td>&nbsp’ + groupStatus[k][‘nodes’][g][‘role’] + ‘&nbsp</td>

<td>&nbsp’ + groupStatus[k][‘nodes’][g][‘status’] + ‘&nbsp</td>’)

print(‘</table><br><br>’)

print('</html>')

After accomplishing all of that, you will get a page that will look similar to the following;

There are a lot of possibilities when you engage with opCharts’ API. What novel ways have you used it?

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Gartner, Inc.: Opmantek Well-Aligned To Meet The Needs Of Midsize Enterprise

08/24/2018 |

Opmantek is a leading provider of powerful and competitively priced network management software and the current ICT Australian Exporter of the Year. While offering solutions which can scale to meet the needs of the world’s largest and most complex networks, including the world’s largest Telcos, Opmantek was most recently recognized by research institute Gartner, Inc. as also well-aligned to meet the needs of a midsize enterprise.

In the August 2018 report, ‘Midmarket Context: Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics,’ Gartner, Inc. positioned Opmantek to be optimal for midsize enterprise seeking a consolidated Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics tool and network automation from a single vendor. Opmantek was the only one of 16 vendors recognized by Gartner in the report to have this capability.

Opmantek’s award-winning suite of tools, including the two open-source products, NMIS and Open-AudIT, and commercial add-on modules, work together to holistically address all areas required to manage IT infrastructure. Notably, opEvents allows organizations of any size to automate event remediation and intelligently analyze event data, ensuring the root causes of issues are identified and dealt with in a convenient and timely manner.

With over 130,000 organizations now trusting Opmantek’s solutions to enable their IT professionals to identify and address any issue, request a demo today to see how our solutions align to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes, including yours.

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