Fluktuasi pada penggunaan jaringan dalam organisasi dapat terjadi karena beberapa faktor. Contohnya, traffic yang meningkat bisa saja berasal dari aktivitas-aktivitas seperti promosi campaign berskala besar, patch atau update software tibat-tiba, permintaan remote work yang meningkat, atau bahkan insiden keamanan yang tak terduga. Sebuah artikel yang dipublikasikan oleh Financial Express mengklaim bahwa volume pemesanan e-commerce meningkat sebesar 23% pada 2023 selama Black Friday di platform Unicommerce.

Untuk meningkatkan network resilience dan menghindari downtime jaringan saat lonjakan penggunaan jaringan, organisasi membutuhkan skalabilitas tingkat tinggi. Hal ini dapat dicapai dengan memperluas digital footprint Anda di seluruh hybrid cloud, data center, dan virtual machine. Namun, memperluas infrastruktur IT Anda di berbagai lingkungan cloud bisa jadi pekerjaan yang merepotkan.

Pendekatan efisien untuk mendapatkan skalabilitas tingkat tinggi adalah menerapkan virtual server machine pada jaringan enterprise Anda. Namun, mengelola virtual server dan host machine ini tidak mudah tanpa software manajemen virtual server yang mampu memantau metrik penting pada berbagai virtual server.

Metrik penting yang perlu dipantau pada virtual server

Lingkungan virtual terdiri atas berbagai komponen, seperti virtual machine, host machine, data store, dan cluster. Semua komponen tersebut membutuhkan pemantauan atau monitoring berkelanjutan. Memahami dan memantau metrik penting pada virtual machine penting bagi admin jaringan untuk memastikan kinerja yang optimal dan memecahkan masalah pada lingkungan VM.

Beberapa metrik penting yang harus diawasi dalam virtual server adalah:

• Memory ballooning: Digunakan untuk mengoptimalkan penggunaan memori.

• VM health: Melacak status kesehatan atau kondisi keseluruhan dari virtual machine.

• Memory swapping: Digunakan untuk transfer memory page ke critical VM.

• Data store availability: Memastikan aksesibilitas dan ketersediaan data store.

• VM network connectivity: Memantau dan menjaga konektivitas di antara VM.

Tantangan yang dihadapi admin jaringan dalam memantau virtual machine  

Lingkungan virtual sering kali terdiri atas beberapa VM yang tersebar di berbagai host dan platform. Mengelola kompleksitas lingkungan virtual, memastikan konektivitas tanpa kendala, dan memantau VM yang beragam bisa merepotkan. Berikut ini adalah beberapa tantangan yang dihadapi admin jaringan dalam memantau virtual machine:

• VM Sprawl: VM sprawl adalah proliferasi tak terkendali dari mesin virtual dalam lingkungan IT. Ini terjadi akibat pembuatan virtual machine yang cepat dan tidak teratur, sehingga sering kali menghasilkan kelebihan virtual machine yang kurang dimanfaatkan.
• Alokasi dan optimasi sumber daya: Menyeimbangkan sumber daya di antara VM untuk mencegah gangguan atau kekurangan sumber daya sambil meningkatkan kinerja membutuhkan monitoring dan fine-tuning terus-menerus.
• Zombie VM: Zombie VM adalah virtual machine yang tidak digunakan atau ditingalkan, namun tetap aktif dalam infrastruktur IT. Zombie  VM mengonsumsi sumber daya tanpa melakukan suatu tujuan apa pun.
• Melacak instans tersebut dan mengelola life cycle-nya merupakan tantangan yang sering dihadapi admin jaringan. Namun, jika menggunakan tool manajemen virtual server yang dapat diandalkan seperti ManageEngine OpManager, admin jaringan dapat mengatasi tantangan tersebut. Ini karena OpManager dapat memantau virtual machine dalam infrastruktur IT dengan mudah.

Bagaimana OpManager membantu memantau virtual server

Sebagai tool manajemen jaringan yang komprehensif, OpManager mampu memantau virtual server dengan menyediakan berbagai fitur manajemen dan monitoring VM. Fitur-fitur ini memastikan kelancaran operasi pada lingkungan virtual.

Berikut ini adalah beberapa fitur penting dari kapabilitas monitoring VM OpManager:

• Monitoring virtual server: OpManager mendukunga monitoring real-time VM, host, dan cluster untuk beberapa platform virtualisasi, termasuk VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix, dan Citrix XenServer.
• Pencarian tanpa kesulitan: OpManager memanfaatkan IP address dan kredensial VM untuk dengan mudah mencari VM host, virtual machine, data store, dan komponen lainnya.
• Visualisasi VM: OpManager menyediakan maps untuk host server dan VM, memungkinkan admin jaringan untuk memvisualisasikan VM pada infrastruktur IT mereka dan membuat keputusan yang tepat.
• Pemanfaatan resource: OpManager menyediakan insight terkait penggunaan resource seperti CPU, memory, disk, dan jaringan di seluruh virtual server. Dengan demikian, manajemen proaktif yang menhindari gangguan seperti VM sprawl dan zombie VM dapat tercapai.
• Alert dan notifikasi: OpManager memicu peringatan berbasis ambang batas saat menemukan potensi masalah pada server virtual, memastikan admin jaringan segera mendapat notifikasi untuk menangani masalah yang muncul.
• Automasi dan remediasi: OpManager, dengan bantuan Workflow, mendukung automasi untuk tugas-tugas rutin seperti mematikan VM ketika tidak digunaakn dan memungkinkan tindakan remediasi otomatis untuk masalah tertentu yang terdeteksi pada lingkungan virtual.

Pelajari bagaimana OpManager membantu mengatasi tantangan monitoring VM. Dengan suite solusi ITOM-nya, OpManager membantu Anda memantau server, aplikasi, bandwidth, konfigurasi, firewall, IP address dan switch port.

Ingin tahu lebih lanjut tentang ManageEngine OpManager dan layanan yang ditawarkan? Jadwalkan demo gratis dengan salah satu pakar kami sekarang. Selain demo, Anda juga bisa mengaktifkan uji coba gratis 30 hari dengan mudah. Integrasikan OpManager pada lingkungan IT Anda untuk memantau virtual server tanpa kerepotan.

The post Mengapa OpManager disebut software manajemen virtual server andal? appeared first on ManageEngine Blog.

The margin for error is extremely low in a critical sector like manufacturing, where accuracy, efficiency, and time to delivery are indispensable. These aspects become even more crucial in pharmaceutical manufacturing, a critical sector that is always in high demand, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The responsibility now falls on contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) that partner with pharmaceutical and biotech companies. These organizations are tasked with producing products at a rapid pace and in larger volumes. A robust and highly efficient manufacturing process is the only way these companies could meet the increasing demand while maintaining proper quality. However, that is far easier said than done!

The challenges of a CDMO 

The role of a CDMO is to partner with pharmaceutical companies, receive the drug formulations, manufacture, and ship the medicines. However, an increased demand can pose significant challenges in the manufacturing process.

Scalability: Pharmaceutical products are in great demand worldwide. A CDMO needs to anticipate the market demands and be able to scale up the production to meet the demands of their clients. Any delay in scaling up can disrupt the entire supply chain and cause major setbacks for clients and end-users.

Quality control: While manufacturing products en masse and ensuring proper time to market is important, it is imperative to ensure that the products are of the highest quality. Any compromise of quality affects the patients around the globe who trust the medicines, and also pose a serious threat of damaging the CDMO’s reputation.

Compliance: Pharmaceutical manufacturers are expected to adhere to strict regulations to ensure that safe and effective medicines are produced. For CDMOs maintaining compliance with regulatory bodies throughout the production process is critical. They risk losing their clients and, even worse, losing the permission to produce if they fail to comply with the regulations.

How IT plays a crucial role in CDMOs 

Pharmaceutical manufacturing is a multi-step, complex process that involves receiving the drug formulations to batch production, packaging, and delivery. To ensure an optimal output without any quality issues or defects, CDMOs deploy a range of systems like a building management system, inventory management system, or programmable logic controllers.

These systems are supported by their IT network, which is a combination of data centers hosting servers, network devices, and applications providing visibility into the key parameters and operations of these systems.

Any disruptions to their IT network performance, lag in the application, or outage could pose a potential risk of failing to perform the necessary quality checks, resulting in a substandard output. This is why CDMOs rely on robust monitoring solutions to monitor their IT operations and avert any outages or performance slump. This ensures their manufacturing operations are seamless.

A globally renowned CDMO faced significant time delays in troubleshooting issues, which eventually led to the delayed time-to-market and even posed a potential risk of a batch failure.

How did they turn things around? By investing in OpManager. The outcome was a huge saving of $1 million and a significant reduction in MTTR from three hours to just 30 minutes. Curious to understand how they achieved this. Read the detailed case study to discover!

The post Why pharmaceutical manufacturers can’t afford IT failures: A real-world CDMO case study appeared first on ManageEngine Blog.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to identifying, managing, and preventing VM sprawl.

What is VM sprawl?  

VM sprawl happens when VMs are created without proper governance, often for temporary purposes, and then left running unnecessarily. Over time, this leads to:

• Wasted resources: Idle VMs unnecessarily utilize memory, CPU, and storage capacity.

• Increased costs: Running unnecessary VMs incurs licensing, hardware, and energy costs. This impacts not only direct expenses but also hinders efficient budget allocation for innovation and strategic IT initiatives.

• Management complexity: Tracking and managing a growing number of VMs becomes overwhelming, leading to inefficient use of IT staff time and potential for errors.

• Security risks: Forgotten VMs can be vulnerable to attacks if not patched or monitored. Sprawl makes it difficult to maintain consistent security policies, track vulnerabilities, and apply patches across all VMs, potentially leading to compliance violations and data breaches

Steps to eliminate VM sprawl  

1. Conduct an inventory audit

Start by creating a comprehensive inventory of all VMs in your environment. Use tools or scripts to gather details like:

• • Creation date

  • Owner or requester

  • Current utilization metrics (CPU, memory, storage, network)

  • Purpose and status (active, idle, or retired)

  • Operating system and installed software

  • Security configurations (patch levels, firewall rules)

This audit helps you identify unnecessary or underutilized VMs and potential security risks. Leverage automated discovery tools to map dependencies between VMs and applications for a complete picture.

2. Decommission unused VMs

Analyze your inventory and decommission VMs that are no longer needed. This includes:

• • Idle VMs: Machines with little or no resource usage over an extended period.

  • Orphaned VMs: VMs without active owners or assigned workloads.

  • Redundant VMs: Duplicates or unnecessary backups.

Ensure proper data backup before deleting any VM, especially if there’s a chance it might be needed in the future.

3. Implement governance policies

Establish clear policies to control the creation and life cycle of VMs:

• • Request approval: Require authorization for creating new VMs, ensuring alignment with business needs and preventing unauthorized deployments.

  • Usage timeframe: Assign expiration dates to temporary VMs and automate their deletion or review after the defined period.

  • Ownership assignment: Ensure every VM has an accountable owner responsible for its maintenance, security, and eventual decommissioning.

  • Resource quotas: Set limits on resources (CPU, memory, storage) that can be consumed by individuals or departments to prevent overprovisioning and encourage efficient resource utilization.

  • Automated approval workflows: Integrate VM provisioning with approval processes to ensure oversight and prevent unauthorized VM creation.

4. Use monitoring tools

Leverage VM monitoring tools to oversee resource usage, performance, and security configurations. These tools can help identify:

• • Underutilized VMs that may need optimization or consolidation.

  • Overcommitted hosts that require load balancing or resource adjustments.

  • Performance bottlenecks and potential issues caused by resource contention.

Monitoring tools also send alerts for unusual activity, ensuring better control over the environment. Establish performance baselines for VMs to quickly identify deviations and potential problems. Consider using predictive analytics to forecast future resource needs and proactively prevent sprawl.

5. Consolidate workloads

Review workloads running on underutilized VMs and consolidate them onto fewer machines. This reduces the number of VMs while optimizing resource utilization. Employ techniques for analyzing VM resource utilization to right-size VMs, ensuring they have the appropriate resources without over-provisioning.

6. Automate VM life cycle management

Automation tools simplify VM management processes, handling tasks efficiently from creation to termination.

• • Auto-deletion: Automatically delete VMs after a specified period or when their tasks are complete.

  • Tagging: Use metadata tagging to classify VMs based on purpose, owner, or department, facilitating organization and management.

  • Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC): Utilize IaC tools to automate VM provisioning, configuration, and management, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency.

  • Configuration Management: Employ configuration management tools to enforce desired states and configurations across VMs, preventing drift and maintaining compliance.

7. Educate teams

Train teams on the importance of VM governance and the impact of sprawl. Encourage best practices like:

• • Consolidating workloads

  • Requesting VMs only when necessary

  • Right-sizing VMs

  • Adhering to security policies

Provide specific training programs or workshops on VM best practices and sprawl prevention. Consider incorporating gamification techniques to encourage teams to optimize VM usage and contribute to sprawl reduction.

8. Conduct regular audits and cleanups

Make VM audits a regular practice to identify and address sprawl proactively. Schedule periodic cleanups to remove outdated or unused VMs. Track key metrics related to VM sprawl (e.g., number of VMs, resource utilization, cost) and generate regular reports to measure progress and identify areas for improvement. Conduct root cause analysis to understand the underlying reasons for sprawl and address them proactively.

Preventing VM sprawl in the future  

Preventing VM sprawl from happening in the future is as crucial as eliminating existing sprawl.

• Centralized management: Use centralized tools to track all VM activity across the environment.

• Defined workflows: Establish clear workflows for VM requests, approvals, and provisioning.

• Capacity planning: Monitor infrastructure capacity to avoid overprovisioning and ensure resources are available when needed.

• Documentation: Maintain detailed records of VM creation, ownership, and purpose.

ManageEngine OpManager: Eliminate VM sprawl and facilitate effective VM monitoring  

VM sprawl can impact the operational efficiency and performance rate of your virtual infrastructure. By implementing proactive measures like governance policies, regular audits, and automation, you can regain control of your VMware environment. The key lies in balancing resource availability with proper oversight, ensuring your virtual environment remains optimized for performance and cost-efficiency.

OpManager simplifies VM monitoring and eliminates VM sprawl with its robust virtualization management capabilities. It automatically discovers and maps all VMs in your environment, providing a centralized dashboard to monitor critical metrics like CPU, memory, and disk usage in real time.

With features like proactive alerting, usage analytics, and automated reporting, OpManager identifies underutilized or idle VMs, enabling you to decommission them swiftly. Its proactive monitoring and alerting capabilities help maintain accountability and prevent sprawl from recurring.

By integrating visibility, automation, and control, OpManager optimizes your virtual infrastructure, ensuring efficient resource utilization and cost savings.

Download our 30-day, free trial to eliminate VM sprawl and unlock the full potential of your VMware environment with OpManager.

The post Eliminating VM sprawl: A comprehensive guide appeared first on ManageEngine Blog.

ManageEngine OpManager now integrates with Ansible, an open-source automation tool, enhancing its network monitoring capabilities with Ansible’s powerful automation features. This integration enables IT teams to automate routine tasks such as incident response and configuration management, reducing the need for manual intervention and providing a more efficient, streamlined approach to maintaining network reliability and improving overall operational performance.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is a highly efficient DevOps automation tool that streamlines repetitive and complex IT tasks. From configuration management to application deployment and network orchestration, Ansible enables IT teams to improve their workflows and reduce manual intervention.

Why you need Ansible in your IT environment

Integrating Ansible with your ITOM solution can transform your IT operations by improving efficiency, reliability, and scalability. Here’s why you need Ansible in your IT environment:

• Streamlined operations: With Ansible, you can automate routine tasks, ensuring consistency and reducing human errors. This is crucial in large IT ecosystems where operations span multiple environments and systems.

• Faster response to incidents: For efficient IT operations, timely responses to incidents are critical. Ansible can trigger automated remediation actions as soon as issues are detected, reducing downtime and maintaining business continuity.

• Improved configuration management: Ansible simplifies managing configurations across multiple servers. You can define the desired state of your infrastructure, and Ansible will ensure that all systems conform to this state, aligning with the need for infrastructure consistency.

• Enhanced compliance: Automation streamlines processes, ensuring compliance with industry standards. Ansible’s ability to enforce security policies and configurations across the entire infrastructure helps organizations stay compliant while minimizing risk.

• Scalability: Ansible effortlessly scales to accommodate any size of IT infrastructure, from small to large. Its agentless architecture and modular design make it a perfect fit for expanding IT networks..

OpManager and Ansible: Automation made easy

The powerful combination of OpManager and Ansible enables you to automate network operations and resolve incidents quickly, enhancing network reliability and streamlining routine maintenance actions.

Key benefits of the OpManager and Ansible integration

By combining OpManager’s comprehensive monitoring capabilities with Ansible’s powerful automation, this integration delivers:

• Automated incident resolution: OpManager can trigger preconfigured Ansible Playbooks in response to alerts, allowing for automated remediation of common issues.

• Enhanced configuration management: Use Ansible to automate the deployment and configuration of network devices, ensuring consistency and reducing errors.

• Improved network performance: By automating routine tasks, you can free up IT resources to focus on optimizing network performance and addressing critical issues.

• Enhanced scalability: Ansible’s agentless architecture and modular design make it easy to scale your IT operations as your infrastructure grows.

OpManager and Ansible in action

Let’s say OpManager detects that CPU usage on a web server has exceeded 90% for more than five minutes. When this threshold is crossed, OpManager automatically triggers an alert to notify the IT team. At the same time, OpManager initiates a specially crafted Ansible Playbook designed to handle high CPU usage scenarios.

The playbook remotely connects to the affected server, checks for rogue processes, terminates them, and restarts essential services if necessary. Within seconds, the playbook completes its execution, resolving the high CPU usage and restoring the system to normal levels. The monitoring system then clears the alert once the issue is resolved.

By integrating Ansible with OpManager, you can significantly improve the efficiency, reliability, and scalability of your IT operations. With automated incident resolution, enhanced configuration management, and streamlined workflows, you will be better equipped to meet the demands of today’s complex IT environments.

Experience the power of OpManager and Ansible together with a 30-day, free trial and discover how automation with Ansible can transform your IT operations.

The post Streamline your IT operations: Harness the power of Ansible Automation Platform with OpManager appeared first on ManageEngine Blog.

For instance, say you’re monitoring 500 or more devices. As a network administrator, you’re tasked with accomplishing two things:

• Investigating dropped-calls and poor network quality faced by the customer support team over the past 24 hours.
• Changing the monitoring interval from 15 minutes to 5 minutes for the devices used by the team to ensure that similar issues are detected faster in the future.

To perform both tasks, you need to isolate the network devices that are used by the customer support team. Let’s review the screenshots below. In which of the following two monitoring inventories can you do this faster and more conveniently?

Clearly, a well-organized inventory grouped network elements is easier to monitor and manage.

 Grouping monitored devices: The basics

To group devices, you have to identify devices based on contexts like location, hardware details, network segment, etc. This helps satisfy grouping requirements.

As an example, if you need to respond to network issues from critical departments in the organization, a group based on device departments would be beneficial. On the other hand, if you need to perform firmware updates faster, grouping devices based on their vendors and model numbers would be best.

The point is, based on your requirements, you’d need to manually identify devices and create groups. When things change, you have to manually update the device identities and the groups. This manual configuration can be cumbersome, especially given the dynamic nature of modern networks, converged infrastructure, and frequent changes to the network due to growth, migration, or maintenance. A better method is utilizing OpManager.

How does grouping work in OpManager?

OpManager is a comprehensive IT infrastructure monitoring solution that empowers IT teams to proactively detect, resolve, and optimize network performance. With a powerful AI/ML engine and automation features, OpManager streamlines network troubleshooting and management through intelligent configuration and grouping features.

Let’s see how grouping works in OpManager.

Identifying devices with Custom Fields: Custom Fields are notes that you can associate with a device or an interface to identify it in a particular context: For each monitored device or interface, OpManager will have a set of default Custom Fields that includes Country, State, Building, Floor, SerialNumber, etc. You can add up to 50 Custom Fields.

Creating groups: You can create groups by adding devices, interfaces, and other groups manually. You can also filter devices and interfaces based on criteria like IP Addresses or Ranges, Device Type, Interface speed, and Custom Fields to add them to groups.

Updating groups: Once a group is created based on criteria, any new devices or interfaces that satisfy them are automatically added to the group.

Group availability distribution: Group availability distribution is a representation of the health of the members of a group and focuses on three factors: the percentage availability of the devices in the group, a timeline detailing availability at different times, and the fraction of devices with differing levels of availability. You can also set group alarms specific to the health of a group so that they represent the status of all the members of a group, or a few critical components.

What is smart grouping?  

Smart grouping is an automated grouping mechanism in OpManager that analyzes device and interface Custom Fields to suggest potential groups. If a certain count of devices or interfaces share similar Custom Field values, OpManager will prompt with a suggestion to group them. When you approve it, a group will be created automatically.

Once a group is created for a custom field, the group is also automatically updated. Every time Custom Fields are updated for a device or interface, they’re removed from their existing groups. In case another group exists for the updated custom field, they are added to the new group.

Essentially, this cuts down on a large chunk of your manual effort. Instead of creating and updating different groups for your devices, you can just add relevant Custom Fields. OpManager will detect and suggest groups automatically.

Organizing devices in bulk with smart grouping  

You can combine OpManager’s auto-discovery features with smart grouping to discover and organize thousands of devices in minutes. This can be particularly helpful if you’re planning to deploy OpManager into your network, or if you’re expanding the network.

Using CSV file import: OpManager supports a CSV file import process to associate Custom Fields in bulk to devices. You can either discover new devices while specifying Custom Fields in the CSV file, or import Custom Fields using CSV files to the devices already discovered in your inventory.

Using discovery rule engine: Discovery rule engine is a post-discovery automation engine in OpManager that uses criteria to filter discovered devices and perform certain actions on them. You can create a discovery rule to assign Custom Fields to devices that pass certain criteria. Once enough Custom Fields are associated, OpManager will suggest groups for them.

Using SNMP/WMI discovery: Custom Fields can also be discovered and updated from the SNMP OID response and the WMI class response of devices after discovery is completed. These metrics will be monitored and updated in regular intervals by OpManager.

OpManager helps retailer simplify grouping: A case study  

A prominent retail company operating seven branches, a main office, and a warehouse across three major cities needed a network monitoring solution to monitor their servers, databases, billing counter devices, printers, display screens, and CCTV cameras.

Their previous monitoring vendor had limitations when it came to grouping and organizing the IT systems. This was compounded by the rapid growth experienced by the retailer, which meant that new devices were constantly added to the network.

OpManager helped simplify discovery and grouping  

The retailer turned to OpManager to address its expanding network needs and the complications for the IT team that came with the organization’s growth.

• Auto-discovery: OpManager discovered the retailer’s IT infrastructure from IP Subnets. Discovery rules were used to associate Custom Fields to devices based on their Vendor and Device Type.

• Assigning additional Custom Fields: Additional Custom Fields like location, branch, and contact numbers were associated using CSV file import.

• Smart grouping prompts: Once enough data was available, OpManager suggested potential groups for devices based on different fields. The IT team approved the relevant groups and disapproved those that weren’t required.

• Groups of groups: The IT team added devices from a branch to a branch group, and further added branches from the same cities to a city group.

Grouping ensures monitoring efficiency  

OpManager delivered several benefits for the retailer:

• Managing for scalability: Every time new devices were discovered, OpManager assigned Custom Fields using discovery rules and groups that were automatically updated.

• Incident detection: Group availability charts provided visibility into the health of devices across each city and branch at a glance. Group alarms provided better context regarding where the fault originated and what branches were affected.

• Incident response: The IT team created automated workflows to execute troubleshooting steps for different device types. The workflows were associated with particular device groups, and this also expedited troubleshooting for critical systems like servers and databases.

• Reporting and auditing the network: The organization streamlined its preparation for IT compliance audits by leveraging Custom Fields and groups to generate reports on its IT systems, availability, network performance, and more.

• Performing bulk configuration actions: Whenever the IT team wanted to change any monitoring settings like device template and alarm notification changes, it was able to use groups to perform these actions in bulk, saving time and effort.

• Visualizing the IT infrastructure: The IT team used OpManager’s Google Maps integration to add groups to an interactive map of the world. This enabled it to drill down from a city group location to the respective branch groups and the devices within the branch.

With OpManager discovering, inventorying, mapping, and organizing their network, the IT team was able to focus its efforts on monitoring and troubleshooting. This helped it prevent unexpected business disruptions and revenue loss.

Organize better, monitor better. Try smart grouping today!

OpManager’s smart grouping feature is available from version 128398 and higher. Update your OpManager installation to the latest version to start using this feature if you’re an existing user. If you haven’t started using OpManager yet, you can try a fully functional product trial for 30 days for free! Or, you can schedule a free personalized demo at a time convenient for you to see how OpManager can benefit your organization.

The post Organizing your devices is a no-brainer with OpManager’s smart grouping appeared first on ManageEngine Blog.

The aviation industry is rising to new heights due to the ever-increasing demand for air travel and cargo transport. This expansion has led to intricate operational networks, making efficient IT management necessary to ensure seamless flight operations. With this in mind, an Australian aviation company sought out a solution.

A global aerospace leader specializing in both civil and military aircraft, the company has a strong foothold in Australia with operations in Canberra, Sydney, and Brisbane. Employing over 1,000 people, it’s a key player in the nation’s aviation ecosystem. However, managing IT across this distributed network was challenging. To address this obstacle, the company’s IT team turned to OpManager for comprehensive network monitoring.

Navigating through the company’s turbulent IT: Network challenges faced 

The organization comprises a network of 198 servers with more than 1,200 endpoints spread across multiple locations in Australia. Being a distributed network, the IT infrastructure is highly complicated and challenging to manage for the IT team.

Poor network visibility was grounding the business. Frequent downtime, slow troubleshooting, and a lack of complete control led to missed deadlines, hefty penalties, and spiraling costs.

With complete visibility, OpManager ensures a pleasant in-flight experience

The aviation company implemented ManageEngine OpManager to gain centralized visibility and complete control over its IT infrastructure.

OpManager addresses the company’s specific challenges by providing:

• Enhanced network visibility through centralized monitoring.

• Real-time insights and the source of errors.

• Faster troubleshooting and reduced downtime.

• Improved productivity.

Its feature-rich characteristics enabled the IT team to achieve optimal network performance by identifying potential bottlenecks in their IT environment and tackling them. OpManager delivers a significant return on investment for the aircraft company, helping it save AUD 240,000 by streamlining operations and reducing maintenance costs.

Check out the full case study here.

About OpManager 

ManageEngine OpManager is an easy-to-use and affordable network management solution that provides deep visibility into the performance of your routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, wireless LAN controllers, servers, VMs, printers and storage devices. OpManager is vendor agnostic and helps enterprises, service providers and SMEs manage their data centers and IT infrastructure efficiently and cost effectively. IT teams can set up a 24/7 monitoring system within hours of installing OpManager by utilizing extendable templates and an array of AI-enabled features. You can also extend the scope of network management to include network change and configuration management and IP address management. And with in-house integrations, you can monitor network bandwidth, applications, and firewalls. For more information about OpManager, visit manageengine.com/opmanager.

The post Aviation company saves $240,000 by streamlining operations and reducing maintenance costs using OpManager appeared first on ManageEngine Blog.

Consider the following scenario 

A hospital relies on a VxRail appliance to power critical patient care applications, like health records and medical imaging systems. During the cold season, a sudden surge in patient activity leads to an increased workload on the VxRail cluster. Unknown to the hospital’s IT team, a storage bottleneck develops, impacting application performance. Patients experience delays in accessing vital records, and doctors struggle to retrieve real-time medical data.

This situation can quickly escalate into a major disruption, potentially jeopardizing patient care and causing significant operational and financial setbacks.

VxRail monitoring with OpManager can prevent such a scenario. By proactively monitoring all aspects of your VxRail infrastructure, OpManager empowers you to navigate and provide solutions to the challenges involved  in VxRail monitoring. With OpManager’s VxRail monitoring, you can:

Simplify monitoring 

OpManager streamlines VxRail discovery and setup with automated capabilities, making monitoring a breeze. By inputting the IP address or DNS name of the VxRail cluster and vCenter, along with their respective credentials, OpManager automatically discovers and maps VxRail components within the monitoring system. By automating the discovery process, OpManager ensures that all VxRail components are seamlessly integrated.

Keep your network healthy 

OpManager’s host monitoring capabilities help ensure the health and performance of VxRail hosts. With real-time monitoring and comprehensive insights, you can proactively address issues before they impact operations. Moreover, OpManager’s vendor-agnostic approach supports a wide range of vendors in the market, including VMware, Dell, Nutanix, Microsoft HyperV, and Citrix Xen, offering greater interoperability and flexibility in managing VMs and physical devices.

Visualize your network 

With OpManager’s unified console, you gain a holistic view of your VxRail components, including hosts, VMs, clusters, virtual storage area networks (vSANs), and datastores, from a single pane of glass. This centralized view enhances visibility and simplifies monitoring and management tasks, eliminating the need to toggle between multiple windows or interfaces.

Harness your storage 

OpManager’s vSAN monitoring feature provides valuable insights into storage performance. It offers a dedicated vSAN monitoring tab within the VxRail snapshot, providing a comprehensive overview of your vSAN capacity and detailed usage metrics. By analyzing vSAN capacity and health metrics, you can optimize storage resources and ensure smooth operations.

Stay ahead of the game 

OpManager’s robust notification system delivers proactive alerts, enabling you to stay ahead of potential issues. You can set up customizable alerting mechanisms based on specific requirements and thresholds. This proactive approach enables early detection and resolution of issues, minimizing downtime and optimizing performance.

VxRail monitoring is essential for maintaining the health and performance of your hyperconverged infrastructure. With OpManager’s comprehensive monitoring capabilities, you can streamline VxRail monitoring, minimize downtime, and optimize performance. OpManager has a lot more to offer as a network monitoring solution—learn about all its features here.

Download our free, 30-day trial or sign up for a personalized demo to explore OpManager.

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It’s essential for network admins to thoroughly analyze network outages, minimize network troubleshooting, and monitor resources to mitigate significant financial and operational impacts. When switching between different tools or choosing a new one, it is crucial for network teams to select an advanced network monitoring tool that offers comprehensive visibility, real-time analytics, and automated management capabilities.

In this blog, we’ll explore how to choose a network monitoring solution in 2024 and why OpManager is an ideal choice for monitoring modern IT networks.

Selecting the best network monitoring tool for your organization: Key features to consider

Choosing the best network monitoring tool is a crucial part of your organization’s growth and success. “CTOs should think about network monitoring as the blood vessels and arterial system for their entire organization,” says Shankar Somasundaram, CEO of Asimily, a leader in IoT device security solutions. Therefore, when selecting a network monitoring tool in 2024, carefully analyze it and look for the following features:

1. Auto-discovery and performance management: Network monitoring tools should be able to automatically discover new devices and their dependencies in an enterprise network. This feature can simplify the manual process of discovering new devices and enable hassle-free monitoring. Additionally, a network monitoring tool should also be able to monitor network performance in real time and forecast performance issues.

2. Integration capabilities: An advanced network monitoring tool should be compatible with various devices, protocols, and ITSM platforms.

3. AI and ML integration: It should be able to detect anomalies and proactively monitor your network devices.

4. Comprehensive reporting and visualization: A network monitoring tool should be able to generate detailed and customizable reports with a comprehensive dashboard that centralizes monitoring. It should map network devices, provide an overview of your network, and generate threshold-based alerts.

5. Security and compliance features: It should provide strong security measures, including detailed logging, compliance, rogue detection, and user access control.

When selecting a network monitoring tool, it’s also important to consider the non-technical aspects that contribute to a successful implementation:

1. 24/7 support and maintenance: Ensure the company offers around-the-clock support and maintenance. Reliable support is crucial for addressing any issues promptly and maintaining network performance.

2. Pricing and licensing: Evaluate the pricing structure and licensing options to ensure they align with your budget and organizational needs. Transparent pricing can help in making informed decisions. Additionally, check for the pricing history of the product to understand how the costs have changed over time and to anticipate future pricing trends.

3. Company stability: Network administrators should consider the stability of the company providing the product. A bootstrapped company with a solid record can often provide reliable service and support.

4. Product reviews: Check out reviews on sites like Gartner, IDC, Forrester, and TechRadar to compare products and see user feedback. This helps you make an informed decision about purchasing the product.

Why OpManager is one of the best network monitoring tools in 2024 

ManageEngine OpManager stands out as one of the best network monitoring tools in 2024, thanks to its robust feature set designed to address the diverse needs of modern IT environments.

Key features of OpManager 

• Automated network discovery and topology mapping

OpManager can automatically discover and map network devices and its dependencies, providing a comprehensive view of the network infrastructure. It includes over 11,500 device templates that classify device types automatically. This feature simplifies network management and ensures accurate documentation.

• Real-time monitoring and proactive alerts

OpManager offers network engineers instant and proactive alerts via various channels like email, SMS, chat, tickets, and more. These alerts notify network admins about any network issues, including device failures or performance bottlenecks, allowing network admins to respond quickly, minimizing downtime and maintaining optimal network performance.

• Adaptive thresholds

OpManager leverages AI and ML to set thresholds based on the performance of your enterprise network. This predictive analytics feature helps prevent issues before they can cause major impact on the network.

• Performance forecasting

OpManager forecasts the performance trends of your enterprise network. This feature allows you to identify and troubleshoot performance issues proactively.

• Integration with ITSM platforms and other network tools

OpManager integrates seamlessly with third-party network tools and popular ITSM tools like ServiceNow. Additionally, it offers REST API, enabling network admins to seamlessly integrate OpManager into their existing IT infrastructure.

• Aggregated network health reporting

OpManager generates detailed and customizable reports on network performance and health. Network admins can combine multiple reports and analyze network performance with ease.

• Root cause analysis

The root cause analysis feature of OpManager enables network admins to streamline fault identification and network visualization for optimum network uptime.

• Security and compliance features

OpManager has robust security measures such as detailed audit logs, role-based access control, and compliance tracking. These features help ensure network security and adherence to industry regulations.

• Scalability

OpManager is designed to scale with growing networks, making it suitable for both small businesses and large enterprises. Its flexible architecture supports distributed monitoring for complex environments.

• Stability

ManageEngine OpManager has been a reliable presence in the network monitoring field for over 15 years. As a bootstrapped company, ManageEngine has demonstrated consistent stability and a commitment to providing robust network management solutions.

• 24/7 support and maintenance

OpManager offers 24/7 support on demand. The support technicians are available to help you set up the product, assist with changes, and resolve any queries related to network management.

• Pricing and licensing

OpManager provides transparent and flexible pricing and licensing options based on the number of devices and interfaces. This ensures that organizations can find a plan that suits their financial and operational requirements, making it an affordable and practical choice for network monitoring.

OpManager stands out as a top choice for network administrators seeking a comprehensive network monitoring tool in 2024. Its advanced capabilities in automated discovery, real-time monitoring, AI-driven analytics, and seamless integration make it an indispensable asset for maintaining optimal network performance and health.

If you are considering replacing your conventional network monitoring tool, OpManager is your go-to network management solution. Schedule a personalized demo with our product experts to learn more about OpManager’s features and discover why it surpasses other network monitoring tools available in 2024.

Try our 30-day, free trial or our free demo to experience the product firsthand. Stay vigilant when choosing a network monitoring tool for your enterprise. Try OpManager today for hassle-free monitoring and management of your complex networks.

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Most customers today demand digital access to services through mobile and online banking. More than 80% of transactions in India, for example, are conducted digitally through Unified Payments Interface platforms, commonly referred to as UPI, according to recent data from the Reserve Bank of India. This shift in consumer usage behavior in today’s world has underscored the significance of IT infrastructure for the BFSI sector.

But maintaining the health of a network for enterprise IT infrastructures can be a challenging task, especially when tools to manage the network are deployed from multiple vendors. The problem with multiple monitoring solutions is that data is scattered across multiple systems.

This data fragmentation complicates monitoring and impacts the IT department’s ability to streamline tasks, ultimately reducing productivity. As a result, customer satisfaction often takes a hit, creating unhappy customers and threatening to dissuade customers and negatively impact revenue.

Recognizing these challenges, a leading bank in India embarked on a journey to address these issues by transitioning to a unified IT infrastructure monitoring solution, leading them to discover ManageEngine OpManager Plus.

The perils of relying on multiple monitoring systems 

In line with its digital first strategy, the bank built an IT infrastructure and relied on multiple monitoring solutions to oversee it. However, over time, they observed that numerous issues were impacting their overall efficiency.

Lengthy troubleshooting process led to delayed decisions

When each IT team uses dedicated tools, the IT personnel do not find themselves on the same page while analyzing an outage or an issue. As a result, pinpointing the root cause of issues became a challenge and escalated the time taken to troubleshoot issues.

With the overall time taken to troubleshoot issues sky-rocketing, the bank found itself struggling to deliver a high-quality digital experience. This had a negative impact on its reputation, and the bank faced the threat of losing valuable customers because of network problems.

Huge costs involved

Using separate tools for each purpose entailed procuring separate licenses, and the cumulative cost of these licenses was exorbitantly high. Added to this was the cost of underlying hardware to operate the solutions, along with the potential cost of cloud solutions. The management of these licenses further complicated the process, adding another layer of complexity.

Time involved in learning to use the tool

A major drawback the bank faced with its existing system was the substantial amount of time and effort required to train the employees to use the tools. Each tool presented a unique learning curve as each was from a different vendor; each demanded additional training time to get used to comfortable using them.

OpManager Plus: Single solution to overcome all IT challenges 

The bank leadership felt that the only way they could solve these challenges was by consolidating the tools and transitioning to a unified solution. A comprehensive IT network management solution would enable them to monitor their entire IT and would be a cost-effective solution.

After evaluating multiple vendors, the bank chose OpManager Plus for the value proposition it provided at an affordable price point. The bank was able to leverage OpManager Plus features and enhance the monitoring process.

Benefits reaped after transitioning to OpManager Plus include:

• Streamlined day to day monitoring tasks

• Reduced expenses incurred due to multiple licenses

• Comprehensive visibility in a unified console

• Simplifed troubleshooting process

• Avoided the potential threat of tool sprawl

Streamlined monitoring tasks

With several tools in place, the IT personnel previously had to shift multiple screens to read the data and make sense of it. However, with its OpManager Plus solution in place the bank’s IT department could monitor all aspects of its network from servers, to application performance metrics from a single pane of glass, effectively streamlining its monitoring tasks.

Mitigated licensing costs

Transitioning to OpManager Plus enabled the bank to consolidate and reduce its total number of tools to less than 10 from over 50 tools. This eliminated the huge costs involved in upgrading and renewing licenses for multiple solutions and enabled the bank to perform all operations with a single solution.

More exclusive insights are shared in our case study!

Uncover detailed insights on how the bank’s IT infrastructure benefited with its transition to OpManager Plus by reviewing our latest case study.

• Discover how the bank navigated downtime risks during a real-world critical server migration process

• Learn firsthand how the bank’s IT staff leveraged OpManager Plus to bring down its mean time to acknowledge (MTTA) value down to 3 minutes

Read the case study now and get a deeper understanding of our solution.

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