Improving infrastructure change impact analysis

For our October webinar, Rene Samuels from the Netherlands is our guest presenter. Rene is often brought in by customers to help troubleshoot system and application dependencies, where complexity and change risks cannot easily be described or understood. By engaging with different IT teams to help simplify and map detailed system dependencies, Rene facilitates the common understanding needed for major transformation and transition projects. We have asked Rene to explain how his approach and the use of the AssetGen system overcome the factors that prevent internal customer initiatives from achieving the results he can deliver.

Migrating data centres or moving to co-location is complex and subject to cost overruns, especially where existing infrastructure documentation is of questionable quality. We'll show how the use of database driven toolsets can help automate the project processes and avoid many of the typical problems that organisations with overstretched teams encounter.

How we approached the baseline auditing of a large multi-data centre environment - with the issues and decision points along the way. As well as the common issues of inconsistent data on a large scale, there were also a few unexpected challenges on the way...

With multiple approaches to implementing cloud computing, customers have a variety of technical choices to consider as part of their cloud strategy. Many vendors have attractive offerings which may look tempting at first glance, but you could end up being locked in with no capability of porting to another platform. It’s good to make sure that you retain control of both cost and technology – even when vendors consolidate and change pricing policies. Iain Cox of EA-Optimised will cover how his organisation approaches the strategic and technical issues that lead to a vendor independent approach. From his experience Iain will use various case studies to illustrate the type of skills and information needed for successful deployments, where the latest techniques are to use standardised components to help give flexibility and use multiple vendors for resilience. EA-Optimised have implemented multiple deployments over 10 years across many vendors for their clients – mainly public and financial sector.

Our webinar covers methods and best practices to manage multi-site connectivity and data centres. We will cover common issues such as naming and labelling, network configurations, build documents, workflow, etc. Alongside record keeping these are all challenges that make connectivity management difficult. The aim is faster delivery of change with less effort/cost and centralised control. Both data and power examples are coverednin the webinar.

Visio is a great tool for creating a diagram that visualizes data centers, racks, networks, floor plans, data centers, wifi hotspots, systems, applications, cloud computing, etc. In our webinar we'll show how to create and update the 100s or 1000s of diagrams needed for medium and large organisations.

The newer Cyber security frameworks repeat the same need for configuration management processes as other frameworks such as ITIL and Cobit. Informed decisions and risk assessments should be based on maintained understanding of your IT infrastructure and systems, not a quick look before certification. Guessing and assuming dependencies does not continuously secure an environment, build confidence in control measures, or help when reacting to ransomware or attacks. This webinar looks at some of the requirements of cyber frameworks and how to reduce the effort in delivering suitable configuration management processes and outputs.

How to link specialist data center management toolsets with Excel and Visio. Combining the flexibility of MS office tools with data center monitoring and workflow management.

The Part 2 session is a hands on "how I do it for real" by David Cuthbertson, covering database driven mapping linked to Visio diagramming. A quick journey from multiple whiteboards to a system that can cope with 1000s of servers and applications. Ideal for anyone trying to combine ITIL CMDBs with impact analysis and risk assessments. To get most benefit from this webinar we recommend you watch Part 1, where David covered different approaches to mapping IT systems and infrastructure.

As most data centers don’t have integrated DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) toolsets – it doesn’t mean they’re badly managed. Often it means that streamlined processes and existing information sets work well enough to manage data center space and capacity, with expensive DCIM systems not offering enough value, or requiring more skills to do the same job. This webinar covers how data capacity management and control can be improved by adopting best practices, process changes and better use of existing data.

Understanding and communicating change impacts, dependencies and risks is made all the more difficult when it is all conceptual. This webinar looks at the different methods available to create and maintain diagrams when 100s or 1000s of servers are involved.

Creating and updating large amounts of Visio diagrams for multi-site enterprises isn't difficult if you automate the process. This webinar shows how simple it is to create and maintain network, data centre, floor plans, ITIL service maps, etc.

Managing the complexity and inter-dependencies of IT systems is vital for day to day management, as well as reducing the likelihood and impact of cyber attacks. All best practice management frameworks such as ITIL, 27001, CoBit, NIST, etc emphasize the importance of understanding and managing IT systems complexity – but actually doing it in practice is not simple. If you’d like to know why IT systems continue to “fail” without faults or cyber-attacks, then you’ll find this talk very illuminating.

Planning and managing changes to data centres and equipment rooms isn’t easy if you don’t what is there and how devices connect. This webinar look at how to avoid the unnecessary project delays and costs associated with repeated site surveys and multi-site auditing. Maintaining knowledge of the local physical infrastructure is vital for centralised planning, provisioning and operational management, but you need a baseline to start with. With this baseline you can maintain knowledge of local infrastructure through improved change processes, as well as simplifying and reducing workload on infrastructure teams. Undertaking a baseline project isn’t easy, but there are methods and practices we’ll be covering that reduce the pain and improve the accuracy of baseline audits.

David will be covering;

- Data centres
- Equipment rooms
- Networks
- Servers
- Data and power connectivity

This webinar is part of BrightTALK's Ask the Expert Series.

Join David Cuthbertson, CEO of Square Mile Systems, as he takes a deep dive into cloud management. Many senior decision makers have negative feelings regarding the issues of technical teams and don't want to bring them to light - data security, change control, lock in to a supplier who overcharges, proper outage stats, etc.

Just as there is more awareness of outsourcing contract nightmares, many of the same issues apply to cloud providers. Managing change in cloud-based systems is still a relatively new issue as most technical teams don't think about how cloud systems are managed and the potential risks posed by many suppliers without a viable business model.

Audience members are encouraged to send questions to the expert which will be answered during the live session.

David Cuthbertson will show you methods and techniques to help achieve a baseline map of your IT systems, supporting not just GDPR issues but also change control, operational management and risk assessment.

David Cuthbertson and Jerry Bowman will cover how deploying the AssetGen system directly reduces engineer workload, change and auditing costs - through increased productivity and better team interfaces. This webinar will focus on the ROI and other financial benefits which are achieved by improved infrastructure documentation delivered by the AssetGen system.

Many organisations would like more complete and accurate IT systems documentation, but cannot find a way around their current methods such as multiple isolated spreadsheets and diagrams. Our webinar will cover techniques to reduce workload and improve consistency for IT infrastructure technologies such as networks, servers, applications, data centres, cabling, etc. The larger the infrastructure the greater the benefits of our