Five ways to achieve infrastructure transparency
IT administrators and professionals are constantly seeking ways to achieve infrastructure visibility today. This concept goes beyond merely knowing what's in the IT infrastructure; it encompasses understanding the intricate dependencies between devices, systems and other components in a complex technology environment.
Infrastructure transparency involves comprehensive knowledge of all IT assets, which is crucial for identifying risks, such as shadow IT and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Achieving this level of transparency is key to transforming and optimising the technical environment. Here are five ways to move towards better visibility of an organisation's IT infrastructure.
1. Merge All Data Sources into One Knowledge Base
Consolidating data sources into a single, unified knowledge base is essential for infrastructure transparency. IT environments typically contain diverse data sources, including application databases, IT management tools, Excel spreadsheets and employee knowledge. Integrating these sources into one comprehensive IT map gives a holistic view of the IT infrastructure.
The IT map must be comprehensive, up-to-date and consistent. Identifying and prioritising data sources based on their reliability is a crucial step. For example, data from IT management tools is often reliable, whereas information from outdated Excel spreadsheets may need to be updated. Assigning a trustworthiness priority to each data source can help resolve conflicting data and ensure the accuracy of the IT map.
2. Automate Data Collection
Given the dynamic nature of IT environments, manual data collection methods can quickly lead to outdated overviews. The complexity increases with the integration of cloud-based components. Automating data collection is imperative to maintain an accurate and current view of the infrastructure.
Automation can take various forms, such as using tools to track issues over time, maintaining IT asset inventories and more. Effective automation consolidates multiple data sources, providing a real-time, reliable infrastructure overview. By minimising manual intervention, IT departments can ensure that their data remains current and accurate.
3. Connect Data Sources to IT Assets and Entities
Infrastructure transparency involves more than just centralising data. It's about linking data sources to specific IT assets. By leveraging information from monitoring systems and AI tools, it is possible to create a model of the technical IT assets, including communication with other assets. This approach helps uncover dependencies and highlights issues, enabling comprehensive information about each asset.
Identifying which data sources pertain to specific IT assets and storing this information together creates a unified node representing each asset. This method enhances understanding of the infrastructure's interdependencies and clarifies potential vulnerabilities and optimisation opportunities.
4. Create a Map of the IT Infrastructure
Once IT assets are defined, creating a detailed infrastructure map is beneficial. This map should illustrate how each asset (or node) connects to others and the dependencies involved.
For the map to be effective, it must include all assets and be based on reliable data sources. Additionally, it should be continuously updated to reflect any changes accurately. A well-maintained infrastructure map allows organisations to visualise dependencies, identify optimisation areas and streamline their IT operations.
5. Visualise the IT Infrastructure
Visualisation plays a critical role in achieving infrastructure transparency. Creating visual representations of an IT infrastructure can reveal its complexity in a structured manner. One practical approach is visualising the infrastructure as a pyramid, with different resources displayed in a hierarchical tree format. This helps in understanding the dependencies between various IT assets.
For instance, if an IT team plans to update a specific server, visualisation tools can show them which other IT assets will be impacted. Furthermore, the ability to filter views based on specific criteria is vital. For example, it is possible to create a view to display only the servers running a particular operating system, such as Windows 8. This ability to filter data reduces the complexity of tens of thousands of dependencies to a manageable subset relevant to the environment's specific needs.
Conclusion
Infrastructure transparency is a vital aspect of modern IT management. A higher level of visibility and control can be achieved by merging data sources into a unified knowledge base, automating data collection, connecting data sources to IT assets, creating a comprehensive IT map and visualising the infrastructure. This transparency helps identify and mitigate risks and optimises and transforms a technical landscape.
An infrastructure monitoring and observability system will help organisations achieve unparalleled infrastructure transparency. Integrating diverse data sources, automating processes and providing clear visualisations will empower IT departments to make informed decisions and enhance their IT infrastructure.
