In creating our e-book, “A Single Approach to Anypoint Systems Management,” we looked at the baseline systems management tasks that IT professionals spend the day performing in their traditional endpoint world:
- Managing hardware and software assets — Inventory, reporting, technology specification, desktop configuration
- OS deployment and management — Deploying and managing system images for hundreds or thousands of computers on different platforms
- Application updates — Software distribution and installation of service packs, updates, hotfixes and other digital assets to PCs and servers
- Patching and configuration enforcement — Performing patching to ensure the latest updates, assessing and addressing vulnerabilities to block potential exploits
- Service desk — Troubleshooting and resolving user issues quickly to keep workers productive
Of course, those are just the basics. And they add up to no small challenge, to be sure, especially in the face of limited budgets and staffs.
How are you accomplishing these systems management tasks? Are you using spreadsheets? Manual processes? One-off point solutions? Can you see at a glance all of the endpoints on your network? Can you control them and perform most of those baseline systems management tasks on them?
You’ve got to walk before you can run, and you’ve got to handle all of those basics before you can move on to mobile. You might be able to add a mobile device management (MDM) product to your IT toolbox, but if it’s not integrated, you’re asking for more complexity and new cost structures for support, infrastructure and training.
But ready or not, the advent of mobile, BYO and intelligent connected devices is upon you. Every device in your organization must be identified, managed and secured. To keep up in the anypoint systems management world, you’ll need to bring all of your devices under a single systems management solution.
Have a look at Part 1 of our new e-book for more on nailing your systems management basics, to get yourself ready to add mobile, BYO and new connected devices into the systems management mix.
