Modern enterprises need technology to drive business growth. As organizations integrate more technology into
every aspect of their business strategy, simplifying IT management becomes crucial. Rapid technology
additions can make it difficult for IT teams to monitor, protect, manage, and gain visibility into the IT
services and infrastructure. Accelerating service delivery while ensuring quality and avoiding service
outages can become a real challenge. This is where ServiceNow IT Operational Management (ITOM) comes in to
help IT teams drive high efficiency and business performance.
What is IT Operations Management (ITOM)?
ITOM refers to the management of organizations' information technology requirements. It describes the
services and processes run by the IT team, including services for internal and external clients, software
and hardware support, and management processes. IT operations management also includes the provisioning of
IT infrastructure, cost-control activities, capacity management, performance and security management, and
availability management for all IT infrastructure and assets.
The goals of IT operations management are efficient workflows, peak quality of service, and increased
availability. Effective IT operations management guarantees that all business services and applications are
available and functioning correctly, eventually keeping the business process running. To accomplish this, IT
operations management teams manage three fundamental areas:
Network Infrastructure
This includes the management of infrastructure and network services needed to provide internal and external
business communications. Network infrastructure management covers routers, switches, hubs, remote access
networks, network security, software applications, operating systems, internal telephone systems, and
network services such as VPN (Virtual Private Network) and TCP/IP addressing.
Help Desk
Under this focus area, IT operations management is responsible for the technology service and service issues
arising from machines like Virtual Machines (VMs), networks, and servers. IT operations managers manage
tasks such as incident response, event response and request fulfillment, and scheduling and managing data
backups. Service desk also includes ensuring secure system access and implementing disaster recovery plans.
Server and Device
IT operations management teams are responsible for administering servers, virtual machines, devices, and
other endpoints, such as desktops, laptops, mobile, and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. They play a
crucial role in daily server management activities like patching, upgrading, and maintenance.
Why do Businesses Need ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
With the adoption of modern technologies comes the challenge of managing them. Technologies like computing
services, virtualization, and IoT have become integral to business. As such, organizations must upgrade
their operations management processes to offer seamless services in a dynamically evolving IT landscape. As
the IT infrastructure expands, IT operations management must overcome challenges to meet the organizations'
performance, security, and cost-control needs. With ServiceNow IT operations management, organizations can
address the following challenges:
Incomplete Visibility
IT environments comprise a combination of legacy infrastructure and systems spread across cloud services and
data centers. Gaining visibility across a diverse IT architecture can be challenging for ITOM teams. This
can hinder their ability to effectively manage and allocate resources, implement security protocols, and
gain insights needed to make strategic decisions.
Disparate Technology
Organizations must ensure smooth communication between different applications and IT components. However,
this can be difficult with the presence of disparate technology and systems. Businesses need data to move
smoothly across applications and departments to gain better insights and function efficiently. Without
proper integration across systems, IT teams can suffer from increased costs, higher security risks, and a
strain on available resources.
Inability to Scale
With limited visibility into the IT architecture and without a proper solution for integrating systems, it
can be challenging for IT operations to scale. Adding and maintaining a new service can cause fractured and
shadow IT, increased vulnerability, poor oversight, and increased ITOM costs.
Benefits of Leveraging ServiceNow IT Operations Management
Effective ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers a variety of benefits for organizations, such as the
ones listed below:
Enhanced Service Visibility
ServiceNow IT operations management enables IT teams to gain a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and
digital services. It discovers the end-to-end environment and collects information from physical and logical
resources, such as servers, virtual machines, databases, storage, applications, cloud-based resources,
containers, and so on. It builds on this collected data using its ServiceNow Service Mapping capabilities to
automatically create end-to-end maps of the entire IT landscape. In addition, ServiceNow IT operations
management offers capabilities specifically designed to streamline and strengthen security operations.
Faster Identification of Anomalies
An IT estate has an abundance of data and information. ServiceNow IT operations management collects and
interprets this data across the entire IT landscape. This includes data from the cloud, IT infrastructure,
metrics, logs, events, reminders, and other resources. When this data is combined with advanced analytics,
artificial Intelligence, and machine learning, it can help proactively reduce noise, identify anomalies, and
diagnose problems across diverse IT environments. This also enables IT teams to avoid time spent on false
positives and to assign incidents properly.
Minimized Impact on End Users
ServiceNow IT operations management makes it possible to minimize problems end users face by predicting
anomalies before they occur. ServiceNow IT operations management enables a proactive approach to keep user
issues at bay, enhancing the user experience. The platform leverages ServiceNow predictive AIOps (Artificial
Intelligence for IT Operations) to help IT teams prioritize IT issues and identify root causes faster and
more accurately. With accurate information on issues and their causes, it becomes easier for teams to
collaborate, take actions based on recommendations, and eliminate untimely outages.
ServiceNow Workflow Automation
ServiceNow IT operations management enables the automation of cross-team workflows. Automation reduces
unnecessary manual processes and empowers the team with effective, actionable insights to enhance
performance. With ServiceNow IT operations management, teams can simplify and automate repetitive tasks
using pre-built playbooks and drag-and-drop workflows. Not only does this improve team productivity, but it
also frees up the team's valuable time, helping businesses to scale to meet digital service growth.
Cloud Implementation
With extensive resources and tools to support cloud implementations, ServiceNow IT operations management
ensures the business can build and quickly deploy optimally designed cloud infrastructure.
With ServiceNow IT operation management, teams can break down cloud silos and gain a comprehensive view of
their virtualized infrastructure and end-to-end services. It creates a single, complete, reliable record in
the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Moreover, ServiceNow IT operations management helps reduce
cloud spend by recognizing and operationalizing cost optimizations.
Conclusion
The increased demand for IT operations automation to deliver robust and secure services is increasing as
organizations accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. Digital business performance depends on
successful IT services, which require proactive and predictive operations. With ServiceNow IT operations
management, organizations can automate and optimize IT operations on a single platform. This enables them to
unlock innovation while delivering extraordinary employee and customer experiences and unparalleled business
performance.
Find out how Nous can help solve your IT operations challenges through
ServiceNow IT
Operations Management
implementation.