The importance of measuring IT performance can be calculated based on the losses a company can suffer when failures occur. A system outage, for example, can lead to a series of complaints and damage to the organization’s image — depending on the service provided, it can even generate fines! Therefore, concern with IT management must be taken very seriously to avoid business dissatisfaction.
When performance is measured continuously, the main benefit is the prevention that all equipment will operate regularly, enabling the Service Desk team to anticipate potential failures.
There are appropriate tools to measure IT performance through different metrics, which allow greater control over everything that happens regarding the IT infrastructure. However, even with these tools, difficulties in managing infrastructure — such as server accumulation — and IT costs are still a reality for many companies.
Knowing the importance of measuring IT performance, we have listed 5 tools that will help you do this in your company. Check them out!
1. Nagios
Nagios is one of the most popular applications for monitoring — according to the company itself, there are over 1 million users worldwide —, whose major differentiator is open source code.
This is because, as many know, open-source programs allow any team or specialist to develop the tool, meaning a company can have a customized solution.
Nagios’ function is to perform 24/7 monitoring of networks (local and remote), detecting any problem, failure, or system downtime. When a problem occurs, Nagios promptly issues an email alert so that the company can resolve the issue as soon as possible.
There is also a feature to configure actions for specific problems, which saves a lot of time and effort in resolving minor issues, eliminating the need for an employee to travel for problems that Nagios itself is capable of solving.
2. Trauma Zero
This is a suite of applications that offer various solutions for companies to measure IT performance, including performance analysis and monitoring tools. Trauma Zero’s main features are:
- Low resource consumption;
- Multiplatform support;
- Clear and intuitive interface;
- Generation of complete analyses, reports, and diagnostics;
- Real-time access to resources.
With its modules, it is possible, for example, to create an automatic inventory of any type of infrastructure (servers, mobile devices, workstations, and software components); provide remote support; automate configurations and software installations on servers or workstations; among other features that enable efficient IT performance measurement.
Bonus: Complete guide to implementing a Service Desk in your company
3. System Center
The System Center platform, distributed by Microsoft, is a great tool for management between local environments and service providers. In the 2012 version of System Center, there was a greater focus on cloud computing solutions, and it became possible to use a Microsoft private cloud to reduce datacenter costs and increase management agility. Among the main features of System Center are:
- Infrastructure monitoring and provisioning;
- IT service management;
- Application performance monitoring;
- Automation and self-service;
- Integration with other Microsoft service suites.
The fact that it is a Microsoft product undoubtedly weighs heavily on companies’ decisions when implementing infrastructure management, monitoring, and virtualization solutions. It is support that offers resilience and high availability, meaning the system is capable of recovering from eventual problems, regardless of their severity level.
4. OCS Inventory
OCS Inventory is an inventory information system, meaning it collects hardware/software information from servers and presents it in complete reports. In other words, the tool generates reports on the machines.
Like some of the aforementioned tools, OCS Inventory is open-source software, based on market-proven database and server technologies, such as the MySQL database and the Apache web server.
In terms of performance, OCS Inventory stands out as an easy-to-implement multiplatform system that, even while capable of producing about 1 million inventories per day, does not overload computers and demands low bandwidth.
And to further simplify its usability, system administration is done via a Web interface — simply use a browser to access the system from any device, whether mobile or not.
5. OTRS
Used by thousands of companies worldwide, OTRS is an open-source tool focused on Help Desk services and IT service management, highly recommended for managing business processes and call center teams. Since OTRS systems are developed for two types of services, it is subdivided into modules: Help Desk and ITSM.
For companies, the great advantage of OTRS Help Desk is centralized reporting and automated request monitoring, which allows for more consistent performance analysis, optimizing incident management and request fulfillment. Regarding tickets, they can be routed to different support groups (according to their specializations), with prioritization based on criticality, impact, and priorities.
The tool can be operated in a web environment via browsers and has open-source code, which consolidates OTRS as a tool that, even while robust and stable, is very financially viable (being free software) and can be customized for optimal use by organizations without the need for user licenses.
In addition, OTRS has professional support (including in Brazil), is available in Portuguese and 32 other languages, and can be integrated with various authentication, inventory, ticketing, and ERP systems.
Many options and low cost
Software alternatives available on the market to measure IT performance are vast, and system customization is an attractive feature available in most of the tools mentioned above.
Furthermore, the range of information coming from these tools greatly facilitates the daily routine of the IT manager, regardless of the scenario they are in. Obviously, it is necessary for this information to guide IT strategies within the organization. And for this, the IT manager needs to move away from the operational scope and focus entirely on data analysis and strategy formulation.
To achieve this, unless you have a robust IT team, it is wise to look for market suppliers that assist with IT management. The expertise of specialists will further add value to your strategy, making your department a key part of the organization.
See how important it is to measure IT performance and how good tools are available to help you? Share your opinion on the subject! And if you want to stay on top of news about IT infrastructure and services, subscribe to our newsletter!
