New Technology Shifting the Distributed IT and Edge Management Landscape

A new report from Vertiv points out to readers right of the bat a modern reality: An outage at a remote IT site not only affects the people and devices at the location it supports, but it can also create a chain reaction that often ends with an IT manager trying to fix the issue himself.  And according to Vertiv, this manager is “often without the benefit of trained personnel on-site or even visibility into the exact equipment at the location.”

And when a service person gets to the facility, they often have no insight into the cause of the outage, so diagnosing the problem takes time. If the issue is components, they will need to be replaced, meaning a second visit, and a prolonged outage.

“Despite the increased connectivity we benefit from in other areas of our life, IT managers still largely lack remote visibility and management of their distributed equipment,” the Vertiv report states.

The problem? This creates more potential downtime in remote or off-the-beaten-path locations, as well as escalated service costs and increased demand on internal IT resources.

The new report contends that today, new technology exists to “revolutionize the way distributed IT sites are managed and maintained.”

The role of distributed IT is shifting. This is true for retail locations, branch offices, university campuses or manufacturing plants — and has been for a while. But these days, with almost every organization becoming more digitized, “the number of these sites is increasing, and their role is changing,” said Vertiv.

Some, of course, call this edge computing, while others know the trend as fog computing, distributed IT or remote sites. Regardless, they all share the same challenges in regard to availability, the report points out, and service management.

“The IT manager stays in the loop through the desktop interface or app, receiving notifications of services and related information, without being pulled away from their other tasks.” — Vertiv, of IT service management infrastructure

But changing the way distributed IT sites are managed and maintained requires focus on four core capabilities, Vertiv says. The report highlights how to build a better management platform by honing is on the following:

1. Local connectivity
2. Secure central repository
3. Knowledge base
4. Role-based access

With a service management infrastructure in place, IT organizations can ramp up visibility and control to cut down on downtime in remote sites and respond quickly to any issues without active involvement from IT management.

Download the white paper, “Managing Small Spaces: How Connectivity, the Cloud, Big Data and Mobility are Revolutionizing Distributed IT and Edge Management,” courtesy of Vertiv, which outlines how connectivity, cloud computing, big data and mobile applications can work together to enable a new service paradigm for remote sites that increases visibility, reduces downtime and supports optimization of these vital IT resources.