The power of the cloud is that anyone can use it anywhere, anytime. Even though there is sufficient availability, people are reluctant to adopt it, mainly because of a lack of knowledge. Most users know what a Virtual Machine is and have an idea of what IaaS, PaaS or SaaS is, but when you ask them if they feel comfortable creating these themselves via the cloud portal, the answer is usually ‘No, that’s why we have IT!’.
The role of IT is key in cloud adaptation and should be used to bring the cloud and services closer to the end user while improving Service Management throughout the enterprise.
Improving IT Service Management with ServiceNow
One method of improving Service Management within an enterprise is by using the Cloud Management Suite from ServiceNow, which provides a single front-end for multiple cloud solutions. Why not use a self-service system to bring the cloud closer the end user?
By bringing a standard cloud service to the front end, IT staffs are in control of what to offer to the end user and take away the complexity. This way of working allows IT staffs to not only provide a service catalog and a user self-service, but also to make sure that what is being deployed by the end user follows standardized procedures and workflows that perfectly meet the security and compliance policies of the enterprise.
Another benefit of automating services is the creation of a knowledge base of previous occurrences. This allows problems to be investigated more thoroughly as more diagnostic information becomes available between when it was working and when not (between iterations). Continuous improvements of the provided services will lead to less tickets generated for the helpdesk and less services needed in the first place. Furthermore, the end user that is doing his work, will be able to react faster to changes and do a lot more by himself, which leads to reduced time spent on issue management.
ServiceNow Cloud Management + Microsoft Azure
The Cloud Management suite of ServiceNow provides the fundamental services needed for a cloud service:
Life-cycle management for individual VM’s
Life-cycle management for resource groups
Cost and Usage reports of Azure data by using ServiceNow Report Modules
Below is a high-level overview of the common operations on Azure and how the Cloud Management Module perfectly assists you in. The single front-end provided to the end user has the above services built in and reduces the complexity which leads to a further adaptation of Cloud as a Service (CaaS) within the company.
ASP has a long lasting and broad experience with setting up infrastructures based on Azure technology. We help multiple customers with setting up a DR site based on Azure. Some examples are offsite backup and providing flexible compute resources for test and development purposes. ASP has also embraced the technology of ServiceNow, the market leader in Enterprise Service Management.
We are holding a workshop on 12/12/2017 in our offices in Brussels. If you want to experience the power of automation and orchestration, please join us.