Gartner Advises Customers Look at Open Source Management
January 30, 2009 - 3:44 pmIn a recent report entitled “How to Determine Whether You Can Afford More Infrastructure Risk”, Gartner ID Number G00163163, Gartner analysts Cameron Haight and Raymond Paquet advise that customers look at open source management products (and coined a new acronym, OSM) in a tightening economic environment.
In this paper, Gartner compares IT operations management software to insurance and asks whether businesses have been buying too much ‘insurance’ for the IT risk mitigation they’re getting in return. There is some very interesting Risk vs Cost analysis that makes the paper definitely worth checking out.
Some notable quotes:
- “The worsening economy is forcing many IT organizations to review their IT spending to
see where prudent cuts may be made. Operations management technology should not
be immune from this examination…. we take a closer look at the risk impact to help organizations
decide whether to increase their risk profiles to reduce their management insurance
“premiums.”"
- “Gartner believes that many IT organizations are “overinsured” — at least with respect to
Global 2000 companies’ investments in management tooling.”
- “Organizations will choose competitively priced products that include open-source management (OSM) products, among others, to meet the needs of several tiers of service-level requirements.”
- “Look to the use of alternative management tools (including OSM) for IT assets requiring
management. This could increase risk (for example, failure to implement, higher TCO,
less-robust tools and less integration), but it may also provide the level of necessary
support at a lower price point.”
- “Gartner urges IT organizations to begin this analysis now — before senior management dictates less-favorable options for those tasked with managing the data center and associated environments.”
We’ll have more to say about this intriguing way to look at IT operations management risk vs reward in upcoming blog entries.