The time has come to think strategically about systems management, and how it can be used in a co-ordinated and effective manner to deliver real business benefit. This is one of the key conclusions drawn in recently published report, ‘IT Systems Management’, as organisations demand the IT infrastructure delivers increased levels of availability and quality of service, the focus for IT managers is shifting towards a business service perspective.

Organisational IT structures are often characterised by many different silo’ed teams of technical specialists. These silos often drive the technology selection process in organisations, which to a large extent is governed by the existing skills within the IT department. This approach has created tensions between the requirements of the business users, and the capabilities to manage the technology of the IT department. The result of this silo’ed approach is that IT resources are locked into technologies, and organisations face expensive retraining or new hiring cost if technologies new to the organisation are selected.

The market in Systems Management has evolved over recent years. The leading vendors have all integrated the ability to monitor and manage a variety of infrastructure components, from virtual servers to network switches, into their solutions. Systems Management tools are changing IT from being mainly reactive in its response, to being more proactive and business focused.

Taking a holistic perspective to managing the organisation’s infrastructure requires a different approach and one which many IT organisations are not equipped to adopt. The concept of business-driven demand is not new – in fact IT has evolved based on this premise – however, currently the IT department responds to the department/business unit that either shouts the loudest, or has the capital to invest in new projects. It is our contention that the landscape is moving, and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) are increasingly looking toward the CIO as the guardian of business process prioritisation; in other words the IT department is being asked to police the business units based on corporate prioritisation.