Zia Insights Dashboard - Extending OpManager's Observability

Modern IT systems are increasingly complex, with a blend of on-premises and hybrid cloud infrastructure, microservices, distributed applications, and more. The huge volume of data generated by monitoring an organization's infrastructure makes it challenging to analyze the data manually and make meaningful conclusions. And for any business, time is money. This is why businesses need anobservability tool for full-stack IT visibility. An observability tool helps teams navigate this complexity by surveilling the IT environment to avoid network anomalies, predicting changes, and forecasting issues in advance.

Is prediction enough?

Observability tools have extensive predictive capabilities that enhance an organization's capability to ensure a proactive and data-driven approach to IT management. While prediction and forecasting are valuable tactics in network monitoring, they have limitations that make them insufficient by themselves for future-proofing the network management process. Here's an example:

Zia Insights Dashboard for Forecast Recommendations

OpManager's option for predictive observability is the Zia Insights Dashboard, a powerful tool for forecast recommendations. Forecast recommendations go beyond simple predictions by providing actionable guidance to network administrators. This is critical for effective and proactive network management, especially when dealing with complex and dynamic environments like large enterprise networks.

The powerhouse of the forecast recommendations provided by Zia Insights Dashboard is forecast alerts. Forecast Alerts help you stay updated on the resource utilization of your network devices by predicting approximately how long it will take for each of your resources to be exhausted. OpManager uses the data from the Forecast Alerts to identify what else could go wrong and what other resources could be affected if each Forecast Alert is not addressed, and what the user can do to avoid this.

Components of the Zia Dashboard

• Alarm Message: This is the potential resource outage predicted by Forecast Alerts. OpManager currently supports four Forecast Alert rules). for four types of resources. Whenever a resource is expected to be exhausted, OpManager raises an alert with the details regarding the resource and the device.
  
   

   

   

   

   

   


• Possible Impact: This column shows the resources that could potentially be affected if this issue is not resolved.
  
   

   

   

   

   

   


• Recommendations: This columns shows the forecast recommendations as to what can be done to mitigate the issue.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Zia Dashboard Actions

Based on the identified issue and the predicted extent of resource outage, the admin can choose to perform a few actions:

• Execute a workflow: Run a predefined set of instructions called workflows to attempt corrective actions for the issue.
  

   



• Log a ticket: If OpManager has been integrated with an ITSM tool, like ServiceDesk Plus or ServiceNow, the alert can be raised as a ticket on the selected tool. All the relevant data—including the alarm message, the possible impact, and the recommendations—is sent to the ITSM tool so the concerned IT admin can take corrective action.
  

   



• Run playbook: If OpManager has been integrated with Ansible, this button can be used to trigger an Ansible playbook, enabling automated execution of predefined tasks for streamlined operations.
  

   

The Result: Seamless Business Operations

Prediction and forecasting are essential tools for understanding and anticipating future network behaviors, but they alone cannot ensure the network remains healthy and optimized. Zia Dashboard's forecast recommendations provide the actionable insights and guidance required for responding to forecasted events—ensuring timely interventions and optimizing resource allocation—making them a crucial part of proactive network management. They empower network admins to not only see potential issues coming but also take decisive, effective actions to prevent them, ensuring smooth and reliable network performance. The benefits of this dashboard have been summarized here:

• Proactive Resource Planning: Zia Dashboard's forecast recommendations suggest specific actions to avoid potential network failures. Instead of just anticipating potential problems, IT admins can instead take corrective actions before an issue escalates, significantly reducing system outages and downtime.
• Enhanced Decision-Making: The dashboard provides data-driven insights, enabling admins to make informed decisions about resource allocation, upgrades, and infrastructure changes.
• Improved Resource Management: This will help businesses understand future resource needs based on usage trends, allowing for better capacity planning and allocation, which optimizes performance and efficiency.
• Cost Efficiency: Forecast recommendations can help optimize resource allocation in a way that balances performance with cost efficiency. Rather than provisioning additional resources, Zia Dashboard's forecast recommendations can suggest leveraging existing resources more efficiently, helping organizations avoid unnecessary capital expenditure.
• Continuous Improvement: Predictive recommendations foster a culture of continuous improvement, as teams can refine processes and systems based on past performance and future forecasts.

Interested in learning more? Download ManageEngine OpManager or check our free, 30-day trial to see OpManager's Forecast Alerts and Zia Insights Dashboard in action. Want more features? Request them here. Meanwhile, subscribe to our monthly newsletter to keep up with our latest releases and updates.