Thought Leadership White Paper

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

Contents 2 Introduction 3 The inevitable push towards greater efficiency 3 The need for better IT discovery 4 Building a more comprehensive snapshot of the data center 6 Changing the parameters for IT discovery 6 How ALDM works 8 Identifying issues that hinder operational efficiency and resilience 9 Compiling affinity groups automatically 11 Identifying the best candidates for virtualization 12 Extending insights with data visualization 12 The confluence of discovery analytics and human analysis 15 Conclusion 16 For more information

Introduction
An intimate knowledge of IT assets and dependencies has always been imperative to mitigating the risk of data center migrations and improving the resiliency of the IT environment. But the IT discovery process can be slow, costly and prone to error. And for all their value in helping organizations determine where and how to plan a migration or improve IT resiliency, traditional asset inventories and dependency maps provide only part of the picture.

With modern IT infrastructures an intricate web of interdependencies, uncovering the total IT environment, including the logical relationships between physical, virtual and cloud elements, has never been more important—or more complex. IBM’s analytics for logical dependency mapping,
ALDM, reengineers the IT discovery process to provide a more complete and accurate view of the IT infrastructure. It is designed to facilitate data center migration planning but also provide insights for companies looking to optimize or improve the resiliency of their IT environment. Developed by IBM
Research, ALDM uses analytics and advanced mathematical modeling to simplify IT inventories and dependency mapping, while extending data collection capabilities to deliver new insights about the infrastructure.
ALDM reads server configuration files to reveal dependencies that would otherwise go undetected. It fills information gaps and exposes platform anomalies that cannot be seen with many other discovery tools. But ALDM also delivers actionable insights with greater speed and rich visualization. It accelerates discovery by as much as 30 to 40 percent using automation and the scalable processing power of the cloud. And it replaces obscure, one-dimensional dependency maps with interactive infographics that enable companies to dynamically navigate complex IT environments and gain deeper insights into the configuration and operation of the infrastructure.

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ALDM also replaces much of the labor-intensive manual analysis that has become synonymous with IT discovery.
Affinity groups identify dependent assets that should be migrated together to avoid business application outages.
Resource utililization trending data suggests assets that could be rationalized, virtualized or consolidated to improve operational efficiency. These and other insights are automatically generated and delivered cost-effectively, enabling
IT managers to initiate the discovery process for a single platform or the entire IT infrastructure.

The inevitable push towards greater efficiency
Today’s data center is the veritable nerve center of the enterprise, with the infrastructure powering virtually every aspect of the business. With IT continuously challenged to optimize resource usage, conserve energy and reduce costs, infrastructure efficiency is always top of mind—and with good reason. IBM’s 2012 Data Center Study found that highly efficient data centers are able to shift 50 percent more of the IT budget to new projects.1 These IT organizations are spending less time maintaining the infrastructure and more time innovating.
Rapid advances in technology drive efficiency improvements, but business growth and change make them essential. After years of largely unfettered expansion, most IT infrastructures are highly heterogeneous and fragmented, with multivendor hardware, software and standards. Excessive energy consumption, hardware and software redundancy, and poor utilization are frequently the norm, resulting in higher costs and greater environmental impact than necessary.

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For many companies, the quest for greater IT efficiency begins with consolidation and virtualization to increase capacity and availability while creating a smaller footprint. Standardization and automation tend to follow, with cloud computing increasingly in the mix and data center relocation and IT resiliency optimization initiatives often necessary to achieve desired efficiency objectives.
Whatever choices companies make, one thing is clear. They need to understand the existing IT environment before they can make decisions about relocating or optimizing it. Data center initiatives of any magnitude can expose the business to significant risks, and smooth transitions depend on a complete and accurate picture of the infrastructure.

The need for better IT discovery
With the IT environment continually changing with the addition of new equipment and applications, even inventory data collected a few weeks ago can become out of date quickly.
While numerous commercially available tools have been developed to automate the IT discovery process, most have been designed to monitor the IT infrastructure continuously.
These tools typically collect data over a longer period than is necessary for many data center migrations and IT resiliency optimization efforts. Further, because they can be hard to configure and manage and expensive to run, they are usually installed on a limited number of production servers, collecting only a subset of the information needed for a typical migration or enterprise-wide upgrade. Similarly, homegrown discovery tools developed to assess the IT environment for a specific business purpose, like an application upgrade, may not provide all of the information needed for more encompassing IT initiatives.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

Despite the availability of automated discovery tools, most data center inventories are still conducted manually by interviewing platform owners one at a time. The process is time-consuming and error-prone, relying on assigned IT personnel to correctly document every logical dependency flow between servers, middleware and applications. Needless to say, these inventories are only as good as the information collected. In fact, IBM’s experience with hundreds of client engagements found that manual inventories are usually only 40 to 60 percent accurate.

Building a more comprehensive snapshot of the data center

ALDM identifies dependencies that are observed during the scanning period, but also dependencies that are configured and not observed.

ALDM determines dependencies by scanning a server’s network connections, but also by examining the server’s configuration files. It not only identifies the middleware that runs on the server, it identifies other machines—virtual as well as physical—that the server is configured to communicate with. So, ALDM identifies dependencies that are observed during the scanning period, but also dependencies that are configured and not observed. Because it doesn’t have to see server dependencies in action to know they exist, it can provide a more complete view of dependencies, and it can do it in a few days.

Without a complete picture of IT assets and their dependencies, an IT manager’s optimization efforts are handicapped. Data center migrations can be particularly difficult because IT managers are unable to factor all of the dependencies into their scheduled equipment moves. As such, they are more likely to overlook or even retire assets that are still required by the operation. Such inadvertent changes can result in costly business disruptions and outages. And the longer it takes to detect them, the more devastating their impact on the business.

Advances in analytics, automation and data visualization have paved the way for a new kind of IT discovery, one that is more compatible with the large, distributed and complex nature of today’s data center environments. IBM’s analytics for logical dependency mapping, ALDM, dramatically improves current
IT discovery technologies to reengineer the way assets and dependencies are discovered, but also the way analytic insights are delivered to users.

ALDM also provides actionable insights about IT assets that would not otherwise be possible without expending considerable time and effort. Insights like multi-level dependency groupings, which can take weeks of human analysis, are automatically generated. ALDM provides shortcuts to other information as well, including resource utilization statistics, which can be helpful in data center consolidation and server virtualization and consolidation efforts.

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ALDM’s dependency maps provide a panoramic view of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Its data visualization capability brings the maps to life, enabling users to interact with discovered data. Visualization facilitates exploration by allowing users to drill down for additional detail about

an asset’s attributes and dependencies using infinitely customizable filters and dynamic rendering (Figure 1). Users can determine, for example, which assets to upgrade, which to retire and which to relocate, but also which should be virtualized to gain greater efficiency.

Figure 1. Dynamic rendering of the IT environment. A visualized infrastructure is displayed in dots (server nodes) and lines (dependencies). Using touch-screen navigation and customizable filters on the left of the display, users can drill down to focus on specific data, like all web servers, servers made by certain vendors or servers with certain middleware.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

Changing the parameters for IT discovery
ALDM offers a quicker route to IT discovery insights because its focus is point-in-time discovery. It takes a snapshot of the operation as it exists today, rather providing a continuous view of the infrastructure over time. In so doing, it avoids the hefty overhead costs and management requirements associated with continuously running discovery tools. Therefore, it is more versatile and can be used more frequently to accomplish a wide range of objectives. In fact, it can be run on one server or any combination of servers to assist with:
• Conducting routine inventories to identify and purge unsupported and redundant software and versions that are driving up management and licensing costs
• Preparing the IT infrastructure for the deployment of a new operating system or application
• Determining the fate of specific assets as part of a data center consolidation or migration initiative
• Grouping dependent assets to facilitate migration planning and equipment moves
• Identifying assets that are the best candidates for virtualization • Verifying compliance with established IT operating standards. How ALDM works
ALDM runs directly on a company’s servers. Once the ALDM script is downloaded, it can be copied to select servers and executed using a simple, one-line instruction. Generally, the script is set up to execute every 15 minutes for 5 to 7 days, capturing information from each server on which it is installed.
This time frame is sufficient for most companies; however,
ALDM’s run duration can be modified to support each organization’s own server environment.

The ALDM script runs transparently. Its impact on performance is about 2 to 5 percent the first time it is executed and negligible after that. Moreover, it does not read, copy or collect application or user data, and it does not contain any executables, agents or probes that could pose a security risk.

ALDM runs directly on a company’s servers. Once the ALDM script is downloaded, it can be copied to select servers and executed using a simple, one-line instruction. Static and dynamic data collection
ALDM uses three methods to extract static and dynamic data from the scanned servers. First, ALDM analyzes the server log files to identify any historical dependencies. Second, ALDM reads the server configuration files to identify hardware details like model number and serial number, but also to discover all dependencies the server is configured for. It identifies middleware that has been configured to access a database server, for example, or middleware that has been configured to access other middleware on other servers. This ability to read the configuration files allows ALDM to capture server dependencies that may not be observed during the 5 to 7 day scanning period.

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Finally, ALDM collects dynamic information about the activity taking place between servers. ALDM records observed dependencies by monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic at each port. It also captures resource utilization and other statistics for each scanned server, helping to complete the dependency picture for the IT infrastructure.

Multilevel dependency grouping
ALDM doesn’t just identify dependencies between assets; it identifies multilevel dependencies between them. It can determine that Server A is connected to Server B, but also that Server B is connected to Server C, and other downstream connections. Understanding multilevel dependencies makes it possible to follow asset dependencies as they traverse the infrastructure and to determine how they actually affect the business. More specifically, by enabling IT architects to map applications to servers, multilevel dependency groups provide them with a more application-centric understanding of the infrastructure. Without such a view, it is easy to miscalculate how applications will be impacted by changes they make to the infrastructure.
Multilevel dependency grouping is also a very significant benefit in data center relocations because it enables organizations to more easily determine the impact of moving their applications. IT architects can look at a web server application, for example, and figure out every connected infrastructure element (web server, application server, database server, license server, etc.) that needs to be migrated together to prevent disruption. When adding a new application, IT architects can use ALDM’s multilevel dependency insights to

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determine how the application is going to connect to the web server and what else the web server connects to that could be affected. They can figure out the impact on the infrastructure and make any necessary adjustments before the application is installed.

ALDM’s backend analytic and visualization engines run in the IBM
SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE) cloud, which provides a scalable environment and support for the powerful analytics needed to process a massive volume of data quickly...
What used to take 3 hours can now be accomplished in less than 10 minutes.
Cloud-based processing and analytics
Once data is collected from a company’s configuration and server log files, it is submitted to IBM for processing. ALDM’s backend analytic and visualization engines run in the IBM
SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE) cloud, which provides a scalable environment and support for the powerful analytics needed to process a massive volume of data quickly. IBM’s preliminary test cases have found the cloud to reduce processing time significantly by an average of 20 times when compared with traditional processing environments.2 What used to take 3 hours can now be accomplished in less than 10 minutes.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

ALDM parses all of the data, extracting only the asset, dependency and utilization information needed. Then
ALDM’s algorithms and mathematical modeling go to work, correlating the captured data and going beyond standard analytic calculations and number crunching to produce a set of meaningful insights about the infrastructure. Its discovery analytics improve infrastructure visibility and facilitate the development of more targeted—and ultimately more effective—IT optimization initiatives.

Identifying issues that hinder operational efficiency and resilience
IT can only address problems it knows exist. One of the major benefits of IT discovery is that it frequently reveals issues that could be impeding the day-to-day operation, reducing the resiliency of the infrastructure or lessening the success of consolidation and relocation initiatives. These include

redundant and obsolete operating systems and middleware and assets with unknown server connections. By providing a more current and complete view of the IT infrastructure,
ALDM makes it easy to spot configuration anomalies and discrepancies with established IT and business standards.
These insights are useful in general assessments of the IT architecture because they identify weaknesses and facilitate the prioritization of improvements.
Tabular inventories containing configuration details and installed middleware make it easy to pick out servers that are running redundant or legacy versions of system and middleware (Figures 2 and 3). The cost to monitor and maintain multiple versions can be significant, not to mention the increased security risk if these versions are no longer supported by the manufacturer. IT managers can use the
ALDM inventories to direct the removal of extraneous versions and avoid paying unnecessary licensing fees.

Redundant middleware?

Figure 2. Detailed middleware inventory for each server. ALDM provides asset-specific middleware detail for each scanned server, enabling IT architects to uncover potentially redundant middleware running on the same machine.

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Unsupported operating system? Figure 3. High-level view of the server infrastructure. Taking a higher level view across the server inventory enables IT architects to scan for old and unsupported systems.

ALDM dependency maps routinely identify dependent servers that are not known to be connected to other servers (Figure 4).
ALDM is more likely to find these “orphan servers” because of its ability to comb through server configuration files and identify configured dependencies, not just observed dependencies. Servers are often configured for dependencies that are not observed during the IT discovery scanning period. Orphan servers are rarely scanned by ALDM; they are discovered because they are connected to a server that is.

Compiling affinity groups automatically

ALDM inventories and dependency maps can also be used to facilitate new application installations and upgrades. They enable IT architects to get a quick read on the destination server environment and verify that critical middleware and operating system software are already in place to allow for a smooth transition. They also alert IT to configuration issues and dependencies that could impact the application’s performance and availability.

ALDM uses its comprehensive dependency insights to compile dependency groups. These groups identify dependent assets that should be migrated together to avoid application and service outages. The automatic grouping of these assets reduces the painstaking human analysis that is typically required in the assembly of such groups (Figure 5).

The relocation and removal of infrastructure assets make data center consolidations and migrations inherently risky, especially when the cost of a single application outage can average as much as a half million dollars. Combined with customers’ decreasing tolerance for downtime, even planned outages can be very damaging to a company’s brand and bottom line.3 ALDM’s analytics change the game by helping to limit the chance of disruption.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

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Discovered IP and host names

Discovered middleware 10.xxxx.56.106
10.xxxx.41
10.xxxx.8.196
10.xxxx.147.119
10.xxxx.147.104

Discovered
“orphan services”

10.xxxx.5.151
10.xxxx.0.177
10.xxxx.1.224
10.xxxx.104.14

Figure 4. Graphical visualization. ALDM shows directional dependencies and discovered middleware while helping to uncover orphan servers. Servers are colorcoded to facilitate data center migration planning.

However, IBM architects still review the dependency groups for accuracy and suitability, based on IT policy considerations and other insights like client preferences for how the migration should be organized. Once the groups are approved, they are re-labeled affinity groups. Sometimes multiple dependency

groups are combined into a single affinity group, depending on the IT environment and desired migration strategy. Since most IT environments are too big to migrate all at once, affinity groups ease the migration by helping organizations structure their equipment migration in logical segments.

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10.xxxx.51 10.xxxx.55
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10.xxxx.56.106
10.xxxx.41
10.xxxx.8.196
10.xxxx.147.119
10.xxxx.147.104
10.xxxx.5.151
10.xxxx.0.177
10.xxxx.1.224
10.xxxx.104.14

Figure 5. Affinity groups. Once ALDM’s automatically generated dependency groups are verified by IBM architects and additional IT policy considerations are

factored in, affinity groups are created. Affinity groups help clients structure the data center migration process so that dependent assets are migrated together. Each group is color coded, based on various migration planning criteria.

Identifying the best candidates for virtualization
Understanding the resource utilization of individual assets is of paramount importance for IT organizations that have made the decision to virtualize or consolidate. ALDM provides a quick and easy way to collect the utilization and other data needed to help determine the best candidates for server virtualization or consolidation.

Resource utilization data is presented statistically and graphically. Tables show peak and mean utilization for each server, and graphs plot CPU, disk, memory and network utilization over a user-defined sampling period (Figure 6).
System administrators can use this and other ALDM data to determine which devices to virtualize, upgrade and sunset.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

overall view of infrastructure nodes and dependencies to a detailed view of a single node with the simplicity of touchscreen navigation.

ATLWSCTX - Utilization to Peak
120%
% of Maximum

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Hours

CPU % of Peak

MEM % Peak

% NET of Peak

Disk % of Peak

Figure 6. Resource utilization trending. System administrators can use

ALDM’s utilization data to identify underutilized servers and determine which servers to consolidate, virtualize and retire.

Extending insights with data visualization
Data visualization transforms ALDM’s infographics into interactive tools that IT architects can use to better understand the data center environment. Instead of relying solely on one-dimensional dependency maps that show assets and dependencies in intricate “spider charts,” data visualization delivers a multidimensional, navigable schema that makes it easier to understand the logical relationships between the assets.
Infinitely customizable filters enable IT architects to boil down large amounts of data into manageable chunks and drill down for server detail, including specific hardware attributes and installed middleware. By filtering out extraneous nodes, they can focus in on the nodes that are relevant to a specific objective (Figure 7). They can move quickly from a high-level,

ALDM’s data visualization capability operates on the Apple iPad and uses standard iPad navigation techniques. IT architects simply tap the screen and slide their fingers to navigate through the IT infrastructure. For example, tapping on a specific server node (represented as a dot in visualization schema) highlights and enlarges all of its attributes and dependencies while other non-related elements fade from view
(Figure 8).
This ability to shift fluidly from a panoramic view of the infrastructure to detail views of specific assets simplifies IT discovery dramatically. With a clear picture of each asset’s activity, usage level and importance in the context of the overall infrastructure, IT architects can make more informed decisions about the infrastructure. Migration architects, in particular, can retrieve a more precise view of configured dependencies and ensure that dependent applications and hardware will be brought online together, without incident.
In short, IT can execute infrastructure optimization initiatives with greater confidence.

The confluence of discovery analytics and human analysis
For all their capability distilling volumes of data into usable insights, discovery analytics are not a substitute for human analysis but rather a supplement to it. Peoples’ knowledge, reasoning and experience must be applied to validate ALDM’s machine-generated insights and to make independent decisions not possible with programmatic instructions and mathematic computation.

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Figure 7. Customizable filters. IT architects tap on the filter tiles on the left of the display to drill down to the desired level of server detail. In this example, filters have been used to hide the IT environment’s web, application and infrastructure servers. Only database servers are visible, with each dot representing a single DBMS server node and each line representing a dependency.

Consider ALDM’s resource utilization trending metrics, which identify potential servers for virtualization based on a series of aggregated calculations. Only individuals who understand the potential business ramifications can determine which of those servers should actually be virtualized or consolidated.
Likewise, while ALDM reveals platform inconsistencies across the data center, it cannot tell whether those platforms are still supported and, if so, for how long. So while machinegenerated analytics provide meaningful insights and highlight red flags, IBM works with companies to sort through the analytic results and determine whether action should be taken.

For all their capability distilling volumes of data into usable insights, discovery analytics are not a substitute for human analysis but rather a supplement to it.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

All of the discovered detail about node
‘pasdbs09’ is displayed in the sliding panel at right

Figure 8. Detail view of server attributes. Using standard iPad finger gestures, IT architects can enlarge the view to focus on specific servers (as shown in the center panel), then tap on a desired node to view its host and IP name, OS, middleware and hardware attributes (shown in the right panel).

IBM analysts review the output and prepare a formal report, then meet with companies to present issues of potential concern. The importance of these face-to-face discussions cannot be overstated. While companies are likely to recognize some of the more obvious problems and inconsistencies, others take a trained eye and years of experience to detect.
Take the case of virtualized development and production servers running on the same physical server. Most companies understand the security risk posed by such a conflict of interest but are often unaware of instances in their own environment.

Spotting the problem involves seeing production applications and compilers running together on the same machine— something that IBM analysts routinely look for and find, but which is otherwise not commonly recognized.
A typical ALDM implementation, including IBM’s insights analysis, resulting report and other deliverables, and summary discussion with clients, runs several weeks from start to finish.

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ALDM deliverables summary
ALDM analysis report • Infrastructure summary and analysis
• Description and criticality of risks, including legacy operating systems and middleware, redundant versions of middleware and orphan servers
• Remediation options for each risk
• Additional insights

Multilevel dependency mapping

Graphic server visualization of server-toserver dependency mapping, based on user criteria

Resource utilization trending Graphs and tables illustrating CPU, memory and disk utilization for each server, normalized for peak and average

Data visualization

Access to visualization capability for each server and the overall infrastructure, plus server-specific pictures in vector image format

ALDM data model

All data collected and parsed by ALDM presented in spreadsheet format

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Conclusion
With so much riding on the efficiency and performance of the infrastructure, IT discovery is likely to become a standard element in the health regimen for today’s well-run operations.
Whether providing the basis for periodic inventory scrubs,
IT optimization or data center migration initiatives, discovery analytics have the potential to simplify the process while enabling a more comprehensive and accurate view of IT assets and dependencies.
ALDM accelerates the IT discovery process and signficantly lowers the cost, making it feasible to assess individual servers or the entire operation as often as required. Instead of limiting
IT discovery to one-off projects, it can become part of a company’s ongoing maintenance and efficiency program, facilitating the detection of configuration problems and streamlining inventory collection.
With the ability to read and analyze server configuration files,
ALDM can see dependency insights that other automated tools and manual inventorying processes cannot. And data visualization enables deeper understanding by bringing greater clarity to the results. For companies looking to drive
IT efficiency through consolidation, migration, IT resiliency optimization or other major transformation initiatives,
ALDM insights can be the linchpin to a seamless, disruptionfree transition.

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Reengineering IT discovery with analytics and visualization

For more information
To learn how IBM is helping organizations improve IT discovery, please contact your IBM representative or
IBM Business Partner, or visit ibm.com/services/aldm © Copyright IBM Corporation 2013
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Data center operational efficiency best practices: Enabling increased new project spending by improving data center efficiency, IBM, April 2012.
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