This was left as a comment to an earlier blog article:
“Nobody decides to pursue a career in IT because they find systems management fascinating. That’s what a Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) MVP recently told me. And yet, IT professionals’ highest priority, according to Windows IT Pro’s 2006 Industry Trends survey, is “managing IT infrastructure,” and their biggest pain point is “limited budgets and expanding responsibilities.” Systems management may not be sexy, but it nevertheless consumes a huge amount of IT energy and effort—not to mention 70 percent of IT budgets.“
Is systems management (or operations management) fascinating, or just necessary? I suspect some people would find it more fascinating than others. Some (including myself!) may even consider it their passion to have an IT environment properly managed; it is highly preferable to not spend time putting out fires.
However, systems management definitely requires resources that often are not available. Although system management costs vary depending on whether that process is manual or automated. An IDC white paper discussing IT labor costs and SMS (https://download.microsoft.com/download/8/0/8/808c50a0-87ef-4e48-ba3f-6c4cc00dd7da/IDC_sms_whitepaper.pdf) shows that labor costs are higher for those IT shops at the “basic” level ($1,320 per PC/year) than at the “rationalized” level ($230 PC/year). These terms are taken from Microsoft’s Infrastructure Optimization Model (IO Model), see https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/infrastructure/default.aspx. The IO Model is also discussed in the IDC paper. A “basic organization” does things manually, while a more “rationalized” orgazation has implemented IT best practices and automates whenever possible.
While systems management may not be “sexy”, using products such as Microsoft’s (or those by other vendors) does have a payback. It does of course require making the initial effort – and the expense – to procure a tool and implement it properly. Part of the resource challenge is to take time to implement a systems management tool while you’re too busy putting out those fires to do so. However, you should see the value – and reduced support costs – over time. If you are not using a systems or operations management tool today, I would highly suggest looking into it!
