A Runbook is a compilation of routine steps, based on standard operating procedure (SOP), available in a machine executable format, used to enable automation of workflows for achieving a defined objective.
Intelligent Automation combines traditional runbook automation with ML to assist the knowledge worker by automating repetitive, routine tasks. It mimics the activities carried out by humans and learns from them over time to do the same set of activities much better. With the introduction of NLP to the equation, systems are now becoming capable of understanding issues and recommending relevant solutions, triggering them automatically without human intervention.
Runbook Automation is the ability to define, design, build, orchestrate, manage, execute, and report workflows that support IT systems and operational processes. The objective is to simplify and automate repetitive tasks in your IT environment, thereby reducing human intervention, minimizing human errors, and achieving higher levels of productivity.
Autonomic computing refers to the self-managing characteristics of distributed computing resources, adapting to unpredictable changes while hiding intrinsic complexity from operators and users.
Runbook Automation (RBA) is the ability to define, build, orchestrate, manage, and report on workflows that support IT systems and operational processes.
DRYiCE iAutomate (iAutomate) is an Intelligent Runbook Automation product that brings AI and collaboration as key features into the automation domain. It delivers the power of ML and NLP through extensive use of proprietary NLP algorithms and knowledge analysis in conjunction with our industry-leading orchestration engines. It provides robust, end-to-end incident remediation and event-driven task automation across infrastructure and application landscape by leveraging a repository of over 3000+ configurable and reusable runbooks.
iAutomate is an Intelligent Runbook automation tool that helps simplify and automate IT operations. It leverages technologies like AI, ML, and NLP to deliver various functionalities like:
- Understanding ticket/event context and recommending the most appropriate runbook for remediation
- Leveraging capabilities of third-party orchestrator engines like Broadcom ITPAM, Microfocus OO, etc. for automated execution of scripts/workflows
- Providing knowledge assistance in the form of relevant knowledge articles from various sources (configurable) to the human agent working for faster ticket resolution.
- In the absence of a relevant runbook, automatically search and download relevant code snippets from various sources and present them to the SME for validation and customization for the creation of a runbook
iAutomate supports five different types of automation:
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Incidents - Quickly fix issues and bring back the infrastructure elements and services back to acceptable performance levels
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Service Request tasks - Fulfill service requests by users like password resets, adding users, providing access to printers, etc.
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Change Request Tasks - Expedite changes to infrastructure, application, and systems through automation
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Event-driven Remediation - Proactive event-driven remediation for identified RCAs to improve service availability & resilience
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Scheduled Executions - Allows users to schedule runbook executions for scheduled activities on hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly intervals
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Ad-hoc Executions - Enables users to search and execute runbooks on single/multiple CIs on a need basis
Currently, iAutomate has 3000+ runbooks available in its repository. Some of the categories are mentioned below:
- Windows / Linux Server Management
- Batch Management
- Cloud Management (Azure, AWS, GCP)
- Configuration Management
- File Management
- Network Management
- Application Service Management
- Disk Management
- Memory Management
- Preventive Health Checks
- Container Management
- Password Resets
- Database Management
- Load Balancer Configuration and Management
- User Management
- Active Directory Management
- Others
Some of the challenges that plague traditional human-driven IT operations are as follows:
- Lack of self-service mechanisms and limited channels of support leads to a huge burden on IT functions and service desks leading to long wait times and inconsistent user experience
- Unpredictable surge in IT-related issues, employee, and customer requests due to the new remote ways of working
- Understaffed service desks facing heat of compliance to SLAs while incoming incidents and service requests continue to rise
- Delay in the adoption of automation platforms due to:
- High License and Implementation costs of automation
- Long implementation timelines
- Detailed workshops, lasting up to a week, to understand the process and identify automation potentials
- Skilled SMEs to operate the ecosystem
- Teams working in silos with no / minimal collaborations leads to increased ticket hops, thereby increasing resolution time
- Resolution of repetitive issues leads to monotony and decreasing employee productivity
Some benefits delivered by iAutomate are mentioned below:
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Average reduction in manual effort – Approximately 60% to 80% for in-scope tickets due to automation
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Average reduction in incidents – Up to 30% of incidents of repetitive nature
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Average reduction in resolution time – Approximately 60% to 80% for in-scope tickets due to automation
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FCR impact – Up to 30% (considering only those tickets that qualify iAutomate’s automation criteria)
No. iAutomate acts as a brain on top of the third-party RBA tools. It brings intelligence into the automation construct. It supports various RBA tools like BigFix, Microsoft Systems Orchestrator (MS SCORCH), ITPAM (Broadcom), Microfocus Operations Orchestration, BMC Atrium Orchestrator, Ansible CLI and Tower, VMware vRO, and StackStorm. Currently, most of the runbooks are available in ITPAM, AWX, and ServiceNow Orchestration. It also supports the BigFix fixlet engine to execute fixlets.
Timelines for a full-fledged product implementation are dependent on various key factors -
- Infrastructure size (Number of CIs)
- Existing toolsets in the environment
- Integrations required
- Number of use cases to be configured
- Enablement of access to the environment and toolsets
The implementation of the product for around 10 simple use cases takes around 2 months if all the prerequisites are met. When the system is fully trained, a zero-touch automation state that does not involve any human intervention can be achieved in 4 to 5 months.
iAutomate pulls in the issue-related information from any system of record. It supports integration with various IT Service Management and Event Management tools. For instance, iAutomate has readily available integration adapters for DRYiCE SX, Service Now, Cherwell ITSM, Jira, BMC Remedy, and, BMC Remedyforce from an ITSM perspective. Additionally, Moogsoft is supported wherein the event data can be fetched to perform event-driven remediation
iAutomate can integrate with various tools with the help of RESTful APIs and web services.
iAutomate can operate in two modes:
- Partial Auto - In this mode, based on the selected ticket's description, iAutomate recommends the most relevant runbook for remediation and waits for the human agent to trigger the right runbook for resolution.
- Fully Auto - In this mode, based on the selected ticket's description, iAutomate identifies the most relevant runbook and if the confidence score is above a pre-defined threshold, it automatically executes the same for performing remediation as well without any human intervention.
Yes. iAutomate does support multi-tenancy. Multiple organizations can be onboarded and configured on the product, leveraging the same or different RBA and ITSM tools. In fact, a shared offering is also available through the DRYiCE MTaaS platform for enterprises to consume it as-a-service.
Like any other product, iAutomate also has a defined commercial construct mentioned below:
- Annual license cost
- One-time implementation cost
- Support cost
Please reach out to our presales team for more details.
Yes. DRYiCE iAutomate is now available on Google Cloud Marketplace. Link to access
Yes. iAutomate can be scaled based on the volume of incoming tickets and the client’s requirements. All internal components can be load-balanced to support high availability.
An enterprise that has footprint across both private (VMware/SCVMM) and public Clouds (AWS/ Azure) to drive digital and technological transformation, such adoption can be stated as a hybrid-Cloud strategy.
The initiatives that are taken to manage and deploy various Cloud resources or infrastructure components like IaaS and PaaS across these Cloud platforms, can be stated as hybrid-Cloud management or management of hybrid-Cloud infrastructure.
An enterprise that has footprint across multiple cloud platforms, irrespective of “State of hosting” including public Cloud or private cloud or both to drive digital and technological transformation, such adoption can be stated as multi-Cloud strategy. The initiatives that are taken to manage and deploy cloud resources across these Cloud platforms, can be stated as multi-Cloud management.
A solution that helps an enterprise to manage and govern multiple Cloud platforms, drive automation, increase visibility, and governance through, but not limited to,
- Policy-driven optimized pricing and user access
- Enabling Metering, Chargeback, and Showback for various business functions like HR, Finance, Marketing, etc.
- Creating multi-machine images for large and complex deployments or repetitive similar tasks
- Proactive reporting and analytics around cost optimization, security, fault, and performance of deployed workloads
Managing a hybrid-Cloud environment can be challenging. A must-have is enhanced visibility and governance around:
- Policy-driven optimized pricing and user access
- Deployment of cloud resources on native cloud platforms
- Enabling Metering, Chargeback, and Showback for various business functions like HR, Finance, Marketing, etc.
- Proactive reporting and analytics around cost optimization, security, fault, and performance of deployed workloads
DRYiCE MyCloud can help an enterprise in the management and deployment of IaaS and PaaS resources across a multi-Cloud environment ensuring optimized cost, strong governance, continuous utilization, and performance optimization.
The various challenges that are being faced by an enterprise while using multiple Cloud platforms and other products to streamline Cloud operations are as follows,
Cost Obligations:
- Cost leakages due to lack of visibility around asset utilization or consumption patterns
- Damage obligations due to non-compliance and lack of policy adherence
- Increased operational overheads due to inconsistent processes and lack of automation in the end-to-end machine provisioning process
Diminishing Efficiency:
- Low resource efficiency due to non-standardized interfaces for provisioning machines across Cloud providers
- Significant effort involved in recurring and repetitive deployment of complex multi-machine environments
- Inordinate delays due to inefficient manual procedures
- High TATs due to multi-stakeholder and multi-level approval mechanisms
Risks:
- Risk of security and data privacy breaches due to incoherent control processes
- Risk of SLA breaches due to non-standardized processes for provisioning, controlling controls, and performance evaluation
- Opportunity cost linked to long lead time due to delayed development, testing, and release cycles
DRYiCE MyCloud is a one stop solution to manage multi/ hybrid-cloud environment for an enterprise. It acts as a single glass of pane that can be integrated with multiple cloud platforms to increase control and visibility across the environment by leveraging its OOTB features like,
- User data sync through AD (supports Form-based, LDAP and SAML 2.0)
- Metering, Chargeback, and Showback
- Resource tagging
- Manage quota
- Dynamic UI
- Dynamic process workflows
- Cloud resource optimization through a single login
- Auto decommissioning
- Policy-driven orchestration
- Custom tables
- Data security
- Security and advisory reports
The initiatives that an enterprise takes to manage and deploy various Cloud resources or infrastructure components like IaaS and PaaS across its Private (VMware/SCVMM) and Public Cloud (AWS/Azure) platforms, can be stated as Hybrid Cloud Management or Management of Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure.
Managing a hybrid-Cloud environment can be challenging. A must-have is enhanced visibility and governance around
- Policy-driven optimized pricing and user access
- Deployment of cloud resources on native cloud platforms
- Enabling metering, chargeback, and show back for various business functions like HR, Finance, Marketing, etc.
- Creating multi machines images for large and complex deployments or repetitive similar tasks
- Proactive reporting and analytics around cost optimization, security, fault, and performance of deployed workloads
DRYiCE MyCloud helps in management and deployment of IaaS and PaaS resources across multi Clouds ensuring optimized cost, strong governance, continuous utilization, and performance optimization.
CMP is a cloud management platform that enables users to manage the lifecycle of multi-cloud environments.
Getting the data from multiple sources and enterprise tools and using that to deliver insightful reports via one interface is termed as Unified Reporting. It drives continuous improvement in an enterprise across utilization and performance and enables fast and informed decision making.
Unified Reporting provides a 360-degree view of entire operations. A unified reporting product can ingest and analyze data from multiple sources and produce insightful and actionable reports in a custom role-based view. This helps in identifying the gaps and taking relevant actions to bridge them, thereby improving operational efficiency. It can be taken further if the product is capable of generating predictive analytics and can flag something beforehand which may cause larger business damage if not prevented or stopped earlier.
A dashboard refers to a view which can be role-based and may have a collection of multiple report widget. Each widget can be seen as an individual report. For example- a dashboard for a CEO may look completely different than the dashboard for a Project Manager and will have a different set of reports published.
This is just one way to look at it. There could be multiple definitions.
There are several benefits that a custom role-based dashboard might deliver, some are,
- Complete visibility into IT operations
- Enhanced decision making
- Performance tracking and optimization across people, assets, and resources
- Identification of system and process gaps
- Predicting SLA breaches and taking proactive steps to avoid them
Regulatory compliance is an organization's adherence to laws, regulations, guidelines and specifications relevant to its business processes
1. Quicker impact assessment and faster response
2. Increased resilience and minimized risk
3. Clear dependencies and ownership
Process Management refers to aligning processes with an organization’s strategic goals, designing and implementing process architectures, establishing process measurement systems that align with organizational goals, and educating and organizing managers so that they will manage processes effectively.
Some of the key features of process mapping software:
1. Flow Designer
2. Business Schedule
3. Real-time performance tracking
4. Operational Reporting
5. Anomaly Detection
6. Dash boarding
7. Impact drilldown
8. Service Intelligence
DRYiCE ROAR ("ROAR") collates data from multiple sources and processes it to create a single-source-of-truth, or Golden Configuration dataset for populating downstream applications in billing, service management, software, and inventory management. It is a robust product that ensures that the correct data is available to business decision makers in the right way at the right time. It has the following key features:
- Robust computational engine to integrate and reconcile data from a broad range of sources automatically and consistently.
- Structured methodology to create and maintain an accurate and complete data repository with minimal/no manual intervention.
End-to-end Data lifecycle management creating a Single-System-Of-Records (SSOR).
ROAR seeks to store relevant operational data from various data sources and subjects it to a three step process to build a data repository that can be considered as a single-source-of-truth for client’s IT environment.
Step 1: Normalization
- Standardizes data by replacing alternative representation of the same data entity with normalized values
- Homogenizes records for data consistency
Step 2: Aggregation
- Converts data from multiple sources into single source of consolidated and accurate records
Step 3: Reconciliation
- Identifies billing components by pairing resource components with correct resource units
Resource Unit Management Database (RUMDB), a data repository of discrete units of consumption of billing components or Resource Unit (RU) is created.
ROAR offers basic reporting capabilities along with advanced reporting as an add-on option. Basic reporting covers operations related reports generated from the aggregated golden dataset; while advanced reporting leverages data from all data sources to generate exhaustive reports and dashboards with drill down capabilities.
There is no limit on the number of data sources in ROAR. We recommend to use as many data sources as possible; More the number of data sources, more precise and accurate are the results. Size of data also, does not restrain our processing and we can support millions of records at a time.
ROAR is a SaaS based solution, it does not entail any prerequisites and can be accessed seamlessly using the web client. With ROAR, IT does not have to invest resources on quality tools, we can fetch data from all available data sources. Customer’s existing IT infrastructure is carefully assessed by our seasoned experts to identify the right data sources. The key lies in leveraging existing hardware & software data to easily consolidate legacy and non-legacy data sources in a highly flexible environment.
Integrations supported by IntelliOps:
- Unified Monitoring
- Event Management
- ITSM
- Automation
Automations supported by IntelliOps are listed below:
- Net Ops
- Chat Ops
- DC Ops
DRYiCE IntelliOps solution has several module and component specific use cases.
DRYiCE Connect provides real-time reports and dashboards for end-to-end visibility across multiple suppliers. You can view the data pertaining to each process and also filter it for a specific customer and a service provider
The Point-To-Point integrations inherently have scalability issues and lead to complexity as more number of systems are integrated thereby, becoming a non-viable option. In case of Connect, the number of integrations are scalable.
DRYiCE Connect provides plug-and-play connectors for industry standard tools, such as ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, DRYiCE SX, and JIRA Software.
DRYiCE Connect is a SaaS-based solution, it does not entail any prerequisites and can be accessed seamlessly using a web client.
- Lack of end-to-end visibility and holistic governance
- Absence of seamless ticket hand-off between suppliers
- Expensive and difficult to maintain e-bonding between multiple ITSM platforms
- Long and complex vendor onboarding / off boarding cycles
- Conflicting SLA and other performance data between enterprise and supplier ITSM platforms
- Manual collaboration and communication between remotely located customers and suppliers
DRYiCE Connect has the capability to integrate multiple supplier ITSM platforms through plug-and-play and hence, drive quick onboarding. It also offers adapters and connectors for industry-standard tools like ServiceNow, JIRA, etc.
Integrations with ITSM tools are established through the Integration hub and adapters, powered by an iPaaS.
There is no restriction on data volume, a highly scalable underlying platform allows millions of records to be supported.
DRYiCE GBP on SX offers out of the box and proven closely coupled process ecosystem of core service management processes. It delivers true Enterprise Service Management through a unified digital marketplace for all IT and business services. It is designed to manage the lifecycle of XaaS (Everything as a service) delivery model. It accelerates onboarding of new services from different service providers by aggregating catalogs from diverse systems. It boasts crowd sourced knowledge management capabilities. Finally, GBP on SX enables a phased and low risk ITSM transformation.
There is no restriction on data volume. GBP on SX is highly scalable and elastic and has proven to support over 1.2 million annual tickets supporting over 170K users in one of its implementations.
Integrations with external and internal tools are established through the Integration hub.
DRYiCE GBP on SX has the capability to aggregate multiple supplier catalogs from diverse systems through plug-and-play and hence, drives quick onboarding of services. It also offers adapters and connectors to integrate with industry-wide fulfillment systems to drive automatic fulfillment.
DRYiCE iObserve provides real-time monitoring, alerting, reporting, and predictions for IT infrastructure and applications. It supports a wide range of technologies and platforms, including servers, networks, databases, and cloud environments.
DRYiCE iObserve helps improve IT operations by providing a single, centralized view of the entire IT infrastructure, enabling IT teams to proactively monitor and manage potential issues, resolve problems faster, and improve overall service quality.
DRYiCE iObserve can monitor a wide range of IT environments, including physical, virtual, and cloud environments. It supports a wide range of technologies, including servers, networks, databases, and cloud platforms.
Yes, DRYiCE iObserve can integrate with other IT management tools and platforms, such as ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, and 3r party tools. This enables IT teams to work more efficiently by using a unified view of the IT infrastructure.
DRYiCE iObserve offers a range of IT management products including network management, systems management, virtualization management, database management, and Application management.
The cost of DRYiCE iObserve products varies depending on the specific product and the number of licenses required. You can contact IObserve sales for a quote.
HCL IEM offers a unique feature of continuous service delivery in the case of connectivity loss with IEM Cloud, populating events over Event Room minimizing the impact of outages on IT operations.
IEM Collector refers to effectively gathering data from diverse sources, providing a wide range of single click, custom integrations compliant with the industry standards for connectors and APIs.
Apache NiFi is an open-source dataflow system based on the concepts of flow-based programming. It supports powerful and scalable directed graphs of data routing, transformation, and system mediation logic.
IEM provides 3 ways for Topology ingestion:
- Manual-Topology data can be added manually by selecting child entity and parent entity.
- CSV- Bulk Topology Insertion can be done using the upload CSV option. A file can be chosen based on the template available and is required to be uploaded.CSV should contain proper data as upload will enrich the records.
- CMDB- Seamless integration of the existing Configuration Management Database with IEM to automatically synchronize entity information, eliminating manual data entry.
AEX CVA enables users to harness the power of Gen AI for incident triaging. It enhances incident resolution by monitoring and analyzing issues, offering more insightful intelligence. This leads to improved mean time to resolution (MTTR), efficiency, and productivity.
Yes. IEM’s integration with AEX enables IEM to provide CVA capabilities in the application.
Operational Nodes working as expected are marked with green dots, while affected nodes are denoted with red dots, facilitating identification of impacted nodes and related CIs to assess the issue's impact. When the use-case is executed, you will see a node on the topology view shifts its status from green to red, which is the child node, affected by the change. The parent node will also change color to yellow, indicating that an issue has occurred in one or more of its child nodes.
Correlation rules in IEM are predefined sets of conditions and logic used to analyze and associate multiple events or alerts to identify patterns, relationships, and potential root causes. These rules play a crucial role in minimizing noise, prioritizing incidents, and aiding in more accurate and efficient incident detection and response.
An Entity in IEM can be referred to any configuration item (CI) against which the event has been triggered or received in IEM.
An Event, according to the ITIL framework, is defined as a state change that is significant to overall IT management. Events may be routine changes or unusual or problematic changes. Event data is the most elementary data that is captured by an event management application.
An actionable is formed based on correlation of similar alerts in order to cater a deviation in the system that could lead to downtime or breakdown of the services.
An alert is a subset of event as identified by IntelliOps Event Management, formed on the basis of default/configured set of correlation rules for an organization. An event within the IT environment, which deviates from the expected behavior and may cause or lead to adverse effects for said IT environment, is classified as an alert.
A Manager of manager signifies the event management layer in an IT environment. The primary purpose of an event management application is to ingest data from other monitoring and management tools in the IT environment, due to which it is often called a “Manager of Managers”.
Traditional event management systems rely on rule-based approaches, while Intelligent Event Management leverages advanced algorithms and machine learning to detect patterns, anomalies, and trends in data, enabling more proactive and adaptive responses.
HCL IntelliOps Event Management is an AI-powered IT event management product which provides capabilities like topology-based real-time alert correlation, proactive anomaly detection and noise reduction. The product offers seamless integration with existing ITSM and monitoring tools improving system performance and agility. With AI-driven capabilities, HCL IntelliOps Event Management identifies root causes, predicts outages, and reduces mean time to resolution, fostering collaborative teamwork and delivering real-time actionable insights.
The time it takes to correlate events and create an incident in Event Management tools can vary based on several factors, including the complexity of the IT environment, the volume of events, the efficiency of the correlation algorithms, and the level of automation in the system. HCL IEM offers Temporal-Based Alert Correlation to cater to the efficiency of correlation dynamically. Event Prioritization is also done to correlate efficiently.
Yes, IntelliOps Event Management has a very robust integration mechanism with which it can integrate with any observability tool with the help of APIs and connectors. Currently, we have readily available integrations with SolarWinds HCO, Logic Monitor, ServiceNow ITOM among others
Yes. IntelliOps Event Management does support multi-tenancy support. Multiple organizations can be onboarded and configured on the platform, leveraging same/different RBA tools and ITSM tools. In fact, a shared offering is also available through DRYiCE MTaaS platform for enterprises to consume it as a service.
Integration Management Module (IMM) is a component of IntelliOps Event Management which is used for 3rd party tools integration and ingesting events, metric, performance, and configuration data into IntelliOps Event Management for performing event management functions.