IT can shape truly complex environments within the enterprise. This complexity, depending on whether it is greater or lesser, can lead to the appearance of millions of daily events.
While not all of these events require attention, there are many that need to be analyzed to prevent them from evolving into an incident. This is precisely why Event Management exists.
You have probably already carried out some activities related to Event Management within your company, however, do you think you have given it the attention it deserves? Have you already studied the basic concepts and have you standardized this process? If you haven’t done it yet, don’t worry, you’re still on time.
Read on and learn more about IT Event Management, its advantages and some tips for implementing it.
First things first: What is an event?
In the IT world, an event is a detectable occurrence that takes place in the IT environment. Its function is to provide operational information as well as warnings about the possibility of an incident happening.
Events are usually recognized through alerts or notifications detected by a monitoring tool.
To properly understand the Event Management process, it is important to differentiate an event from an incident. An event is an internal IT concept, which means that it should not normally be visible to users.
Another important feature of events is that they do not degrade the quality of the IT service. If it does, it automatically ceases to be an event and becomes an incident.
Classification of events
There are three types of events:
Information event
As the name implies, this type of event notification is for information purposes only. This means that you do not normally need to take any action.
These events confirm the status of a device or service, the success of a transaction or activity, or are used to generate analysis statistics.
Warning event
At this level, the alert is used to indicate that there is a situation that must be verified before it evolves into an exceptional event.
However, the importance of paying attention to them should not be underestimated as they are indications of a situation that requires greater vigilance.
Exceptional event
A type of event that indicates that the equipment is operating abnormally and that causes or is likely to cause the gradation or interruption of some IT service. This type of event usually precedes the occurrence of an incident if it is not addressed in time.
Event Management
Event Management, on the other hand, is the process that detects these significant changes and gives them a sense to then take the necessary control measures as required. This means that Event Management is, therefore, the basis for the supervision and control of IT operations.
Event Management uses centralized monitoring tools to perform its functions.
Depending on the type of event and its severity level, it can be assigned to another type of process to be dealt with. That is why Event Management is closely related to e.g. Incident Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, and Change Management.
Advantages that good Event Management can offer to the company
- It allows teams to respond sufficiently in advance of an incident.
- Thanks to automated monitoring, IT professionals are not required to monitor all system events in real-time. As a result, they can concentrate on more innovative activities.
- It also improves the percentage of availability, which contributes to the optimization of service delivery and increased customer satisfaction.
Some tips for implementing Service Management within the company
Adapt the process to your needs
There are millions of events that are reportable, you probably don’t need to keep informed of each one. Configure your tools so that they give you alerts, only of the activities that you think are relevant.
Define the rules that govern each type of event, so that there is adequate management of the automatic mechanisms established in the monitoring systems. However, make a deep analysis before defining these rules, so you can make the best decisions.
For this you can start by defining:
- What will trigger an event alert?
- How will this activity be communicated?
- What data will be transmitted in the request?
- Where will events be recorded?
- What level of automation should be applied?
Use the right tool
There is no proper event management without the right tool because without tools, there is no supervision. Without supervision, there is no Event Management. This means that the effectiveness of this process is directly related to the way you manage your monitoring tools. Try then to invest in one that guarantees a good performance.
In this case, the best solutions are those that can by themselves perform the tasks of detection, filtering, and correlation of events to obtain the real value of the volume of data they handle.
An excellent option is ServiceNow‘s IT Operations Management tool. Which is able to give you capabilities far beyond traditional Event Management.
Remember, Event Management can significantly improve decision-making in the IT department. Give it the attention it requires and align it with other ITIL processes to achieve optimal results.
Do you want to start now to optimize the way processes are developed in your company? Contact us. In GB Advisors, besides offering you a wide catalog of software solutions, we put at your disposal a team of professional advisors willing to help you get the most out of your tools.
