What is IT Foundation Management?

By Terry Schurter

IT Foundation Management is a relatively new category of software that solves a pressing, and heretofore chaotically addressed, gap in the traditional approach to IT Infrastructure Management. I’ll be drilling more into the benefits later, but suffice it to say for now that the benefits are primarily financial (reduction in man-hours, recovery of lost service time, shutting down primary large scale data breach vulnerabilities) and they roll into very large numbers quickly.

Now, before we can really talk about IT Foundation Management we have to place the IT Foundation into perspective. For starters, the IT Foundation is all of the hardware (servers, routers, switches, firewalls, storage arrays, appliances, etc.) in our IT Infrastructure (but not endpoint devices, like PCs, mobile devices, etc.). It also includes a lot of software, like operating systems, firmware, server software, and databases.

That’s a big footprint that can easily get crossed-up with other software categories so let me define it further by actors and interfaces – what are in this case privileged actors and privileged interfaces.

Let’s start with privileged actors. Who are they? Systems managers, system administrators, network administrators, database administrators, VM administrators, engineers, technicians, and so on. They are privileged actors because they perform their daily work (break/fix, configuration, patching, provisioning, maintenance, etc.) through highly privileged interfaces that exist in the IT Infrastructure.

Privileged interfaces are just like they sound. They are interfaces to the hardware and software that have extremely high privileges associated with them. An administrator with root access to an operating system has access to thousands of commands with root-level privileges. A database administrator can change data, copy it, report on it, change business rules, and manually adjust transactions across records, recordsets and entire database tables. A network administrator with access to the console port of a router can open ports, assign new routing rules, close ports, and reroute traffic. An administrator with Console access can change BIOS, hardware configuration, force a shutdown, etc. The list goes on and on.

IT Foundation Management is a software approach that imposes itself between privileged actors and privileged interfaces with the express purpose of simplifying the work of privileged actors, reducing the chance of mistakes occurring, automating the capture and creation of comprehensive compliance records (change management), and securing the environment under a solid role-based access and control model.

Is this a big deal? I should say so. When you move from many point-solution tools with many process variations, limited integration, and ineffective processes to a highly refined unified operational model it’s the difference between night and day. That is why IT Foundation Management has arisen as a new product category. The need is critical. The problem is not being solved by traditional means. Business suffers, and it’s just getting worse. It’s a foundation problem. An IT Foundation problem.

TDi Technologies Executives to Speak on IT Infrastructure Management Best Practices at Next Generation Telecom Summit

Plano, TX December 1, 2010 – TDi Technologies, the leader in IT Foundation Management, today announced that Bill Johnson (CEO) and Terry Schurter (Director of Marketing) are confirmed as plenary speakers at the Next Generation Telecom Executive Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Schurter will be presenting on IT Infrastructure Management Best Practices: Moving past the limits of the traditional approach. This session will expose the gap in traditional approaches that is the source of ongoing service outages, followed by how the gap is bridged with IT Foundation Management.

“We are very pleased to have Mr. Johnson and Mr. Schurter presenting at the upcoming NGT Summit,” stated Justin Abramowitz, VP NGT Summits. “Their reputation as thought leaders is well deserved, and their insights into IT Infrastructure Management Best Practices are extremely relevant to the executive focus of this event.”

The NGT (Next Generation Telecom) Summit is a highly regarded event that brings together telecommunication executives, industry thought leaders, and leading solution providers together in close working sessions to solve management, operations, marketing and product challenges. For operations, IT Foundation Management is a top strategic priority due to its ability to improve service and reduce cost.

While substantial investments have been made with the specific purpose of improving service and reducing business disruptions significant service outages are still a common occurrence. These outages are costly – damaging brand value, creating customer dissatisfaction (fueling high churn rates), and imposing unnecessary costs on telecommunication providers that often impacts corporate performance.

IT Foundation Management addresses service outages through a bottom-up approach focused on fast, accurate remediation of issues in an environment that reduces human error and provides system-based management and control. Traditional approaches produce incident or trouble tickets that rarely include enough information to accurately diagnose an issue, typically “managing” the remediation process by tracking elapsed time and recording ticket closure. How an incident is resolved is “not part of the scope.”

With IT Foundation Management, resolving issues is directly addressed. Incident tickets are diagnosed and remediated in a data-rich environment accessed from a single window. Forensic evidence, including the actions taken by technical experts, is captured and digitally signed to provide a complete audit trail when an error does occur. Human error is dramatically minimized with a common system-of-management over privileged interfaces enabling the management practice to move from policy-based oversight to rules-based real-time system control. The actual remediation process is optimized specifically to isolate issues, assess their root cause and fix them right the first time.

For industries like telecommunications where service disruptions commonly affect thousands, even hundreds of thousands of customers, the gap in the traditional approach often can be the difference between business success and failure. The fact that service outages are still occurring – despite heavy investment in traditional infrastructure tools and techniques – clearly shows that a gap exists. Closing that gap is a critical concern.

About TDi Technologies

TDi Technologies is the leader in IT Foundation Management, delivering IT Foundation Management solutions to a global customer base with key verticals including Financial Services, Telecommunications, Utilities, Healthcare, and Government. The company’s solutions help customers reduce operating costs, meet foundational compliance requirements, secure the IT foundation, and improve IT Service delivery. TDi Technologies is the first solution provider to offer a unified system of operation and management over the IT foundation. The company’s patented technology provides automation, optimization, control and management capabilities that dramatically improve the ability of IT to meet the demands of the business.

TDi Technologies Unveils ConsoleWorks Cloud Security, Compliance and IT Operations Services for Healthcare SMB Market at GE Centricity National Business Conference

Plano, TX August 30, 2010 – TDi Technologies, the leader in IT Foundation Management, today unveiled new innovative Cloud Services for SMB Healthcare providers. The services are built on the market-leading ConsoleWorks ITFM Suite and are an industry first in delivering IT Foundation Management benefits to individual practice and small office healthcare providers.

“We are very excited about this innovative approach to providing mission-critical benefits in security, compliance and operations to our small and medium customers,” stated Brian Mitchell, GE Healthcare VP and GM. “The ConsoleWorks ITFM Suite is already an important part of our industry-leading healthcare solutions. With these new cloud services, our smaller customers can now benefit from the enterprise-class IT infrastructure security, compliance, and IT operations capabilities of the ConsoleWorks ITFM Solution traditionally reserved for our largest customers.”

The ConsoleWorks Cloud Security service enables SMB healthcare providers to secure the privileged interfaces on their IT assets without installing any software. Privileged interfaces are highly vulnerable to the insider threat and can be used to access patient data, payment records, install malware and (intentionally or unintentionally) disrupt operations. The ConsoleWorks Cloud Security service secures these interfaces, and then monitors them around the clock.

“The insider threat is a serious, business disrupting concern,” stated David Cary, TDi Technologies COO. “Trust is never enough. There will always be the exception to the rule, and that exception can result in disaster to a company and criminal penalties to its officers. ConsoleWorks is an important part of defending against the insider threat for many hospital and other large healthcare providers nationwide. Making the decision to deliver key ConsoleWorks security functions as cloud services is a direct result of our commitment to supporting the entire healthcare industry.”

The ConsoleWorks Cloud Compliance service monitors and logs compliance-related events and captures system and sub-system configuration changes performed over privileged interfaces. The resulting compliance reports are an important aid in passing audits and proving the compliance practice.

The ConsoleWorks Cloud IT Operations service provides first alert notifications of high priority events and event precursors as they occur to enable early issue resolution – often before there is any impact to operations. The service enables healthcare providers to proactively maintain their IT infrastructure while often reducing the amount of IT support time they require. The service typically yields direct cost savings as well as increased reliability and availability.

About TDi Technologies

TDi Technologies is the leader in IT Foundation Management, delivering IT Foundation Management solutions to a global customer base with key verticals including Financial Services, Telecommunications, Utilities, Healthcare, and Government. The company’s solutions help customers reduce operating costs, meet foundational compliance requirements, secure the IT foundation, and improve IT Service delivery. TDi Technologies is the first solution provider to offer a unified system of operation and management over the IT foundation. The company’s patented technology provides automation, optimization, control and management capabilities that dramatically improve the ability of IT to meet the demands of the business.