It Foundation Management As A Key Business Driver

IT Foundation Management is an IT management approach that spans the IT devices hardware/software) required to support one or more IT operations, IT services, business services, customer services (products), or business operations as a Foundation; and then proactively manages each Foundation for reliability, security, compliance, performance and cost by establishing persistent, real-time connections to those assets for monitoring, control, remediation and configuration. IT Foundation Management is a bottom-up approach to building the highest level of reliability, security and compliance behind the services and operations of the business.

From the privileged asset connections of IT devices that provide unrestricted access and master control of assets - up through operating systems, virtualization, databases and applications – IT Foundation Management is the highly secure and proactive management approach to ensuring that the mission-critical services and operations of the business are supported by IT without compromise.

IT Foundation Management is also the most cost-effective means of ensuring that the organization can consistently and reliably meet mission-critical goals while protecting the organization’s operations, brand and reputation from disruptive – even debilitating – harmful events.

IT Foundation Management takes a bottom-up approach to managing the hardware and software the business uses to get work done – including all of the technology assets used by the organization. This bottom-up approach is the defining element of Foundation Management, setting in place the management practice that starts with the privileged interfaces to hardware, operating systems and virtual machines – interfaces that are typically NOT part of an organization’s IT Infrastructure or systems-managed practices. This is an extremely important point as these privileged interfaces are the foundational blocks that the rest of the IT Infrastructure is built upon and if these blocks are not reliable and secure then the organization’s technology is subject to inflated operating costs, operational disruption, security compromise, and even systems failure.

The Purpose of IT Foundation Management (Business Objectives)
Organizations use IT Foundation Management to support business objectives; from meeting service level agreements, to securing against the Insider Threat, to compliance and cost reduction.

IT Foundation Management is a key part of CIO strategy, as it is one of the most important tools the CIO has in protecting the organization’s Brand, satisfying its customers, reducing the cost of external threats, and protecting the organization’s high value assets (sensitive data and intellectual property).

IT Foundation Management is the technical expert’s best friend, simplifying their job with embedded process and best practice, and by giving them location-independence in their management practices and personal job functions.

IT Foundation Management can only be realized through a rigorous application of technology to meet the requirements of real-time (milliseconds) event detection, privileged connection management, device ubiquity, optimized process, location independence, and forensic evidence. Anything less is not Foundation Management, and the benefits attributed to Foundation Management will not be realized.

IT Foundation Management provides the organization with a solid foundation able to support business operations even as they change and reshape themselves against market demands and economic shifts.

With IT Foundation Management, organizations increase their ability to adapt their business against internal and external pressures without eroding or compromising the technological foundation their business is built on. IT Foundation Management secures the present, records the past, and prepares the organization for the future.

By: Pamela G Johnson

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