What is Information Technology (IT) Visibility ?
What is Information Technology (IT) ?
Appearing for the first time in 1958 in a Harvard Business Review, the term IT stands for Information Technology , where the review's author writes "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)" .
The authors of the review (Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler) defined several types of information technology:
- “Techniques for the fast processing of information
- The use of statistical and mathematical models for decision-making
- The “simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs”
Since then, the world has moved on, and as they predict informational technology is now widely used in companies.
“While many aspects of this technology are uncertain, it seems clear that it will move into the managerial scene rapidly, with definite and far-reaching impact on managerial organization,” they wrote.
Today TechTarget defines Information technology (IT) as the use of any computers, storage, networking and other physical devices, infrastructure and processes to create, process, store, secure and exchange all forms of electronic data.
What is IT Visibility ?
IT visibility is the ability of an organization to have a clear and comprehensive understanding of its information technology infrastructure, systems, and operations, its becoming crucial point as shadow IT and it risk increase everyday.
It involves collecting and analyzing data from various sources such as network logs, system events, user activities, and application behavior. This data leveraged to provide meaningful insights and allows for effective monitoring, troubleshooting, and security analysis. IT visibility helps organizations identify potential risks, detect anomalies or security incidents, optimize system performance, and make informed decisions regarding IT operations and cybersecurity measures. It is a critical aspect of maintaining a secure and efficient IT environment.
What are the benefits of IT visibility ?
Proactive Issue Detection :
IT visibility enables real-time monitoring and visibility into your IT infrastructure. This allows you to identify potential issues or anomalies before they escalate into significant problems, minimizing downtime and optimizing operational efficiency.
Enhanced Security :
With comprehensive IT visibility, you gain insights into network traffic, user activities, and system logs. This enables proactive threat detection, rapid incident response, and the ability to identify security vulnerabilities in your infrastructure. By staying ahead of cyber threats, you can bolster your organization's security posture and protect sensitive data.
Optimal Resource Allocation :
It provides you with a clear understanding of your IT assets, their utilization, and performance. This knowledge allows you to optimize resource allocation, ensuring that your IT infrastructure is efficiently utilized, reducing costs, and maximizing productivity.
Informed Decision-Making :
By having a holistic view of your IT environment, you can make data-driven decisions. IT visibility provides actionable insights and analytics that help you identify trends, patterns, and opportunities. This enables you to make informed decisions regarding IT investments, system upgrades, and process optimizations.
Compliance and Audit Readiness :
It aids in maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards. By continuously monitoring and documenting your IT infrastructure, you can demonstrate compliance during audits and ensure adherence to data protection and privacy regulations.
IT Asset Management and IT Visibility
The terms "IT asset management" and "IT visibility" are often used interchangeably, but they refer to different concepts.
IT Asset Management (ITAM) refers to the process of managing and optimizing the lifecycle of IT assets within an organization. It involves tracking, monitoring, and maintaining detailed information about hardware, software, and other IT resources. The primary focus of ITAM is to ensure efficient utilization of assets, minimize costs, and adhere to compliance requirements. ITAM typically involves activities such as inventory management, license tracking, contract management, and asset disposal.
On the other hand, IT Visibility encompasses a broader scope. It refers to the ability to have a holistic and real-time view of the entire IT infrastructure, including hardware, software, networks, and their interdependencies. It provides insights into the operational status, performance, and security of IT systems and involves monitoring, analyzing, and visualizing data from various sources to gain a comprehensive understanding of the IT environment.
While ITAM primarily focuses on managing and optimizing individual assets, IT Visibility goes beyond asset management and provides a broader perspective on the entire IT landscape.
We can therefore conclude that these two notions differ on 5 major points :
How to choose your IT visibility tool ?
Scalability :
Assess the scalability of the solution to accommodate the growth of your organization's IT infrastructure. Ensure that it can handle increasing data volumes and the addition of new devices or systems without compromising performance.
Compatibility :
Verify the compatibility of the solution with your existing IT environment. It should seamlessly integrate with your current systems, such as network infrastructure, security tools, and management platforms, to provide holistic visibility.
Monitoring Capabilities :
Evaluate the solution's monitoring capabilities. It should offer real-time visibility into network traffic, system logs, user activities, and security events. Look for features like comprehensive log analysis, behavior analytics, and threat detection to identify potential risks promptly.
Reporting and Analytics :
Consider the reporting and analytics features of the solution. It should provide customizable dashboards, visualizations, and reports that offer actionable insights into your IT environment. Advanced analytics capabilities can help identify patterns, anomalies, and trends for proactive security measures.
User-Friendliness :
Evaluate the usability and ease of deployment of the solution. A user-friendly interface and intuitive workflows can streamline configuration, monitoring, and analysis tasks, enabling efficient utilization of IT visibility capabilities.
Security and Compliance :
Ensure that the solution adheres to industry best practices and regulatory compliance requirements. Look for features such as encryption, access controls, and audit trails to protect sensitive data and maintain compliance standards.
Cost-effectiveness :
Consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the solution, including upfront costs, licensing fees, maintenance, and ongoing support. Evaluate the value provided by the solution in terms of improved security, operational efficiency, and risk reduction.
How can Trout Software help you with IT visibility ? 🎣
Comprehensive monitoring :
Security Hub , our IT visibility software, with its pre-built connectors, lets you quickly connect to all the data sources in your IT infrastructure.
So we integrate quickly with existing IT environments, security solutions and management tools to maximize the effectiveness of IT visibility for your business.
Furthermore, we use Web Assembly technology to read and analyze data without preliminary ingestion. The use of this technology makes our software scalable within your company, without scale your cost of storage.
No-code advanced analytics :
After connecting to your IT infrastructure, we enable you to carry out in-depth analysis of your logs, via a no-code interface. You can perform pivots simply by double-clicking on a piece of data, perform on-demand parsing, build queries in no-code, or search for keywords using our search bar.
Our easy-to-use platform enables all your teams to carry out analyses, you dont need anymore extensive technical skills to analyse what is happening inside your company.
Automate your control tasks :
In order to save time and improve your operational efficiency, automate manual IT visibility tasks, such as data collection, log analysis, report generation, and alerts.
To do this, after running your analysis above, go to Security Hub's Scheduler. Our Scheduler will allow you to automate your previous analysis in 3 clicks:
- Select the playbook you've just created
- Set your automation parameters (day of first check, recurrence, time between checks)
- Click on Schedule.
You'll then have access to our dashboard summarizing all automated analyses, giving you an overview. Our tool also generates reports that can be used as evidence in an audit.
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