GreenLight Group’s GITOpS – what is it and why does it matter?

What is GITOpS (and why does it matter)?

Operations is the lifeblood of every IT department, and for most IT managers it’s also the bane of their existence. IT Operations can be costly, and it consumes vast amounts of resources in the form of time and labor. If it weren’t such a critical part of the enterprise, most managers would happily wash their hands of it.

At GreenLight Group, our goal is to unload the burden of IT Ops from IT managers and streamline the most central elements of IT Operations. It’s a concept that’s so different from what most managers are probably used to that we even gave it a name: GITOpS (Greenlight IT Operations Services). We combine that expertise with the best software in the industry, Micro Focus SMAX. Together they comprise GITOpS powered by Micro Focus.

Genefa Murphy, Micro Focus CMO commented recently, “ The combination of GreenLight’s 15+ years of experience with Micro Focus’s software provides a unique opportunity for customers to simplify and streamline their IT Operations through full stack automation, intelligent workflow, and predictive security. The GITOpS offering brings together the best of technology and people to set IT Operations free and deliver business resiliency for the long term.”

How does it work?

Let’s consider the four key pillars of IT Operations: Service management/help desk operations, event management, enterprise server OS patching, and server security compliance. For most enterprises, these are complex processes that require a significant amount of manual intervention by humans.  And the larger the enterprise, the worse it gets: It’s not uncommon to have to involve a dozen people around the world when a patch for a zero-day server OS vulnerability is issued. After the patch is rolled out, it can be incredibly difficult to track whether all the patches have been successfully installed.

So what if we could automate all of this, provide a dashboard that merges your business needs with your technology operations, and reduce the overall complexity and chaos of IT Ops – whether your systems are on-premise, in the cloud, or both? By treating IT Ops with an “as code” mentality, GITOpS powered by Micro Focus helps you manage your most critical IT functions with unprecedented ease and flexibility. GreenLight’s GITOpS solution even includes code-like features like version control, so you can roll back changes easily, and with its embedded processes, work quickly for increased speed and efficiency.  When customers leverage a SaaS deployment of GITOpS powered by Micro Focus, time to value is weeks, instead of the normal months or years of an on-premises style deployment.

What does it do?

Let’s drill down into those four pillars of IT Operations in more detail to discuss what GITOpS really does for the enterprise.

• Service management/help desk operations. This is the bread and butter of IT operations management, including incident management, change management, problem and root cause analysis, and configuration management. GITOpS runs all of this through a customizable end-user portal which can be leveraged not just by IT but by everyone from HR to facilities allowing for true Enterprise Service Management to be achieved.
• Event management. Event management comprises database and transaction monitoring and log collection and analysis. GITOpS powered by Micro Focus uses this information to drive predictive analytics, correlating, aggregating, and consolidating events from various sources to reduce noise. By merging OS and application monitored data with machine learning driven AI, it is easier to see where bottlenecks are merging or how certain devices or processes are impacting performance in the production environment.
• Enterprise server OS patching and remediation. Server patching is a constant, yet thankless task in every IT environment – ideally occurring weekly, if not more frequently. GITOpS powered by Micro Focus streamlines this tedious process by checking for needed patches and orchestrating and automating the patch process. It’s all done as an agentless process, so software agents needn’t be deployed to the entire infrastructure to roll out changes.
• Server security compliance and remediation. This is a counterpart to server patching that involves actively scanning the infrastructure to discover vulnerabilities – and to repair them as they are uncovered. This piece of the system goes beyond patching OS vulnerabilities by actively finding flaws in database or other software, and as with the GITOpS server patching system, it’s designed to be both automated and agentless.

Why would I need it?

In today’s business environment, time to market and time to value are key. GITOpS powered by Micro Focus was built with these priorities in mind and designed to free your IT Operations staff from becoming mired in menial tasks that add little value to the enterprise. It was designed to be a flexible system that can work in your data center or on the cloud – whether you need new or have existing licenses to leverage.

“Having Greenlight step in and manage our IT Operations footprint allowed our organization to reduce administrative overhead and allocate resources to higher level business priorities.” -Sr. Manager Procurement at worldwide chemical manufacture with sites in North America, AsiaPac, and the EU.

Don’t leave your IT Operations team to languish in the depths of the service desk. By reducing repetitive tasks, automating recurring activities, and improving the management of your IT assets, GITOpS powered by Micro Focus is key to lowering costs, improving employee morale and efficiency, and boosting the overall security profile of your organization.

GreenLight has been a valued partner of Micro Focus for over 15 years and are experts in the area of Operations Management. If you would like more information on how we can help your business, check out our website. If you would like to speak with someone to determine if GITOps powered by Micro Focus is right for you, drop us an email at: info@Greenlightgroup.com.

Torrey Jones, Principal Consultant at Greenlight Group.

This post was first first published on Home | Micro Focus Blog website by Micro Focus. You can view it by clicking here