Four easy steps lead to robust deployments.

With your whole operations team, we walk through a consistent four-step process of analysis, which inexorably creates a pathway of monitoring in your systems.

The four steps apply to every major enterprise application in your shop. Each step directly informs the following step. The success of grooming and monitoring each application provides feedback for the next.

One thing at a time:

Define

We define the application in terms of Resources, and catalog the relationships among those Resources. Some are obviously internal resources that you control; some are external to your zone of control.

Typical Resources include database servers, DNS zones, mail services, message queues, and APIs.

Much of this research is probably already in the brains of your Business Analysts. We may have to tease out the relationships and connections that are relevant to each individual application.

Identify

We identify all the state changes that can occur for that Resource.

“State” itself has a complex meaning in this context. It includes configuration and availability; it might also include versioning, performance characteristics, or some other measure that’s relevant to the consistent delivery of the application as a service.

Once we’ve collaborated to identify those states it’s not hard to document the state changes that are relevant.

Qualify

We qualify—and if possible quantify—the effects of those state changes.

We may find that certain state changes have no effect in the context of the application under examination. Those changes can be eliminated from consideration. Simplicity already! (And fewer alerts.)

Monitor

Finally we create a framework for monitoring those changes. Once we’ve identified and isolated those highly relevant changes, we use the Blue Herring SaaS to implement that pathway and keep you up to date.

Does that sound simple? It really is! Getting there from where you are is the hard part. The outcome of that process is that routine changes become easy, complex changes become routine, and your team’s larger initiatives become actionable.

The process yields outcomes that are consistent, measurable, and repeatable.

It comes from decades of experience in implementation and troubleshooting.
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