The power of IT automation: How the Virima-Ivanti partnership transforms IT operations

Table of Contents

• The growing need for IT automation
  • Challenges necessitating IT automation 
    • Discovery of IT assets
    • Keeping track of incessant changes
    • Compliance management
    • IT maintenance
    • Request fulfilments
    • Evolving cybersecurity threats
• 3 ways Virima and Ivanti partnership streamline IT automation
  • 1. Virima’s robust discovery complements Ivanti’s edge discovery
  • 2. Automating the upkeep of Ivanti CMDB 
  • 3. Automating relationship and dependency mapping with ViVID advantage
• Harnessing the power of IT Automation with Virima-Ivanti

Implementing IT automation is a struggle, more so for big organizations. Foremost, comes the implementation challenge, particularly in complex IT infrastructures with diverse systems and legacy applications. Even if that seems manageable, you’ve to be careful of the security and compliance risks. 

Yet, the immense benefits brought by IT automation outweigh the challenges. By embracing automation, organizations can streamline processes and stay competitive in the fast-paced digital landscape. 

In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at how the Virima and Ivanti partnership builds the foundation for infusing IT automation in various IT operations. But before that, let’s explore the growing need for IT automation in detail.

The growing need for IT automation

The rapid pace of technological advancements, the growth of cloud computing, the rise of remote asset deployment, the addition of the Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to IT estates have all contributed to a more intricate IT landscape. As a result, IT teams are struggling to keep up with the growing number of tasks and responsibilities of managing this complex IT environment. 

Moreover, as your business evolves so does the IT estate that supports it which further adds to the complexity of managing and securing them. 

Challenges necessitating IT automation

Discovery of IT assets

Many large corporations utilize a mix of on-premise servers and cloud services from different providers. Managing this hybrid infrastructure requires large-scale IT automation to ensure the existence of all assets across data centers, on-premise, and clouds are reflected in a central repository with the least manual intervention. 

Keeping track of incessant changes

In an IT environment, assets such as hardware, applications, and network devices are continuously being added, removed, updated, or modified. Plus with employees accessing mobile work applications on their BYOD (bring your own device) devices add more to this complexity.  This requires organizations to automatically detect changes in asset configurations of thousands of assets to maintain a true IT inventory.

Compliance management

With the vast numbers of assets and their licenses, tracking license compliance and policy adherence becomes a mammoth task. Keeping an eye on software usage, device registration, and license validity for thousands of assets is tough. IT automation (automated discovery tools to be exact) slash the time you’d otherwise spend micromanaging these details, freeing you up for bigger challenges.

IT maintenance

Imagine managing assets in a company with, say 500 employees: without automation, it could take at least two people dedicated to this task, with costs soaring to $200,000 annually, not to mention additional licensing fees. With automation, the scene shifts. Work goes on around the clock with minimal human input, slashing both time and expense. 

Request fulfilments

As the complexity and scale of business operations increase, the number of user support requests such as access requests of new software, hardware, accounts, passwords, and other resource also enhances. IT automation allows you to streamline user support without increasing strain and pressure on your support teams. 

Evolving cybersecurity threats

Cybersecurity or vulnerability management is an area where manual processes fail to fulfill the growing cybersecurity needs. Consider the risks lurking in networks. Unauthorized devices, or “rogue devices,” can sneak in, acting as hidden doorways for attackers. Open ports might unwittingly spill secrets, ripe for the taking by cybercriminals. On top of these, there are the insiders and malware that pry open your data vaults, jeopardizing everything from personal info to corporate secrets. 

Read more: How Virima and Ivanti are helping IT teams achieve ITIL compliance

3 ways Virima and Ivanti partnership streamline IT automation

1. Virima’s robust discovery complements Ivanti’s edge discovery

An automated discovery tool is one of the core components to address various organizational challenges with IT automation. Complementing Ivanti’s edge discovery, Virima Discovery integration to Ivanti detects hardware, software, applications, and their configurations across on-premise, cloud, and data centers, it ensures nothing escapes your notice. It goes beyond mere asset discovery to provide ownership and usage details, along with the relationships, enhancing asset management and accountability.

While Virima’s 100-plus agentless probes and agent-based discovery (Windows agent) do the heavy lifting in discovering all of your assets, Virima constantly adds new probes to meet the unique needs of enterprises. This flexibility of Virima Discovery architecture enables the repeatable scanning of extensive subnet ranges at a desired frequency to identify both known and unknown assets and keep track of incessant changes happening to asset configurations to ensure a thorough inventory is maintained which is always current. 

Moreover, this IT automation in maintaining an accurate and up-to-date asset inventory becomes crucial in identifying vulnerabilities and risks within your infrastructure. It allows IT teams to identify previously unnoticed devices, dependencies, or inactive CIs. This early detection helps in addressing vulnerabilities proactively. As a result, it protects the organization from potential impacts.

2. Automating the upkeep of Ivanti CMDB

The key to automating IT processes relies on building a single source of truth. That’s where the importance of a well-maintained Configuration Management Database (CMDB) comes in. As Virima Discovery, the technology behind Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping continuously identifies, categorizes, and maps the relationships of a vast array of data center and cloud assets spread across hybrid IT environments, Virima’s intelligent CMDB automation ensures the Ivanti CMDB is seamlessly updated with every new change. 

This includes not only the addition of new assets but also modifications to existing assets and their interconnections. By automating these updates, Virima eliminates the need for manual data entry and the inevitable errors and omissions that come with it.

For customers utilizing Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, this integration means access to a consistently accurate and comprehensive inventory of IT assets. The automation of CMDB updates liberates IT teams from the cumbersome and error-prone processes of manual record-keeping, allowing them to devote more time and resources to strategic initiatives. 

Moreover, with a reliable and current CMDB, organizations can leverage IT automation more effectively, enhancing service delivery, accelerating incident response, and facilitating a more agile IT environment.

Read more: Maximizing IT asset management with CMDB: A comprehensive look at the Virima-Ivanti partnership

3. Automating relationship and dependency mapping with ViVID advantage

Understanding the intricate web of relationships and dependencies is fundamental to responding to incidents, assessing the impact of changes, managing configurations, and vulnerability management. The Virima-powered Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping automatically map the relationship and dependency between assets from the discovery data and the cloud.

Whereas the Virima Visual Impact Display (ViVID) feature automatically overlays vital information directly onto the service maps. This includes data from Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, such as incidents and changes, enriched with crucial vulnerability information sourced from the NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD).

These overlays allow for a near real-time understanding of how various elements within the IT infrastructure are interrelated and potentially at risk. 

Harnessing the power of IT Automation with Virima-Ivanti

Despite the inherent challenges, the benefits of IT automation are undeniable. It enables organizations to streamline processes and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving digital world.

The Virima and Ivanti partnership tackles the growing complexity in IT systems, driven by new technologies and cloud, IoT, and AI integrations. This collaboration offers thorough asset discovery, near real-time configuration change monitoring, and efficient upkeep of Ivanti CMDB. As a result of all these, you get a reliable asset database, simplifying IT processes and enhancing service delivery. A few examples are a quick response to incidents, streamlined change assessment, vulnerability management, and compliance management.

Additionally, the ViVID technology transforms how CI relationships and dependencies are mapped. It overlays important data like incidents, changes, and vulnerabilities onto service maps. This enables IT teams to quickly make informed decisions, tackle service issues, plan disaster recovery, manage vulnerabilities, and develop mitigation strategies.

Schedule a demo to learn more about this partnership.