Strengthening IT governance and mitigating risks: How Virima and Ivanti provide solutions for modern enterprises

Table of Contents

• Understanding IT governance and risk management
  • What is IT governance? 
  • Understanding risk management
  • Relation between IT governance and risk management 
• Why is IT governance and risk management important? 
  • The increasing reliance on technology in organizations
  • The growing complexity of IT systems
  • The potential consequences of poor IT governance and risk management
    • Security breaches
    • Loss of data
    • Regulatory non-compliance
    • Financial losses
• How Virima and Ivanti integration enhance IT governance and risk management
  • Strengthening IT governance with a trustworthy Ivanti CMDB
    • Virima’s automated discovery keeps Ivanti CMDB current
    • A trustworthy Ivanti CMDB for decision-making
  • Enhancing risk management
    • Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping for a comprehensive overview
    • Virima Visual Impact Display (ViVID™) for data-backed decisions
  • IT asset management and IT governance
• Virima and Ivanti integration: Enhance your IT governance and risk management game

The absence of IT governance and risk management looks like this– security breaches, loss of data, regulatory non-compliance, and financial losses. As for the bigger picture, eroding customer trust, reputation damage, legal liabilities, and costly fines are a few that stand out. 

As the technological reliance of organizations is an ever-increasing trend, the only solution to avert these scenarios is to adapt and mitigate these risks. 

In this article, we’ll explore how Virima and Ivanti’s partnership can support organizations in IT governance and risk management. But before that, we’ll delve deeper into the importance of both. Let’s start with understanding what IT governance and risk management mean. 

Understanding IT governance and risk management

The intertwining concepts of IT governance and risk management are paramount for organizations striving to harness technology’s potential while safeguarding against its inherent risks.

What is IT governance?

Simply put, IT governance encompasses the frameworks, processes, and structures that ensure IT systems and resources are managed efficiently, align with business objectives, and deliver value. Notable frameworks include COBIT, ITIL, and FAIR, which serve as blueprints for establishing IT governance.

To understand it better, consider an organization aiming to provide secure and seamless IT services. IT governance here involves making strategic decisions about technology investments, selecting and integrating a robust IT service management platform like Ivanti, and ensuring data security. It also includes establishing policies and procedures for monitoring IT service performance, addressing issues promptly, and making adjustments to maintain smooth operations.

Understanding risk management

Risk management, meanwhile, is the process of identifying, assessing, and prioritizing potential risks, followed by actions to minimize their impact. For an organization, this means investing in strong security measures, creating backup and recovery plans, and regularly updating systems to protect assets against unforeseen situations. Essentially, risk management is about being proactive in handling uncertainties that could impact organizational goals.

Relation between IT governance and risk management

IT governance and risk management are interrelated. IT governance sets the strategic direction and framework for using technology within an organization, while risk management focuses on identifying and mitigating potential threats within this framework. 

For instance, in implementing a new online banking system, IT governance would involve strategic technology decisions and policy development to manage the system efficiently. Risk management would identify potential risks, such as security breaches or system downtime, and implement measures to minimize their impact.

Why is IT governance and risk management important? 

For Ivanti customers, acknowledging the importance of IT governance and risk management is the first step toward mitigating these risks. 

The increasing reliance on technology in organizations

Nowadays, technology plays a crucial role in almost every aspect of a business; from streamlining operations and enhancing communication to driving innovation and enabling growth.

According to a 2020 McKinsey Global Survey on digital transformation, 85% of the respondents indicated that their organizations have somewhat or greatly accelerated the implementation of digital technologies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This growing reliance on technology means that companies need to have a strong IT governance and risk management framework in place. It ensures that their IT systems are not only efficient and aligned with their business goals but also secure and resilient against potential threats.

The growing complexity of IT systems

With more advanced technologies being adopted and integrated into businesses, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing, it’s essential to have robust IT governance and risk management practices in place.  There are challenges however as Chris DeBrusk, a partner with Oliver Wyman, recently highlighted in his article Technology Complexity And It’s Impact On Innovation, emphasizing the importance of managing this complexity to unlock the full potential of digital transformation. 

With the structured approach and standardized processes, IT governance and risk management practices can greatly help organizations navigate the complexities of their IT systems.

The potential consequences of poor IT governance and risk management

The consequences of neglecting these critical areas are far-reaching.

Security breaches

Cybercriminals are constantly looking for ways to exploit weak points in IT systems. And a lack of proper oversight can leave the door wide open for them. The fallout from a security breach can be severe. This can include damage to a company’s reputation, loss of customer trust, and a hefty fine.

Loss of data

Poor IT governance and risk management can lead to inadequate data protection measures, increasing the risk of data loss due to accidents, system failures, or malicious attacks. This can result in compromised intellectual property and even legal liabilities.

Regulatory non-compliance

In an increasingly regulated environment, organizations must ensure that their IT systems comply with various industry standards and government regulations. Organizations can avoid the costly consequences of non-compliance by investing in IT governance and risk management.

Financial losses

Security breaches, data loss, and regulatory non-compliance can all lead to direct financial losses. It could be in the form of legal expenses, and compensation payouts. Moreover, these incidents can also result in indirect financial losses, such as lost business opportunities, decreased productivity, and increased insurance premiums.

How Virima and Ivanti integration enhance IT governance and risk management

The partnership between Virima and Ivanti represents a significant leap forward in enhancing IT governance and risk management capabilities. 

Strengthening IT governance with a trustworthy Ivanti CMDB

Think of a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) as having a master control center that knows everything about your IT assets—what you have, where it’s located, and how each piece connects to the others. This isn’t just about keeping things neat; it’s crucial for making informed decisions, managing risks, and ensuring everything in IT aligns with the overall business goals. Thus forming the backbone of IT governance. 

Virima’s automated discovery keeps Ivanti CMDB current

Virima is the technology behind Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping which leverages Virima Discovery’s robust identification, categorization, and relationship mapping for a wide array of IT assets across diverse on-premise and cloud environments. This includes hardware like servers, storage devices, and networking equipment, as well as software applications, services, and virtual assets. Further, for each of your discovered assets, it provides detailed information including manufacturer, model, hardware, and OS configuration details, and most importantly relationships with other assets. 

As your organization deploys new hardware or software assets or replaces old ones, Virima automatically discovers these new assets and their configurations and then seamlessly updates the Ivanti CMDB.   Likewise, any changes to existing CMDB assets, including their relationships, are updated to reflect the current state.

For Ivanti Neurons for ITSM customers, this means having a more comprehensive and up-to-date inventory of IT assets without the reliance on manual inputs or tedious (and unreliable) human processes.

A trustworthy Ivanti CMDB for decision-making

Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping powered by Virima infuses a high level of confidence in CMDB data. This reliability is critical for making informed strategic decisions, such as

• Capacity planning
• Prioritizing investments in IT infrastructure
• Risk assessment
• Lower the rate of failed changes
• Speed up incident response
• Planning for compliance audits
• Ensure compliance with internal and external standards 
• Developing incident response strategies 
• Planning vulnerability prioritization efforts. 

With Virima, you can turn your Ivanti CMDB into a reliable source of truth that accurately reflects the current state of your IT landscape, facilitating alignment with business objectives and regulatory requirements.

Enhancing risk management

Managing risks in IT means that you need to know exactly what’s going on in your IT environment and how everything is connected. With Virima’s solutions, you can have a deep understanding of your services and the relationships between its components. 

Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping for a comprehensive overview

Virima-powered Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping provide a detailed dynamic visual representation of the relationships and dependencies between IT assets and services. This multi-layered visualization makes it easy for IT teams to identify critical assets and understand the potential impact of failures or security breaches on business operations.

Virima Visual Impact Display (ViVID™) for data-backed decisions

Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping features Virima’s VIVID service maps that overlay Ivanti Neurons for ITSM data, including incidents, and changes onto the service maps. Moreover, due to Virima’s integration with the NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), ViVID also overlays vulnerability data such as CPEs (Common Platform Enumerations), and CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures). 

These overlays enable your IT teams to quickly make near real-time data-based decisions in critical areas such as service outages, disaster recovery planning, root cause analysis, impact analysis, and audit preparation. By visualizing how current and historical incidents, changes, and vulnerabilities relate to the IT infrastructure, ViVID maps assist in potential risk identification and support the formulation of effective mitigation strategies.

IT asset management and IT governance

Effective asset management isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s foundational for solid governance. It’s all about arming you with the data and insights that pave the way for strategic decision-making and risk management.

Asset lifecycle management

Virima’s discovery integration with Ivanti augments Ivanti’s ITAM capability to ensure that every IT asset is accurately tracked from procurement through to decommissioning. This complete lifecycle management supports governance by ensuring that assets are efficiently utilized, risks are managed, and compliance is maintained throughout the asset’s lifecycle. 

The Virima-Ivanti integration also rounds out Ivanti’s edge discovery capabilities to provide a detailed and accurate record of every asset, including its configurations and relationships. So Ivanti customers optimize asset usage, avoid unnecessary expenditures, and ensure compliance with relevant standards and regulations.

Strategic decision support 

As Virima’s discovery integration to Ivanti augments Ivanti CMDB maintenance, it facilitates strategic IT decision-making by providing a panoramic view of the IT asset landscape, including real-time updates on asset status and interdependencies. This aids in critical governance activities such as budgeting for IT investments, planning asset refresh cycles, and rationalizing IT services and assets. 

Virima and Ivanti integration: Enhance your IT governance and risk management game

Through the integration of Virima’s cutting-edge discovery, service mapping, and ViVID capabilities with Ivanti’s trusted ITSM, ITAM, security, and risk management solutions, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM customers gain a more comprehensive, up-to-date view of their IT assets, and find easy to comprehend visualizations of dependencies and relationships backed by real-time ITSM data. All of these go a long way in taking the pain out of IT governance and infusing efficiency into risk management.   

Request a demo today to learn more about how Ivanti and Virima have partnered to take CMDB and its many benefits to the next level.