to Elevating Your IT Operations

www.nexthink.com

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01.Add the End-User PerspectiveIT operations are typically back-end-centric with strong visibility into servers, switches, storage, etc. The experience end-users are having is generally inferred by what is seen at the back-end. While this can be a good indication, it is not enough.

Imagine a critical business application being used in a remote office. Recently, boot times for the application went to 90 minutes. As far as the datacenter is concerned, all lights are green.

Without Endpoint and User Analytics, you are entirely reliant on the users calling the service desk to understand if there is a problem – and we all know that doesn’t always happen.

With the right tools, you can see problems in real-time and take action before the user even knows there is an issue. Endpoint and User IT Analytics gives you an opportunity to be proactive and really WOW your IT customers.

How many times have you gotten a complaint from end-users while all your NOC indicators were green?

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02.Prevention is Betterthan a CureSolving problems proactively before end-users are impacted is much less costly for IT and for the business as a whole. When you are constantlytackling problems in a reactive manner, is it even possible to be proactive? The answer is, yes!

Add Endpoint and User IT Analytics to see exactly what transpires with every application and every connection in your environment. This visibility allows you to determine what is happening and why it is happening to proactively solve problems before they impact end-user productivity.

If a recent change in a line of business application means users need to be on a specific version of a web browser, users on previous versions are likelyto experience a blockage.

Once the problem has been identified and solved for one user, Endpoint and User Analytics provide the service desk with the list of endpoints and users that are in the same situation. Without waiting for the other users to call with the same problem, IT can proactively solve the problem.

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03.Maximize Business Return on IT InvestmentsIT optimization and cost control isn’t just about cutting costs. It’s about spending more on things that make the business more efficient and competitive and spending less on things that don’t.

Endpoint and User IT Analytics can help you understand more about what gets used in your environment and how often. Armed with real data you can help direct your new IT spend as well as redirect existing assets to maximize business return on IT investment.

Both the consumerization of IT and increasing expectations of C-suite members means the cohesion of CIO and end-user relationships is fundamental. Best-of-breed IT analytics solutions, therefore, are a critical variable in solving the efficiency equation.

With Endpoint and User IT Analytics we have successfully implemented 12 major IT transformation projects on-time in less than a year. We elevated IT from a cost center to a business enabler, and ultimately made IT a business differentiator.”

SÉBASTIEN PILLER Head of IT Operations,

Protectas

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04.Don't Let Complexity Kill YouWith the explosion of IT consumerization, the increasing diversity of systems, applications, and data generated, adds more complexity to the IT infrastructure every day.

Faced with environments that are becoming increasingly complex, IT teams need to have a clear view of what is happening, has happened, or could happen in the future.

Endpoint and User IT Analytics is the missing link that provides visibility of endpoint and network services from the end-user perspective.

Understanding the context of use is just as important as the quality of applications. By analogy, a perfectly tuned car will not reach its full potential in a traffic jam nor in the pouring rain.

Do you have users logging in after-hours? Sure you do – no problem, right? But what if those users are logging in, sending large print jobs to a printer and then logging off? This could be a potential insider threat. The data actually exists – but where do you find it?

Having a tool that can see and alert to this type of behavior is just one example of distilling actionable data from a sea of otherwise unrelated complexity. Increasingly, Endpoint and User IT Analytics are being used by more organizations to cut through the volumes of performance and connectivity related data to solve problems and be more proactive.

More complexityrequires more visibility.

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05.Plan, Implement & Measure BetterChange management is a core principle of ITIL. It tries to ensure that standardized methods and procedures are followed to enable efficient handling of all IT related change requests.

Minimizing disruption and having the end-user perspective before, during and after any change is crucial.

Let’s take, for example, a Microsoft Office update: having information about the installed Office application is not enough to build a plan that will ensure a seamless update.

IT needs to understand the context, use, and connections made by the application to ensure these connections will still be available with the newversion.

IT must ensure that all workstations are ready to support the new version, configuration, and health status – a workstation that struggles with Office2003 may not support an upgrade to release 2013 in terms of CPU, RAM etc.

Endpoint and User Analytics provide unique visibility on application usage. It has been extremely valuable in our efforts to standardize applicationsand in enabling our Windows migration. It enabled my team to complete the migration with no external support and zero data loss."

LOUIS LECLÉZIO IT Director EMEA,

Bunge

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