Reducing Costs with Consolidated Job Scheduling and Intelligent File Transfer: A Timely Discussion of Stonebranch (An EMA whitepaper)An ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) White Paper Prepared for Stonebranch Download PDF of this Whitepaper Executive Summary The benefits of consolidating and automating job scheduling across all enterprise platforms are self-evident – cost savings, efficiency, agility, and availability. Yet we know from research that most organizations retain disconnected silos of job scheduling with the associated redundancies in process and staff. One can only assume that enormous obstacles stand between these companies and the aforementioned benefits. Not true – the obstacles to consolidated job scheduling and automation are, for the most part, illusory. In the past, enterprises have shunned these cross-platform integrations because of task complexity, project cost, business risk, or internal politics. This paper is not nearly long enough to address internal politics. As for the rest, options now exist that so successfully minimize obstacles that even internal politics has little hope of subversion. The Equation for Project Success is simple: Success = ROI+Function+Efficiency Disruption
Introduction The alignment of IT services with business needs, a core tenet of IT Service Management (ITSM), is a formidable technical challenge made more daunting when infrastructure expansion outpaces budget expansion. Most readers with responsibility for IT budgets are nodding their heads in bemused resignation. Because ITSM is a necessity rather than a choice, IT management must annually devise innovative approaches to its adoption. A 2007 EMA survey found that IT budgets were flat or decreasing for 47% of respondents. Meanwhile, a July 2008 study by CIO Update showed IT spending as 1.5% of revenue compared to 1.8% in 2007 – a decline of 16.7%. The key issue is the relationship of budget growth to infrastructure growth. Most enterprises face continued growth in data storage, bandwidth, energy costs, servers, and software costs. The collision of decreasing budgets and increasing infrastructure places an enormous burden on both management and staff. Few would challenge the premise that IT service automation is fundamental to an efficient alignment with business needs. The amount of automation present in today’s enterprises attests to its perceived value. However, with automation, quantity matters far less than integration. Job scheduling and Managed File Transfer (MFT), the topics of this paper, are excellent examples. Most enterprises have automated job scheduling for z/OS, Unix, Windows, Linux, iSeries, and other OS platforms. However, one must consolidate and integrate those schedulers to achieve the next level of savings where infrastructure services map to business needs. With MFT, centralization and standardization enhance security compliance. For those hesitant IT managers, this paper maintains that the path to consolidated job scheduling and standardized MFT need not be costly or protracted. The alignment of IT services with business needs, a core tenet of IT Service Management (ITSM), is a formidable technical challenge made more daunting when infrastructure expansion outpaces budget expansion. Situation:Inefficiency, Expense, and Non-compliance Most enterprises implement multiple job scheduling solutions depending on platform type, application, data center, and business owner. Aside from standards like cron, at, SAP’s CCMS, i5/OS Advanced Job Scheduler, Oracle’s DMBS_Scheduler, HP’s Netbatch for NonStop servers, and others, more than 30 vendors add job scheduling solutions to the enterprise mix. While a diverse mix of job scheduling software may address the needs of individual business owners, that same mix presents a barrier to consolidated job scheduling. File Transfer: Exorbitant Pricing and Non-compliant Adoption Despite growing budget constraints, many organizations cling to expensive enterprise-class file transfer solutions – some requiring dedicated connections. Often, the file transfer software is so costly that an organization deploys it only sparingly, allowing internal users to initiate FTP – a serious issue of audit compliance. Although there are a great many solutions for B2B communication security, MFT satisfies basic needs with minimal complexity. Simply put, MFT solutions are frequently overpriced. Goals: Enterprise Job Scheduling and MFT Compliance Efficient, low-cost enterprise job scheduling and affordable, compliant MFT are desirable objectives for several reasons: Outage Reduction - The impact of a job execution problem is seldom isolated to the platform on which the job is executing. Applications span many platforms, technologies and networks. Consolidated job scheduling enables an enterprise-wide view of execution problems, vastly enhancing diagnosis, business impact analysis, and response. Consolidation is the key to reducing the frequency and duration of system outages. The costs associated with such outages frequently exceed $1 million per hour in large corporations. Data Loss Protection - Unsecured FTP exposes an organization to data loss and regulatory compliance issues. At the least, one must implement and enforce MFT on an enterprise-wide basis. Aside from loss of goodwill, the costs of data loss are staggering. A study from Pepperdine University listed the average cost of a lost data incident at $3,957 and the annual cost to U.S. businesses at $18.2 billion. Surprisingly, according to a 2008 EMA survey , only 4% of respondents assign a dollar figure to the impact of security events. In essence, because companies disregard the costs, they are unaware of the benefits of increased control. Business Visibility and Accountability - MFT and Job Scheduling yield the greatest benefits when implemented at the enterprise level where correlation, compliance and control are optimal. At this level, one can establish the relationship between applications, jobs and data movement, thus allowing a more comprehensive IT view and an invaluable business view into workflow impact. Solution: Quick, Affordable, Consolidated There are two contrasting approaches to consolidated workload automation . The monolithic approach replaces existing solutions on each platform with agents from a single vendor. Though this certainly addresses the issue of integration, it introduces a level of implementation complexity and may not offer a significant functional improvement for individual platforms. Monolithic solutions may place an enterprise at a disadvantage in future negotiations and limit the ability to change vendors. Another approach to consolidated workload automation is an “integrator” solution that offers a seamless interface to existing platform scheduling software. By retaining current technology stacks, the integrator solution requires little or no training, implements very quickly, and introduces minimal risk of disruption. Because budgets and service are foremost in the thoughts of today’s CIOs, this paper examines a solution set for consolidated job scheduling and MFT that meets the following criteria:
Stonebranch – A Timely Product Set Stonebranch, founded in 1999 and headquartered in Atlanta, offers two products that have particular relevance in today’s turbulent economy. The products are affordable and rapidly consolidate job schedulers and secure file transfers across the enterprise. Indesca™, Stonebranch’s Independent Scheduling Agents solution, is not a job scheduler. Rather, it provides the ability to easily upgrade the scheduling infrastructure. Because Indesca does not replace existing schedulers, the implementation is straight-forward, rapid, and non-disruptive. The customer retains existing point solutions and related customizations. The technicians require almost no additional training. The solution integrates distributed and z/OS scheduling environments and can help integrate business workloads and file transfers that are currently managed outside traditional platform schedulers. Infitran™, Stonebranch’s Intelligent File Transfer solution, offers 256-bit SSL/TSL encrypted file transfer using standard X.509 certificates and two-way authentication. Stonebranch’s implementation of this application-independent protocol does not require in-house Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Because file transfers are a key component in batch processing, Infitran’s integration into the Indesca solution offers administrative advantages through functional leverage. Stonebranch has had considerable success (year over year growth of 30%) replacing expensive legacy MFT solutions with its competitively priced Infitran solution, and non-intrusively consolidating job schedulers with its likewise economical Indesca solution. These are intriguing alternatives to monolithic job schedulers and entrenched MFT cash cows. CIOs have little enthusiasm for costly and intrusive IT projects but understand the benefits of consolidating operational control. Similarly, an organization with isolated legacy MFT solutions can usually achieve very rapid ROI by implementing Infitran across the enterprise and, in the process, extend enforceable but efficient compliance. EMA Perspective Clearly, enterprises can realize advantages in staffing, efficiency, and availability by consolidating the management of all job schedulers, file transfers, and external workloads into a single pane of glass. Since the advantages are clear, one can only assume that any reticence is due to expense, staff availability, and time constraints. Though the current economy only increases this reticence, Stonebranch’s message seems poised to resonate with the cost-conscious and risk-averse IT managers; whereas large vendors have been able to leverage Enterprise License Agreements to protect the customer’s balance sheet that protection does not extend to implementation risk, staffing resources, or training time – all factors in project approval and overall cost. Stonebranch has recently honed its marketing message to address the data center paradox of increasing service requirements amid shrinking budgets. In a previously cited EMA survey1, almost half of the respondents lacked a workload automation solution. Given a choice, how many will choose an inexpensive integrator over a monolith? The wind is in the Stonebranch sails. Stonebranch has had considerable success replacing expensive legacy MFT solutions with its competitively priced Infitran solution, and nonintrusively consolidating job schedulers with its likewise economical Indesca solution. About Stonebranch Stonebranch, Inc. (http://www.stonebranch.com) is an industry leader in Intelligent File Transfer and Independent Scheduling Agents solutions. Stonebranch was founded in 1999 by three industry experts and has enjoyed an impressive 30 percent-plus growth rate year-over-year since its inception. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Stonebranch has offices throughout the world. With an innovative approach that protects existing IT investments while integrating with technologies like Service Oriented Architecture, Stonebranch boasts an impressive customer retention rate for a firm that competes directly with major Business Service Management vendors. |