The applications that rely on this data continue to operate with bad data and may go undetected until reported by end users. Bank customers report that erroneous transactions have been made to their bank accounts. Truck drivers for a parcel delivery company report that the dispatching system has sent them to incorrect locations. Complexity also makes it far more difficult for the operations staff to react quickly to changing conditions in the IT environment, which can result in performance degradation.

Traditional Methods Come Up Short

Traditional data and IT component protection methods, such as backup, recovery and data mirroring, are not sufficient by themselves to ensure business continuity in the event of human or application errors. Consider, for example, the case of a critical database contaminated by an application that makes an extraneous entry into the database each time a specific type of transaction occurs. Traditional methods simply back up the contaminated data, perpetuating the problem as the application continues to operate with contaminated data.

Moreover, the use of traditional manual system-management methods is no longer viable. Complexity has increased to a level well beyond the capabilities of even the most skilled IT professionals, creating a high risk of error. For example, the orderly restart of complex interrelated systems when attempted manually introduces dozens of time-sensitive procedures. A slipup with one procedure will result in cascading system outages requiring time-intensive recovery activities. In fact, one of the major sources of human error is the use of system-management processes that rely on manual procedures.

Manual processes also can increase reaction times to changes in the IT environment, with the potential to cause a performance slowdown. And they are difficult if not impossible to audit, exposing the organization to the risk of regulatory noncompliance.

Intelligent Automation Provides a Solution

To ensure business continuity, enterprises must augment their existing disaster recovery mechanisms and traditional manual system-management processes with coverage that is more complete. Intelligent automation provides the answer. This practice consists of software-driven routines that automatically perform IT service management functions and make decisions based on business impact and business policy.

Intelligent automation brings with it several major advantages. It masks the complexity of the IT infrastructure and helps ensure that IT system-management processes are performed in a repeatable, consistent and timely fashion using best practices. The result is a dramatic reduction in the risk of error, along with an auditable trail to ensure regulatory compliance.

Intelligent automation brings a wealth of other benefits, too, including: