Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/141720
Ready to Dive Into Social Collaboration While some IT organizations may think they're not quite ready to dive in and take advantage of this type of social collaboration technology, there are a growing number of real-world deployments today that are leading the way. These deployments bring traditional back-office processes to the front line – allowing users at every level to automate troubleshooting at the touch of a button; search for resolutions based on intelligent, guided workflow schemes; access new system data to ensure up-to-theminute information is in play; and interact in real time with subject matter experts to quickly get to the root of complex problems. For example, one leading Internet service provider with multiple offices across the U.S. is using an ITPA solution with embedded social media to support its network operations center, which in turn supports its customer care organization. Through the use of Wikis and other integrated collaboration tools, customer service representatives (CSRs) are able to quickly and easily leverage the expertise of knowledge workers across the organization. When a CSR runs an automation for a customer, for example, the system pulls information from a variety of sources and provides a high-level analysis of that information with warnings and corrective actions. It stores these results in a database, which allows the CSRs to go back and review the output of those automations. This searchable knowl- edge base gives CSRs the answers they need quickly, while significantly reducing the need for them to seek additional support from elsewhere in the organization. Another company -- a communications service provider (CSP) facing the 24/7 support demands required for its highspeed Internet and cable modem offerings -- has redefined its approach to data center operations. As end users and customers increasingly lost patience as service failures occurred, executives were ready for change. The CSP deployed a social-powered ITPA platform to configure automation schemes, and has been able to expedite response and remediation times for both lines of business. It set up the system to receive instant notification of technical issues, allowing automations to go to work right away to identify the problem and make use of predefined processes to correct all common issues almost immediately. And with social tools integrated into the system, technicians are able to quickly seek out expert help over the network should they need it, and stay abreast of evolving resolutions and fixes. With hundreds of hours in time savings projected each month, the CSP has also gained a preventative edge that allows it to identify problems before they reach a certain threshold. Conclusion At the intersection of automation, collaboration and enterprise social is where you'll find next-generation data centers. And those that are making use of the power of human ingenuity by employing a more collaborative-driven approach to automation are breaking down traditional organizational and process constraints and achieving new cost and time savings that they never thought possible. By harnessing the knowledge and power of groups with IT process automation to create significant value and efficiencies for data centers, these organizations are able to capture knowledge that is typically lost in other enterprise systems. Users are able to leverage their shared knowledge to collectively modify, automate and create new processes to support customer triage, remediation and other critical actions. Best of all, the knowledge bank that they build becomes a reusable and actionable asset that can be adapted over time to best serve the organization. n About the Author: As Executive Vice President of Marketing and Managed Services for gen-E, Payal Kindiger leads the company's branding and marketing efforts, inside sales operations, organizational strategy, customer care, IBM channels development and managed services offerings. Prior to joining gen-E in 2003, she was a member of the management team at Deloitte and Touche. She has worked with several Fortune 500 companies and has managed client-service projects in IT business process re-engineering and organizational development across a number of industries. For more information on gen-E, visit www.gen-e.com. The new TS IT rack with snap-in technology. Quick and easy to install. www.datacenterjournal.com THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | www.rittal-corp.com/makeITeasy 27