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What is IT visibility and why is it indispensable for companies today?
Date: 14th February 2024
There is an iconic scene in Daniel Craig’s first appearance as James Bond in Casino Royale, where Bond rejects a tuxedo gifted to him by Vesper Lynd. “I already have a tuxedo,” Bond says, surprised—and perhaps even slightly offended. Lynd gestures toward the jacket and replies confidently but casually: “There are tuxedos and there are tuxedos. This is the latter.”
We already know from an earlier scene that Lynd, a government accountant, is sharp, clever, and sophisticated—which is why she teases Bond about the cut of his suit: “Do you really think people dress like that?” When it comes to taste and style, she is clearly Bond’s superior. The average person might not notice the difference, but to those in the know, this tuxedo is a sign that Bond belongs to the elite of a high-stakes poker tournament in Montenegro.
As part of the origin story, we witness Bond’s transformation from an ordinary man into the elegant MI6 agent portrayed by Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and many others.
But what does James Bond have to do with IT visibility? Well, “There is IT visibility, and then there is IT visibility. Raynet is the latter.”
IT Visibility: Comprehensive, Structured, and Detailed
IT Visibility – You’ve Probably Heard the Term Before
It’s something many vendors claim to provide. But only a few, it seems, are the tuxedo.
Identifying and listing countless IT assets within a company’s architecture is one thing; offering comprehensive, structured, and detailed insights into complex and decentralized infrastructures is quite another. And only the latter enables you to make data-driven decisions on:
IT budgeting and planning
Cost and compliance control
Cybersecurity and vulnerability management
Application portfolio management
And that is exactly what IT visibility should be.
IT visibility is the comprehensive, granular, and detailed view of an IT environment—regardless of its size or complexity—that empowers IT leaders to make data-driven decisions about their IT investments.
How Do You Achieve IT Visibility?
To achieve true IT visibility, three essential factors must be considered:
Data Completeness – With the right discovery and inventory solutions, you can build a complete inventory of relevant data from your IT environment. A good discovery solution includes connectors for all major and widely used operating systems and cloud platforms, along with the flexibility to create new ones. This way, you can quickly and easily gather exactly the data you need.
Data Quality – There’s a big difference between having a lot of data and having high-quality data. But how do you get there? By automatically aggregating and normalizing data—and checking for gaps, errors, or duplicates. Once this process is complete, you’re able to see the big picture.
Data-Driven Actions – IT visibility is meaningless if you can’t act on it. The data must provide clear answers to specific questions and enable you to solve problems. Automated reports and dashboards provide the insights you need to respond to all major IT management challenges and initiatives.
While a novice might think having data is enough, an expert knows that only high-quality data delivers meaningful results. The Unified Data Platform aggregates and normalizes data into a standardized model—eliminating duplicate entries, identifying gaps, and enriching the data with additional information from a market-leading technology catalog.
Author:
Andreas Gieseke
SVP Technology & Information Managing DirectorRelated links:
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You Can Only Protect What You Can See:
IT Visibility as the Foundation of Cybersecurity
In this whitepaper, we show you how blind spots can weaken—or even threaten—your infrastructure, and how IT visibility helps you proactively mitigate risks both in the short and long term:
Improve your security strategy
Uncover gaps and blind spots in your existing security processes
Maintain business agility
Secure your competitive edge
What Are the Consequences of Incomplete, Low-Quality Data?
Your IT initiatives are like a house of cards—and their foundation is made up of complete, high-quality IT asset data. Without that foundation, your initiatives collapse. What remains is a set of serious financial and cybersecurity issues.
It’s a powerful metaphor—but what are the real-world consequences?
Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM), for example, focuses on maintaining a complete and accurate inventory of all your IT assets and regularly checking them for vulnerabilities and other security risks. When your data is incomplete—when devices, software products, or versions are missing from the inventory—your IT becomes an open attack surface for cyber threats. In the worst case, this could bring your entire business to a standstill. A single unprotected device or vulnerable piece of software could invite cybercriminals to breach your systems, steal data, or even lock you out of your own IT environment.
As Gartner’s latest Market Guide for Software Asset Management Tools makes clear, full discovery, aggregation, and normalization are essential to any SAM program. Without high-quality data, initiatives like software license management or application rationalization under SAM and ITAM can suffer from major blind spots, inaccurate records, and a lack of visibility across your software portfolio. These issues can lead to rising costs, unnecessary spending, increased maintenance overhead, and a lack of agility in adopting new solutions. Such gaps not only hinder growth but can seriously impact your competitive edge.
That’s why Gartner states: “40% of all initiatives fail due to poor data quality.”
Data is the Key to Comprehensive IT Visibility
IT Visibility allows users to switch between detailed views and the big picture to understand how individual elements impact the strategy, and how they can steer smaller decisions such as application rationalization, legacy infrastructure modernization, and addressing critical vulnerabilities.
By combining data with market insights and information from software contracts, commercial sources, security-related data, and more, Raynet delivers the data that drives success for your IT initiatives. This provides users with the transparency that other solutions do not offer, allowing them to focus and concentrate on specific issues, such as vulnerability monitoring or application rationalization.
There is IT Visibility, and then there is IT Visibility. With Raynet, you get the latter.
What is IT visibility and why is it indispensable for companies today?
Reading time: 4 minutes
14th February 2024 | Andreas Gieseke
There is an iconic scene in Daniel Craig’s first appearance as James Bond in Casino Royale, where Bond rejects a tuxedo gifted to him by Vesper Lynd. “I already have a tuxedo,” Bond says, surprised—and perhaps even slightly offended. Lynd gestures toward the jacket and replies confidently but casually: “There are tuxedos and there are tuxedos. This is the latter.”
We already know from an earlier scene that Lynd, a government accountant, is sharp, clever, and sophisticated—which is why she teases Bond about the cut of his suit: “Do you really think people dress like that?” When it comes to taste and style, she is clearly Bond’s superior. The average person might not notice the difference, but to those in the know, this tuxedo is a sign that Bond belongs to the elite of a high-stakes poker tournament in Montenegro.
As part of the origin story, we witness Bond’s transformation from an ordinary man into the elegant MI6 agent portrayed by Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and many others.
But what does James Bond have to do with IT visibility? Well, “There is IT visibility, and then there is IT visibility. Raynet is the latter.”
IT Visibility: Comprehensive, Structured, and Detailed
IT Visibility – You’ve Probably Heard the Term Before
It’s something many vendors claim to provide. But only a few, it seems, are the tuxedo.
Identifying and listing countless IT assets within a company’s architecture is one thing; offering comprehensive, structured, and detailed insights into complex and decentralized infrastructures is quite another. And only the latter enables you to make data-driven decisions on:
IT budgeting and planning
Cost and compliance control
Cybersecurity and vulnerability management
Application portfolio management
And that is exactly what IT visibility should be.
IT visibility is the comprehensive, granular, and detailed view of an IT environment—regardless of its size or complexity—that empowers IT leaders to make data-driven decisions about their IT investments.
How Do You Achieve IT Visibility?
To achieve true IT visibility, three essential factors must be considered:
Data Completeness – With the right discovery and inventory solutions, you can build a complete inventory of relevant data from your IT environment. A good discovery solution includes connectors for all major and widely used operating systems and cloud platforms, along with the flexibility to create new ones. This way, you can quickly and easily gather exactly the data you need.
Data Quality – There’s a big difference between having a lot of data and having high-quality data. But how do you get there? By automatically aggregating and normalizing data—and checking for gaps, errors, or duplicates. Once this process is complete, you’re able to see the big picture.
Data-Driven Actions – IT visibility is meaningless if you can’t act on it. The data must provide clear answers to specific questions and enable you to solve problems. Automated reports and dashboards provide the insights you need to respond to all major IT management challenges and initiatives.
While a novice might think having data is enough, an expert knows that only high-quality data delivers meaningful results. The Unified Data Platform aggregates and normalizes data into a standardized model—eliminating duplicate entries, identifying gaps, and enriching the data with additional information from a market-leading technology catalog.
You Can Only Protect What You Can See:
IT Visibility as the Foundation of Cybersecurity
In this whitepaper, we show you how blind spots can weaken—or even threaten—your infrastructure, and how IT visibility helps you proactively mitigate risks both in the short and long term:
Improve your security strategy
Uncover gaps and blind spots in your existing security processes
Maintain business agility
Secure your competitive edge
What Are the Consequences of Incomplete, Low-Quality Data?
Your IT initiatives are like a house of cards—and their foundation is made up of complete, high-quality IT asset data. Without that foundation, your initiatives collapse. What remains is a set of serious financial and cybersecurity issues.
It’s a powerful metaphor—but what are the real-world consequences?
Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM), for example, focuses on maintaining a complete and accurate inventory of all your IT assets and regularly checking them for vulnerabilities and other security risks. When your data is incomplete—when devices, software products, or versions are missing from the inventory—your IT becomes an open attack surface for cyber threats. In the worst case, this could bring your entire business to a standstill. A single unprotected device or vulnerable piece of software could invite cybercriminals to breach your systems, steal data, or even lock you out of your own IT environment.
As Gartner’s latest Market Guide for Software Asset Management Tools makes clear, full discovery, aggregation, and normalization are essential to any SAM program. Without high-quality data, initiatives like software license management or application rationalization under SAM and ITAM can suffer from major blind spots, inaccurate records, and a lack of visibility across your software portfolio. These issues can lead to rising costs, unnecessary spending, increased maintenance overhead, and a lack of agility in adopting new solutions. Such gaps not only hinder growth but can seriously impact your competitive edge.
That’s why Gartner states: “40% of all initiatives fail due to poor data quality.”
Data is the Key to Comprehensive IT Visibility
IT Visibility allows users to switch between detailed views and the big picture to understand how individual elements impact the strategy, and how they can steer smaller decisions such as application rationalization, legacy infrastructure modernization, and addressing critical vulnerabilities.
By combining data with market insights and information from software contracts, commercial sources, security-related data, and more, Raynet delivers the data that drives success for your IT initiatives. This provides users with the transparency that other solutions do not offer, allowing them to focus and concentrate on specific issues, such as vulnerability monitoring or application rationalization.
There is IT Visibility, and then there is IT Visibility. With Raynet, you get the latter.
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