PuzzleLogic
Changing the Face of Configuration Management

Many companies in the digital enterprise space have been longing for a solution that effectively changes the way they deliver application support. What IT ops teams need is information that is accessible, accurate, relevant, timely, and easy to maintain. PuzzleLogic encompasses these five basic needs through an integrated system that allows customers to track, analyze, troubleshoot, and understand the business impact of configuration items in their IT environments. “These requirements may be obvious, but you’d be surprised how many configuration management solutions out there don’t address them to the fullest,” notes Rick Chen, CEO, PuzzleLogic.

The key to a successful configuration management initiative is quick access to relevant data. Building on this idea, PuzzleLogic has taken a “business application-first approach” to develop Service Advisor, an IT operations product, which combines configuration, event, and incident management in a single console to quickly identify, resolve or avoid business critical issues. Service Advisor is geared for less technical IT users that deal with day-to-day operations issues, often on a first-in/first-out basis.

According to Chen, “In order to effectively perform IT ops functions, IT teams need to start with their inventory of business applications.” They can start with one or two apps before deciding to expand to their entire enterprise. In doing so, Service Advisor provides them with the relevant data to help them understand application impact and determine if an issue is truly urgent through a straightforward, simple-to-use interface. Users can easily create their own rules in Service Advisor to address 80 percent of their needs by simple keyword searching and with the ability to flag specific messages as important.

Moreover, Service Advisor’s Connections feature goes a step further “by combining dynamic, personalized rules to highlight specific issues that may be important one day, but not the next day,” points out Chen. IT personnel can analyze incoming data in real-time and automatically identify the impacted areas based on the affected configuration items.

In order to effectively perform IT ops functions, IT teams need to start with their inventory of business applications

Connections gives users “an unprecedented ability to flag important issues that need immediate attention with just a few mouse clicks.”

During Service Advisor’s early adopter program, the two themes that have occurred consistently in IT teams across different industries were the need to know where an issue is to determine who is responsible for fixing it and who may be impacted. When a critical business application incident occurs, IT can use Service Advisor to quickly pinpoint if the issue resides in one of the configuration items they support or if the incident is occurring in a related area. Service Advisor reduces the effort required to resolve incidents from a lengthy process-of-elimination exercise into one that identifies the probable source in just a few minutes.

“Our larger goal is to try to change the way people look at products and tools for IT operations. Our business application-centric approach, coupled with a modern big data platform, is what sets us apart,” affirms the CEO.

Forging into the future, PuzzleLogic addresses the growing operational challenges stemming from the adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. By forming close relationships with early adopters of Service Advisor, they are working on incorporating new features into the product that will treat configuration items in the same way as it treats events and incidents. “By pushing the Configuration Management space further, we can deliver more value to our customers. As we do that, we expect business expansion in other product areas, as well as globally,” concludes Chen.