Understanding IT management

Using the same old tools and practices to deploy and manage innovative apps and infrastructure isn’t enough. Collaboration, hybrid platforms, and ongoing digital transformation must be the default state for management solutions as operations adopts more agile processes for IT and business groups. We understand that ops are a process, not a department. Adopting this operational mindset—and choosing the right tools—creates a solid foundation for DevOps, cloud, and container initiatives across your organization.

IT management is the coordination of all IT resources, systems, platforms, people, and environments. Modern, dynamic environments need a new approach to management that can improve speed, help you scale, and provide stability across your enterprise IT environments. Automation is an essential and strategic component of modernization and digital transformation, which Red Hat delivers to enterprises through tools like Red Hat® Ansible® Automation Platform.

Visibility is equally important–you can't effectively maintain your IT environment unless you can see what's happening at any given moment and anticipate what might be coming. Red Hat delivers these capabilities through technologies like Red Hat Insights, an end-to-end management solution that offers continuous analysis and system-level visibility, combined with the ability to find and fix security and performance issues, all from a single interface. A management-as-a-service offering, Red Hat Insights does not require additional infrastructure to set up or maintain, and it is included with every Red Hat Enterprise Linux®, Red Hat OpenShift®, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscription.  

Cloud management is a concept that means a user has control over everything that operates in a cloud: the data, applications, and services. The management tools themselves, which generally run as platforms, are the software used to manage those data, applications, and services. These tools are used to ensure that the cloud-computing resources are running efficiently and securely, while accessible to everyone (or everything) that needs them. Basically, cloud management platforms exist so that anything running in a cloud—public, private, or hybrid—actually works, and works well.

Virtualization management is software that interfaces with virtual environments and the underlying physical hardware to simplify resource administration, enhance data analyses, and streamline operations. Each virtualization management system is unique, but most feature an uncomplicated user interface, streamline the VM creation process, monitor virtual environments, allocate resources, compile reports, and automatically enforce rules. Some solutions even integrate across hardware and software brands—allowing users to install the management system that's best for them.

Data management is the process of gathering, storing, and using data. It allows you to know what data you have, where it is located, who owns it, who can see it, and how it is accessed. Data management empowers organizations to securely and cost effectively deploy critical systems and applications and engage in strategic decision-making. A sound data management strategy determines an organization’s ability to scale and adapt to changing business processes and needs, giving teams the information and confidence to act faster and smarter.

An SOE is a standard operating environment, or a specific computer operating system and collection of software that an IT department defines as a standard build. SOEs help if you’re managing a lot of computers and want to reduce complexity. With SOEs, IT teams can automate the deployment and maintenance of servers and workstations. SOEs can be part of a framework for a consistent build process and a modernized patch management.

Red Hat does a lot of work within the open source communities that develop management technologies. Our engineers help improve features and reliability to make sure your IT infrastructure has continuous and integrated security..

As with all open source projects, Red Hat contributes code and improvements back to the upstream codebase, sharing advancements along the way. Of course, collaborating with a community is about more than developing code. Collaboration is the freedom to ask questions and offer improvements—that’s the open source way and the power of the open organization. It’s why Red Hat has been a trusted provider of enterprise infrastructure for over 20 years.