If our systems stood still, our systems management software could as well. The truth is our systems are changing by the minute. More and more of the work we do is on the cloud. And our internal systems are in a constant state of evolution – virtualization has taken over our servers, and more of our apps are spread across on-premises and the cloud. And as mobile apps.

End points are also undergoing revolution. While predictions of the death of the PC haven’t totally come true, tablets and smartphones are new devices of choice, and each of these presents its own management challenges.

This makes the job of IT tremendously complex and time consuming. And the many points of failure make the network vulnerable and too subject to downtime.

Meanwhile new applications and application types enter the market in constant fashion.

Breadth without Complexity

In the early days of systems management there were different tools for each discrete function or platform. IT was left toggling between consoles to get what they needed. Sometimes dashboards rolled up the information to a single view, but there were still many tools at work underneath – and the dashboard couldn’t do everything, but would invoke the console for the needed tool.

The next generation of systems management solutions will have tremendous breath to handle whatever you throw at it. Most of this lies in the vendors’ hands –with a little help from some new software development technologies. With Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) the development is done in the cloud and the software can be upgraded, or iterated in development parlance, continuously. Model-driven or visual development will let vendors create rich new features more or less by describing them, without a lick of code.

In fact, IT itself will be able to use these same techniques to upgrade their systems management software.

Systems for decades have tried to be comprehensive, but this resulted in tools and frameworks that are so complex many installations never succeeded. Not to mention the tremendous software and IT expense. CA Unicenter and IBM Tivoli both spring to mind. These tools were designed to replace point products, but as mentioned, did not always succeed.

Two Sides of the Mobile Coin

We mentioned the ever increasing complexity of today’s IT infrastructure. IT and even system management vendors can’t always keep up. The answer to solving an ever growing number of issues will be artificial intelligence (AI). Part of this will expert systems that learn from what has already been discovered. Higher forms of AI will make decisions based on what it already knows, and what it artificially thinks is right. This approach will also form the basis of a whole new approach to predictive systems analytics and management.

AI and Expert Systems

Mobile creates a challenge for systems management – and an opportunity. The challenge is to manage these devices as if they were a local PC on the LAN. More intelligent mobile device management will learn about these units, and apply policies, protections and oversight that fits that user, that device, and corporate policies. Mobile device management will no longer be a blunt instrument, but will learn what is needed, and act proactively once it has that understanding.

Even better for IT is the move to using mobile devices to manage remote systems. Today Pulseway is leading that charge with a solution that lets an admin perform ALL vital management functions from a phone or tablet, and do so from wherever they happen to be. To see this first hand, check out 'You Restarted the Server from Where?'

These tools will also become self-learning, and serve admin needs through natural language interfaces. With deep knowledge of the endpoints, your phone will make decisions and take management actions on its own.

The Cloud and Private Cloud Change All the Rules

Traditional systems management tools were all about keeping each and every system under their charge up and running. With utility computing, such as the cloud or a private cloud, the virtualization underneath can fail over servers without the service being disrupted. The new goal becomes keeping the cloud service running at peak performance and remaining resilient.

Advanced Automation

Many systems management tools these days offer automation, especially remote monitoring and management (RMM).

The benefits are huge. Not only are systems constantly probed for problems, remediation is often automatic as are software updates and patching. Expect automation to be able to take care of virtually all problems in the future, simply leaving behind a record of what was done.

Community and Social Lend a Hand

IT communities focused on management already exist to help peers solve problems and choose products. This will be part of the fabric of how admins so their jobs as social media steps into the fray and becomes more integrated with systems management solutions.

Pulseway is a state of the art RMM that brings all RMM features to your mobile device. With it, admins regardless of location are alerted to problems such as potential system failure. The RMM can then remediate the situation preventing downtime and possible loss of data.

Admins can build on top of Pulseway features and modify its behavior by integrating other tools or functions using the REST API or the Cloud API.

Find out more about Mobile RMM here.