The saying "If you don't measure it, you don't manage it..." originates from W. Edwards Deming's book "The New Economics of Industry".

Deming is recognized worldwide as the guru of "total quality management." This sentence from his book has been shortened over time to the form we use today and adapted to many sectors.

While we are aware of the sentence's usage in its original context, we also endorse its current usage. In our view, it's nearly impossible to form an opinion about a system you haven't measured. You're forced to act based solely on your feelings and observations within a limited timeframe, which can make life quite difficult in a field like IT that demands precision.

Imagine you're managing a large system group. You start receiving complaints about "slowness" from the software team or customers, and these complaints are increasing.

Where do you look first? The application server? Maybe. But what if you can't find what you're looking for there?

It can be helpful to review some components sequentially using a methodology. For example; first the application server, then the database server, then the load balancer logs, the virtualization server, the storage... and so on. If you have a high level of awareness, you might be able to spot the problem during this visual inspection and take corrective action.

But what if you can't find it? What if the problem is deeper than you think? What if it's an issue you could have identified by simultaneously comparing more performance metrics on the application server you initially looked at, and you missed doing that? Or worse, what if a loop on the backbone switch you haven't started monitoring yet is causing the problem?

Monitoring projects provide you with data that will increase your awareness of all your IT components and allow you to make comparisons and interpretations. However, you can only achieve accurate and rapid solutions by combining sufficient data and the right analytical methods.

If you think it's time for an IT Monitoring/Log management solution that will give you the convenience of interpreting accurate data under appropriate conditions, contact us and hear about our solutions.