1. What exactly is NSight?

NSight is a methodology and supporting set of models that produce a capacity/resource management plan based on your organization’s business activity.

2. How is NSight related to ITIL?

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of best practices guiding the management and operation of an IT shop. Originally published by the British government, it is fast becoming a de factor standard for IT managers.

ITIL’s section on Capacity Management calls for three areas of activity addressing Business Capacity Management, Service Capacity Management, and Resource Capacity Management.  NSight addresses these areas through its Key Business Indicator Methodology, an Actual to Forecast Reconciliation process, and a Business Based Capacity Plan. Click here for more about NSight and ITIL.

3. What type of resources can it be applied to?

NSight is platform and vendor independent and it works for mainframe, server, and network resources.

4. Do I need to apply it to all of my resources at once?

No. You might choose to use it for all or any subset of your resources. For example, you might only want to apply it to just your mainframe or just your midrange servers or even just a subset of your total server community. Or you might want to deploy it broadly over time in small easily managed subsets.

5. What are Key Business Indicators?

Key Business Indicators (KBIs) are naturally occurring metrics in your business that can be used to quantify your business activity. When properly linked to your resource usage they are a good predictor of your future demand.

6. How are your models different from BMC® Predict and others?

Typical analytical and simulation models are usually trying to predict system performance against workload and configuration changes through the use of queuing theory and other techniques. The goal of NSight is to forecast future demand for the resource based on business and application activity.  The NSight models provide the functionality of translating that activity into meaningful resource metrics (such as processor utilization) and laying the future requirements against a known baseline. These models complement rather than compete with Predict and others. 

Note: BMC® is a registered trademark of BMC Software, Inc.

7. What do you mean by customization?

NSight is built around a set of models that represent your computer or network resources. The customization process involves defining your resources, your applications and your business to the models.

8. Who does the customization?

Pacific Reach, working with your organization, performs the customization and setup.

9. How much time and effort is required by my staff?

That really depends on how much hands-on involvement you want. At a minimum you will have to be involved in helping us understand your environment and situation. Beyond that, we can customize NSight, set it up, and run it from end-to-end with little or no other effort from your staff, presenting the results at the end of the process. We can then train your staff in the maintenance and running of the process and/or we can return periodically to calibrate the models and re-run the process based on new variables. Or you may choose to be closely involved from the outset, particularly if you want to incorporate NSight tightly into your resource management activity.

10. How long does it take and how much does it cost?

The timing and cost of course is related to the size and scope of your environment and what you are trying to accomplish. Usually we can put together a proposal complete with time and cost estimates after spending a few hours with you in discussions and reviewing key documentation.

11. Will NSight replace any of my current applications or products?

It depends. NSight is designed to complement not compete with other resource management products. For example, it does not provide resource monitoring and data capture, instead relying on the wealth of such products already installed in most shops. And it doesn't provide configuration oriented modeling such as that performed by such products as BCS Predict. In fact, it’s likely that the output of some of those products will be input to NSight.

However, if you are currently using an in-house or other product to generate forecasts, utilization reports, and management presentations about resource capacity, you may wish to substitute NSight.