Sometimes, in order to get to the right answers, one needs to ask the right questions. And with so much information coming at us everyday, this can be very challenging.
As with any vendor that approaches you to sell you their products, you cannot go wrong by asking yourself: “Do I need it?”
But before we delve into that, let’s talk about what is an IT notification management platform. It is either an appliance-based or a cloud-based system that connects with a network monitoring system (NMS) and sends out an alert every time a device or application connected to the NMS performs suboptimally or experiences an unplanned downtime.
The NMS will have a built-in notification module and it differs in comparison to a stand-alone IT notification management platform in terms of its reachability. A stand-alone platform will be able to reach IT support personnel via email but also on their mobile devices via SMS, social messenger apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat and team collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex or Slack.
In terms of determining whether you need an IT notification management platform, you can approach the matter in a number of different ways: For example, you can conduct internal surveys from your users in the company or do a cost-benefit analysis, etc. At our end, we have prepared a short questionnaire-checklist, below, to help organizations like yours determine their need:
| Criteria | Yes | No |
| Do we need to maximize uptime for all our IT systems, software and applications? | ||
| Do we need to avoid network bottlenecks? | ||
| Do we need to be notified immediately if our IT systems, software and applications perform suboptimally or experience unplanned downtime? | ||
| Are our IT support personnel away from their desks sometimes? | ||
| Do we need to reach our IT support personnel on their mobile devices in case an IT-related system incident occurs? | ||
| Do we need a single channel for receiving all IT alerts? | ||
| Do we need to be able to receive IT alerts automatically? | ||
| Do we need to reach our IT support personnel in more ways in addition to SMS and email? |
If your answer to all these questions is “Yes,” then you likely need a stand-alone IT notification management platform. However, we recommend that you discuss this with us, further, so you can be certain.
In summary:
- An IT notification management platform is an indispensable system if you wish to mitigate the risk of systems and applications performing suboptimally or experiencing unplanned downtime
- A smooth functioning IT infrastructure will result in improved operations and profitability
- For your assessment, you can self-answer the questionnaire to know if you need an IT notification management platform
