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LeanIX Whitepaper-Metrics en

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White Paper

LeanIX Metrics - data is only valuable


in the right context

Contents INTRODUCTION
Introduction "There was 5 exabytes of information created from
the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much
Case Study: better decisions information is now created every two days."
with Metrics in a business context
This 2010 quote by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt indicates the increased
5 Scenarios solved
significance of data and information, which continues to grow. Modern IT
with real-time metrics
organizations are at the center of this development. An immense number
of expert tools generate a waterfall of data from the fields of development,
Just get started and
iterate quickly operations and business.

Summary The real task is to use this data in a meaningful way. As the challenges that IT
organizations are facing are substantial. They can no longer limit themselves
to simply keeping operations running. Internet giants such as Amazon, Apple,
Google or Facebook spoil their customers with user-friendly services and
products and have thus raised the bar high for all other companies in the
digital age. The concept of big data represents a possible solution in this
area—using data to gain a better understanding of the end-user in order to
make better decisions. However, the results were often sobering. Dynamics
and complexity in the application environment fueled by cloud computing and
API transformed the usually vast information initiatives into a nightmare of
complexity. As a result, silos of information sources without any real business
reference are produced which are hardly useful for making decisions.
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is the discipline which The challenge: creating business context
generates precisely this business reference for IT- for metrics
generated data. In the past, however, the statistical Confronted with these challenges, business managers
and often too abstracting nature of the results made recognize that they must react more flexibly to the
them barely usable. The consolidation of Enterprise dynamic behavior of customers. An information
Architecture methods and real-time metrics thus initiative is launched to use the data generated in the
offers a large opportunity to solve both specified sets IT environment for better decision making. And there is
of problems: placing data into the right context and no shortage of data.
bringing EA initiatives closer to the pulse of digital
transformation. A variety of expert tools generate a flood of data. The
insurance company implements dozens of tools in the
BETTER DECISIONS WITH areas of business analytics, IT development and IT
METRICS IN A BUSINESS operations. Development tools, code management
tools, data management software, service desk tools,
CONTEXT—CASE STUDY performance management tools, logging tools, IT asset
“74% of the companies surveyed indicate management tools and business intelligence tools
generate information more and more rapidly.
that there is no or hardly any integration
between IT and business metrics.”1 However, this information is not very useful for business
Imagine a renowned insurance company in the year decisions. CRM solutions generate data structured
2016. Business has hardly changed throughout the according to customer accounts, development tools
years. But suddenly customers want to get in contact according to "user stories" and monitoring tools
and interact with their insurance representatives via according to entities or servers. There is no context,
completely new channels. The still static company no common denominator. Due to the sheer volume
website becomes insufficient, mobile solutions must be and speed with which the data is produced, business
provided and the application environment, grown over analysts are swamped with data and are unable to put
time, must be expanded with innovative cloud solutions. it into a meaningful context for the decision makers.
Moreover, several experts need to become involved
Furthermore, the insurance provider appears to be for simple analyses. Consequently, analyses require
confronted with a new kind of competitor for the first long processing times for simple questions. Fast
time. A great number of startups compete with their improvement cycles are thus impossible.
increasingly successful, innovative concepts and take a
significant share of the market.

1
Gartner (2015) Survey: Are Your Business and ITOM Metrics Fully Integrated

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This problem does not just affect insurance companies. A fast and iterative approach is the second important
Gartner predicts: "In 2017, 90% of the information from basic requirement. The resulting metrics must be easy
big data initiatives will only be available in isolation and to use for business analysts. For example, it must be
thus will not be usable."2 In particular, such isolated flows possible to aggregate data to different time periods
of data can no longer satisfy the paradigm shift towards for every end-user. It must also be possible to add
a continually more integrated model of "business," new reports quickly and without extensive expert
"development" and "operations," or "BizDevOps" knowledge. In the past, simple requirements quickly got
for short. out of hand and turned into long development projects.

Giant information projects often run out Solution: Create a business context with
of steam Enterprise Architecture
But what is the solution? Large-scale information
The insurance provider has already focused on
initiatives were launched in the past with a lot of
Enterprise Architecture (EA) as an important link
enthusiasm. But the giant programs eventually ran
between IT strategy, operations and development
out of steam due to increasingly significant problems
for several years. The team's self-image has rapidly
concerning inconsistent and redundant data, antiquated
transformed over the years. While they merely used to
data warehouse systems and organizational trenches.
be modelers of the IT environment, today they ensure
effective communication and information exchanges
To avoid making the same mistakes, the insurance
between different stakeholders.
company establishes some framework conditions. The
new data view should conform seamlessly to existing
structures. Business capabilities and an application
repository are already securely anchored in the
reporting and organizational structure. Therefore, real-
time data should be processed in this context.

Figure 1: A multitude of expert tools generate data that land in silos without context.

² Gartner (2014): Information Innovation Key Initiative

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The leader of the EA team sees a major opportunity in To gain a better understanding of the risks of obsolete
the integration of real-time metrics into his existing EA interfaces, all transactions for each interface are
information platform and reports to shape the digital represented in a metric each day.
transformation of the insurance provider more rapidly.
He can now make future- and user-oriented suggestions With the help of LeanIX Metrics, data points can be
for the first time: How does the new rate comparison easily displayed in various diagram models in the
on the website catch on with our customers? Which context of fact sheets. A variety of applications are
areas of our software for calculating individual policies possible due to the increasing popularity of APIs in
are prone to error? Can the back-end manage twice as modern IT organizations. The procedure is simple: The
many users? time periods are defined with the corresponding metric
characteristic based on the data source. These are
The Project Steering Committee decides to initially sent to LeanIX Metrics via the API. Every data point is
integrate the real-time data from three IT expert marked in LeanIX to ensure that it appears in the right
tools into the EA solution LeanIX, which has been fact sheet. Representation of the data can be configured
successfully employed already: The login data of the without programming work.
recently updated mobile app is linked to the number of
implemented features from the development tool Jira.
The availability of the ten most important applications
from the portfolio is visualized with up-to-date data
from the monitoring tool Pingdom.

Figure 2: The application in the EA inventory is combined with real-time metrics.

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Result: Real-time IT data enables better Use of existing structures
decisions Since the EA repository already exists and is anchored
The piloted initiatives bring initial results quickly. in the organization, a new logic based on which the data
Data for decision-making is now available without is structured does not need to be developed. Similarly,
manual effort in the information platform. More all data sources are already available. Gathering
metrics are iteratively added, discarded and further existing data can be achieved much more quickly than
developed. Data and information now allow a dynamic developing and building up from scratch. This saves a lot
development of the IT environment and no longer stand of money in comparison to large business intelligence
in the way. For the first time, the automatically collected solutions.
data allows analysts to identify interrelations between
business, users, development and operations. Easy usability for analysts
IT data analysts are in the position to perform their
Better and more reliable decisions with data evaluations quickly and without help from experts.
Much is already gained by effectively using and Diagram types can be easily modified. Data can be
incorporating the currently available IT management aggregated arbitrarily and applied to various time
data in daily decision-making. The insurance intervals. As a result, dependencies, which lead to long
company's problem was not the lack of data. To the response times for simple questions, disappear. Even
contrary, the sheer amount of data available was the training effort is reduced due to the intuitive and
what made it so difficult to put it into a meaningful modern user interface.
context. Information is made easily accessible with
metrics in the context of the LeanIX EA platform— Merging of functions such as "Biz" "Dev"
beyond functions, processes and organizational units. and "Ops"
As a result, important decisions are now supported Business models change in digital times. Insurance
by real facts. companies must react to new competitors, communicate
with their customers via new channels and convert
Iterative improvement and orientation their data into cash. The integration and exchange
to the future of information are now core competencies. New
The lean metrics setup allows for the quick operation models that bring together development and
integration of new data sources and the testing of IT operations more closely, DevOps for short, require
various visualizations. As a result, improvements agile teams and therefore subsist on integrated and
can be made quickly in short sprints based on the freely accessible information.
needs of the business. This facilitates a must-have
capability in the digital age: Short improvement cycles
based on real user feedback. Now data is no longer
analyzed retrospectively, but available information is
extrapolated into the future in real-time.

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5 APPLICATIONS SOLVED WITH Measuring the use of applications
There is very little transparency on the use of supplied
REAL-TIME METRICS applications. How many end-users really use the 365
Understanding the availability Degree HR Feedback Tool which costs 100,000 Euros
of applications in annual license fees? And how often do they use it? Can
It is important to continuously monitor the availability we switch to a cheaper license or are there any other
of websites and web-based applications in order to be tools available in the company with similar features?
able to solve problems quickly. Modern tools, such as
Pingdom, test the availability of web applications with In Metrics, this data can be transferred to the correct
real-time inquiries every few minutes and facilitate fact sheet, i.e., the appropriate application, via the API.
quick trouble shooting if problems arise. As a result, decisions on the meaningful use or further
development of an application can be made on the basis
Modern monitoring tools and their functionalities are of real data.
invaluable in daily IT operations. However, the data is
naturally granular. Subpages and numerous entities Integrating customer service data
must be monitored. In LeanIX Metrics, data points The web-based software Zendesk, in particular, has
can be aggregated to a meaningful level for strategic revolutionized the customer service of many companies.
decisions. This helps decision makers understand The software bundles all customer communications
whether a specific application fulfills the SLA (Service in one place. Thus all communications are managed
Level Agreement), whether more revenue can be from a single system independent of the channel of
generated with higher availability or whether a communication. The quality of customer service can
communication measure for customers is necessary be assessed and improved based on detailed figures
during malfunctions. and reports.

Understanding interface transaction This is valuable information for managing the IT


environment. As a result, applications can be expanded
volumes
to provide information on the number of open tickets
In modern IT environments, interfaces play a
or average problem solving times. This helps draw
continually larger role. They represent dependencies
conclusions on sensible ways to further develop an
in the environment and can become a risk if many or
application and on whether improvements would result
very critical transactions are handled via an antiquated
in better support figures.
interface. Therefore, it is important for decision makers
to obtain the following information: Which interfaces
are critical? What happens if a critical interface
malfunctions?

There are even special tools that can be used for this,
such as AppDynamics. These tools detect and monitor
transactions on the code level. An integration with
LeanIX offers the advantage that information is put into
a clear context. In order to make good decisions, the
granular data must be linked to end-users and business
implications. LeanIX enables one to easily understand
the effects that the malfunctioning of a critical interface
has on other applications, users and the business.

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Visualizing IT costs in a business context
Managing IT costs is a complicated topic for many
businesses. It is quite often difficult to superimpose Many types of costs can be easily displayed for an
accounting & controlling perspectives on required application with the Metrics add-on. In this way, license
decision-making perspectives. LeanIX offers a costs, for example, can be visualized for an application
meaningful structure for decisions with applications without needing to wait for IT controlling assessments.
that support business capabilities.

Figure 3: Overview of selected LeanIX Metrics applications

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JUST GET STARTED AND ITERATE
QUICKLY
Quick results are a critical success factor for every Transferring data to LeanIX Metrics via
information initiative. The starting point is therefore an
the API
obvious business problem that can be solved by new or
better data. For example, businesses have to understand All development resources for LeanIX Metrics are freely
which financial effects, such as lost sales, result from a available. The code example shows the basic principle. A
system failure. Only then it can be determined, based new data point is set up for a "measurement," e.g. CPU.
on the data available, how much effort should be spent This data point has a time reference, e.g. 2016-04-22
on preventing malfunctions. 23:30. A field indicates the characteristic of the data
point, e.g. the CPU "load." The fields are clearly assigned
The integration of data from various expert tools in to a specific fact sheet in LeanIX, e.g., to an application,
LeanIX is easy and does not require in-depth expert over the course of a day. The data points are transferred
knowledge. to Metrics via the LeanIX API.

Figure 4: Exemplary code snippet which shows how data points are transferred to LeanIX Metrics

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Configuring diagrams Displaying Diagrams on Fact Sheets or
Diagrams can be configured in the LeanIX Admin under Reporting
section without requiring programming expertise The view of the metrics can again be adjusted on
from the end-user. Metrics can be allocated via rules the respective fact sheet. Thus it can be determined
to specific fact sheet IDs or fact sheet types. Based on whether diagrams are displayed side by side or on top
the type of data, a suitable diagram type can be selected of each other. Furthermore, the end-user can aggregate
and parameters such as chronological aggregation or the time data at will via the scroll bar.
colors can be adjusted as desired.
Specific metrics not only refer to a fact sheet, but also
apply to an entire fact sheet type, for example. These
metrics can be conveniently displayed in the reporting
section.

Fast iterations can be performed with the use of existing


data sources and easy integration in LeanIX Metrics.

Figure 5: Configuration of the metric diagram

Figure 6: LeanIX Metrics can be displayed on individual fact sheets or comprehensively in reporting.

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SUMMARY
A multitude of expert tools generate a flood of data in New metrics can be created easily by the companies
companies which lands in isolated data silos. Making themselves. As a result, many applications can
this data useful is a critical skill for making faster be quickly implemented—from the monitoring of
and better decisions in a digital age. LeanIX Metrics application availability to IT cost management.
combines real-time data with the existing Enterprise
Architecture Repository and puts it into a meaningful
context.

Copyright
© LeanIX GmbH. All rights reserved. LeanIX, the LeanIX logo and all techniques are trademarks or registered trademarks of
LeanIX GmbH in Germany and/or other countries. All other products or services are trademarks of their respective companies.

This document is current at the time of its initial publication. LeanIX GmbH reserves the right to alter it at any time. Not all
offerings are available in all countries.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLICIT.

About LeanIX

LeanIX offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for Enterprise Architecture (EA), which enables organizations to take faster,
data-driven decisions for their IT landscape. More than 80 leading brands such as adidas, DHL, Merck, Vodafone, and Zalando
use the innovative solution worldwide. Users of LeanIX gain insights on how to organize and leverage their IT landscape to
increase competitiveness and enable innovation going forward. LeanIX addresses the frequent problem that the required
information about the IT landscape is missing, outdated, or difficult to analyze. Use cases include application rationalization,
technology risk management, and the shift from monolithic architectures to microservices. LeanIX was founded in 2012 by
Jörg Beyer and André Christ. The company’s headquarter is in Bonn, Germany, with offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and
Houston, Texas. A wide network of partners provides support in America, Europe, and Australia.

LeanIX GmbH
Bonn
Germany

Tel: +49 (0) 228 2862992-0


Email: info@leanix.net
www.leanix.net

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