How Automated Alert Management Helps Improve IT

Putting it simply, automated alert management takes the work out of managing critical systems. With automated and customizable actionable alerts, IT teams can track systems, users, problems and changes proactively. It also helps reduce alert fatigue by targeting just those members of the IT team who need to be involved to taken action on specific alerts.

Legacy Alert Management Methods are Prone to Error

With hundreds of information systems to manage in an enterprise, system alerts can slip through the cracks and get overlooked even with all possible checklists and procedures. As enterprises grow, so do their teams, services/ products, and the number of external tools deployed throughout the organization. For IT teams, that can translates into code sprawl, data silos, alert fatigue, and several “not again!” moments. Sadly, legacy alert management methods are unable to manage the volume, noise, and disruptions that come with a growing business, and also make it hard for IT personnel to see the issues that actually matter and solve them faster.

In such a scenario, it helps to have an automated alert management system to take human error out of the equation, free up the IT services desk to handle critical interactions and improve the IT team’s response time. Sub-optimal security alert management based on legacy technology, or – heaven forbid – spreadsheets, inevitably leads to an over-worked IT team and an organization that’s still susceptible to multiple security threats. IT heads need to ask themselves five key questions to assess if their team can handle incident alert management effectively:

• Does the current platform trigger alerts for all security events, or do security instances regularly go undetected?
• What percentage of the alerts do not indicate real security events?
• How many alerts are triaged in a given time period?
• How quickly is the IT team able to resolve alerts?
• Are alerts assigned to the right people and are they assigned the right priority?

Automating monitoring and alerting of security threats helps IT teams better support business growth, and can lead to highly efficient, data-driven workflows.

Benefits of an Automated Alert Management System

1. Set IT Alerts for any system

A comprehensive library of alerts across the stack lets you monitor critical systems, users, or changes, while giving you the convenience of creating an IT alerting system. 

2. Create customized alerts

An alerting system is not a one-size-fits-all tool. Automated alert management can pinpoint any piece of data from any system and create specific thresholds you want to alert on. When you automate your custom monitoring system, you can enjoy features that resolve critical issues and give your IT team the time to focus on more important parts of their job. 

3. MSPs Work Smarter

MSPs function as an extended arm of your IT security team. They need to ensure that actionable alerts don’t fall through the cracks. Customized alerts help by categorizing alerts and monitoring response times. 

4. Improve overall IT management

A central alert management system ensures real-time alert targeting and helps eliminate staffing errors and work redundancy, increasing operational efficiency. An automated incident alert management tool will allow IT teams to extract actionable information from IT applications and systems. Based on pre-determined roles, responsibilities, and skills, the incident alert management system will automatically contact the IT person best suited to address the incident on the device they prefer, and then escalate automatically if required. The team also has access to the right tools to access internal systems and address events from anywhere. With the delivery of actionable information, users benefit from real-time, targeted delivery of service support information and IT services. An automated alert management tool consolidates and accurately targets alerts across the global enterprise by integrating with a range of proprietary and third-party service delivery and service support applications.

Streamline IT Service Delivery and Support

Enterprises typically build in-house software or applications in order to address IT service delivery and support issues by trying to link incompatible and disconnected notification systems. However, when this myriad of notification systems for different service applications work together, duplicate alerts are often sent to several IT team members at the same time, resulting in IT personnel working in parallel, duplicating efforts and wasting resources, eventually delaying resolutions. Besides, the IT team has the additional task of maintaining and upgrading these proprietary, usually in-house built, alert management systems, which can be costly and difficult because these tools do not easily integrate with new technologies or scale as the enterprise grows.

By setting in place a well-designed and efficient automated alert management system, IT teams can ensure that it integrates with service delivery and service support applications even in the most complex IT environments to consolidate and target alerts. The result will be a most efficient communication between applications and their users.

How Alert Fusion can help

We improve incident response management by replacing your manual or legacy alert management system with a centralized and automated workflow platform.
By centralizing event data and automating alert management, your IT team can handle a larger number threats in the same amount of time, with the right amount of effort and ensuring an effective resolution. A centralized dashboard provides the team with a comprehensive picture of the organization’s current security preparedness and immunity to threats.

Want to learn more about how automated alert management improves cyber security?
Connect with us at info@alertfusion.com