IF-Map and the Orchestration Era

Organizations have made dramatic improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction by breaking down application and database silos. By linking Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems with order status, inventory and logistics systems, for example, customers can see product availability and track their shipments accordingly. Organizations gain can through reduced inventories, shortened delivery times, and lower customer support costs. Customers benefit from an improved shopping experience.

Still, many aspects of IT infrastructure and business operations do not benefit from integration and coordination. Many organizations lack real-time or historic visibility into their infrastructure or assets, and those that do have such visibility often see only "slices" of their infrastructure at a time because it’s difficult to integrate data across different systems. Critical systems such as network infrastructure, network security, building controls, power systems, physical security systems, asset management and others still operate largely in silos. The need to further increase productivity and the requirements for ever more detailed audit and compliance reporting drive the need to break down silos and integrate information across different systems. As such, organizations often end up with complex, brittle, and expensive customized solutions—or else spend an increasing amount of valuable time doing things manually.