In order to implement and manage distributed systems, there is a need to use what is known as system management software. Assuming a company is big enough and has operations spread out far enough to warrant a distributed system, the advantages are fairly obvious. For a growing company, there is a cutoff point at which it becomes unrealistic to do individual installations on each station, and sort through the paper and electronic trail left by each user in order to centralize the entire setup.
Bring in system management at this point, and the benefits are massive and will ripple across every part of the company's operations. It reduces staffing needs and IT costs, enhances security and information sharing, and makes it easy to centralize data, monitor employee actions and network usage.
Installation & Management: The biggest benefit is in the form of automation of new installations and upgrades. If a company has 10 computers in the same office space, it's not that hard to do installations individually on each station. But that's out of the question for companies with hundreds or thousands of computers housed at different locations. When a company starts using servers and system management software, the whole process suddenly becomes automated, and needs less staff and less time.
Cost Reduction: There are no ifs and buts as to the cost reduction capabilities, regardless of the size of the company. Even for small companies, the only caveat is whether or not the company is capable of buying system management software and hiring a sys admin. Once these expenses are taken care of, the benefits in the form of lower IT costs are immediate and long lasting.
The real savings come from the capability to install new systems and software faster and at a lower cost. Companies start using client-server architecture, ERP and other kinds of enterprise level software and systems. It helps them expand, and open branches where otherwise it may not have been possible. End of the day, it leads to a massive makeover for the entire company, with large-scale improvements in distribution, productivity, work flow and reporting capabilities.
Security: System management has a huge impact on IT security. The same security settings are implemented on all stations, and any new policies are remotely implemented instantaneously on all the stations. Users can access any station and get the same settings and data, made possible by settings that apply to specific usernames and job or department levels. This makes the network more capable of withstanding external attacks.
Critical updates such as security patches for browsers and other software are automatically and simultaneously updated on all stations. This removes the threat of individual users ignoring update warnings for their own station. The same applies to updates for enterprise level anti-malware and anti-virus software. Hardware failure or data corruption on individual stations won't cause data loss because the data is being stored on servers with backup systems in place.
Monitoring: Other than automation and cost-reduction, the monitoring capabilities are perhaps the biggest benefit of system management. All the data flowing on the network is automatically centralized, and lends itself to greater monitoring. The network and system can be tweaked to adjust for utilization patterns. User activity monitoring helps management keep track of employees and their work patterns.
To summarize, the immediate advantages of using system management are very much real and the possibilities even bigger. End of the day, each company has to make an informed decision about this based on its own size and growth curve. A cost benefit analysis to figure out the ROI of system management software would be a good place to begin.
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