GigaOm Solution Profile: CloudFabrix

An Exploration Based on Key Criteria for Evaluating AIOps

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Key Criteria Analysis
  3. Evaluation Metrics Analysis
  4. Bottom Line
  5. About Ron Williams

1. Summary

The CloudFabrix AIOps platform automates the management and operations of IT systems and service assurance for both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure. The platform can analyze events and alerts from within or between complex deployments, such as multi-cloud and hybrid cloud.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the CloudFabrix AIOps solution is its use of distributed robotic data agents (RDAs) to acquire data from within the enterprise and edge devices. With RDAs, CloudFabrix simplifies and automates the processes of data acquisition, verification, enrichment, transportation, and remediation (when possible).

CloudFabrix’s AIOps Studio allows the creation of “pipelines” through which streaming data and metadata are consumed by bots at each stage, producing a complete data pipeline from source to destination. Pipelines are created in a CloudFabrix markup language and IDE using a low-code paradigm. The use of OpenTelemety allows that data to be consumed at multiple destinations.

Without a model, events are anomalies requiring human intervention. Data models and workflows must be created in AIOps Studio before the AIOps solution can create significant insights. The creation of a model can take days to weeks, and must be tweaked manually.

Support staff can enter the root-cause information in the incident system using a data model. CloudFabrix can then use the model data to remediate the incident should it reoccur, thus speeding up the resolution time.

CloudFabrix AIOps works well with other operations management tools and provides out-of-the-box integration with security systems and DevOps tool chains. For example, CloudFabrix can create an incident in ServiceNow, then instruct a staffing tool like PagerDuty or xMatters to identify an available on-call person and inform them of the incident. CloudFabrix continues to monitor the incident, closing out the ticket once resolution takes place.

CloudFabrix can create an Incident Room based on defined support groups, the discovered infrastructure, and business services. It also can ingest existing CMDB data. All affected stakeholder groups can review the proposed root cause. In addition, teams can create their own Situation Rooms for conditions within their world. The CloudFabrix AI learns from these situations and uses them for future analysis.

It is worth considering the ramifications of using a platform such as CloudFabrix. For example, within a network data stream, CloudFabrix correlates, deduplicates, and analyzes the data. If the data does not contain location information, the AI may also derive location data from server or network device names; however, there are often multiple naming conventions within large enterprises, some of which conflict with each other. CloudFabrix allows the enrichment of data streams with topology and context information from its AIA (Asset Intelligence Analytics) module.

How to Read this Report

This GigaOm report is one of a series of documents that helps IT organizations assess competing solutions in the context of well-defined features and criteria. For a fuller understanding, consider reviewing the following reports:

Key Criteria report: A detailed market sector analysis that assesses the impact that key product features and criteria have on top-line solution characteristics—such as scalability, performance, and TCO—that drive purchase decisions.
GigaOm Radar report: A forward-looking analysis that plots the relative value and progression of vendor solutions along multiple axes based on strategy and execution. The Radar report includes a breakdown of each vendor’s offering in the sector.
Solution Profile: An in-depth vendor analysis that builds on the framework developed in the Key Criteria and Radar reports to assess a company’s engagement within a technology sector. This analysis includes forward-looking guidance around both strategy and product.