Lights Out By The Holidays?

Many homes and business go through great pains to have their lights on for the holidays. Over the years, during our 100+ blogs for the Help/Systems Robot product line, we’ve discussed many topics. Ultimately, the one that matters the most to me is lights-out automation. So, during this traditional time of lights on, let’s talk a little about lights out.

At the annual AFCOM conference, they used to hand out a button—“It’s Better With the Lights Out”—that signified you were committed to the automation cause. At the end of this year, are you any closer to lights-out automation?

Making a List...

Here’s a little checklist to help you check your progress:

• Has your run book shrunk?
• Has the number of consoles in your data center, NOC, operators' room (or whatever you call it) decreased?
• Do your backups run unattended?
• Can you automatically role swap with your High Availability (HA) solution?
• Do you know about problems before your end users call?
• Does your team have an automation expert?
• Do you manage your servers and processes by exception?

We know from experience that lights-out automation doesn’t happen overnight. It happens because of a strong, dedicated drive to run computer systems efficiently and unattended. So, maybe next year’s button should read "Lights Out By The Holidays".

Happy Holidays!

Tom