Wrapping Infrastructure with Duct Tape, Glue and Software

I had 15 minutes to kill and PowerPoint 2013 staring me in the face, so...  I got to thinking how "managing" an IT environment ends up being a slice-n-dice approach involving a multitude of products. Some of which don't talk to each other very well, others requiring a combination of multiple products in order to achieve greater capability.  And then there's the "in-between", which is where the infrastructure developers of the world live.  They are the glue that binds this tenuous web of licensing horrors and data silos.

This is where my brain lives 99.99% of the time.

The coolest part of this?  When opened in PowerPoint, when I drag a selection window over the large circled objects, and then drag them side to side, the connecting lines move with them in real time.  It's kind of nerdy, but fun.

My Home-made Legend:

• AD = Active Directory
• HRIS = Human Resources Information System.  A generic term for any system for entering, tracking and managing employees or organizational members.
• SCCM = System Center Configuration Manager.
• SCOM = System Center Operations Manager (with/without Orchestrator).
• NMS = Network Monitoring/Management System.  A generic term for any system for monitoring the network environment and sending alerts when problems occur, as well as (optionally) providing a means for remote management of network equipment.
• Licensing = A hodge-podge of spreadsheets, Word documents, Access and other databases, piles of paper, folders, sticky notes, all collectively used for tracking what was purchased, who purchased it, when, for how many users, expiration dates, contract numbers, points of contact, vendor information, yada yada yada
• Lifecycle Tracking = Another hodge-podge of spreadsheets, Word documents, Access and other databases, piles of paper, folders, sticky notes, all collectively used for tracking purchase and warranty information for hardware such as computers, printers, routers, hubs and switches, telephony, copiers, blah blah blah.