This is the most favored approach for collecting and transferring information to Metricus as this does not require the development and modification of connectors. File transfer also avoids concerns around security issues (firewall, authentication, data) and potential impact on the performance of operational systems. Predefined Excel Templates are provided with the Metricus Modules and explain what data is required and how this data needs to be categorized. The file then is transferred from the source environment to the host environment and uploaded into Metricus.

The following examples show how File Transfer works in practice:

• HP OpenView Service Desk has standard views which extract data into text format. This is run daily and a copy is transferred to the Metricus Hosting server. Many standard IT Support/Operations metrics are available from these extracts e.g. SRs Created, Incidents Open, Changes Implemented within Target (by Priority), etc
• A customer outsources server management to a Managed IT Service provider. This provider produces operational metrics and provides them back to the customer via file transfer (XLS, Text, etc). This data can be used to populate IT Performance Metrics related to IT Delivery
• CA Unicenter is used. It provides ad-hoc data extracts via the standard web interface. These are manually loaded into Metricus on a regular basis

An example of a predefined Excel Template

This example can be downloaded as well from the following link