AIOps : How an existing Site Reliability Engineering team can leverage Artificial Intelligence in their IT - Operations

Sammanfattning

Information Technology (IT) environments which host services such as web portals, emails, and search engines which we take for granted today run on an ever-evolving infrastructure which grows in complexity as it goes through its life cycle changes. Many of these environments are managed by teams such as Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams which have with the utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their daily Operations (AIOps) additional ways of managing this complex set of infrastructure components and services. The intent with this Bachelor thesis was to research and understand how AIOps could assist an SRE team in their day-to-day work and how it would impact the skillset of these engineers. The research focused on SRE teams and how they could leverage AIOps for key elements such as availability, monitoring, emergency response and forecasting when operating a platform or service. The research was performed by an extensive literature study as well as qualitative interviews with seven individuals working in the SRE field. The interviews were transcribed and the transcribed dataset from these interviews were used as part of a Thematic Analysis approach in effort to identify key themes within the underlying dataset. The conclusion of the research based on the performed literature study, the qualitative interviews and the thematic analysis is that AIOps which is a recent addition to the area of IT Operations will go through several iterations as AIOps solutions and related components mature. There are opportunities with AIOps across key elements of the responsibilities for an SRE team especially around event correlation, noise reduction, and pro-active implementation of sometimes typically reactive SRE processes. There are, however, foundational elements which will be required for these AIOps implementations to be successful, such as common datasets through a Centralized Data Lake, Centralized Architecture, Supportive Upper Management. SRE Teams with cross functional responsibility and focus will remain critical, but the readiness of AIOps for these SRE teams may vary depending on organizational maturity.