Does process matter? In the case of BSM, both technology and process are inextricably linked. On one hand, BSM technology brings together integration, modeling, automation and analytics – so IT operations have the necessary tools to quickly associate IT component failures with relative business services. Without technology, root cause and impact analysis must be manually discerned, which for at least one of our customers, takes as many as 35 people on a conference call.

On the other hand, without IT process regimen to ensure IT infrastructure change repeatability and continuous improvement, BSM technology will help to find problems faster – but it won’t help to reduce the risks introduced when changes are made to the IT infrastructure.

In both regards, BSM vendors have come a long way over the last five years. For example we’ve learned how to couple the capabilities of Service Catalog and Discovery with a detailed top down implementation process that results in successful BSM projects in as few as 90 days.

The aspects that vary from project to project are customer-specific – organizational processes or infrastructure – that makes each BSM implementation slightly different. This is where a vendor’s implementation experience matters most. To that end, we like to believe we’ve learned a lot in conducting more than 300 BSM implementations over the last decade.

Managed Objects fully agrees with the assertion that process matters…but we also believe that there are a number of generally accepted and well-defined processes and best practices associated with successful BSM projects.

- Dustin

A recent article providing SOA implementation tips argues in part, that SOA is a transformational technology with great value – but transformation comes with prerequisites for careful planning and implementation as opposed to something that is just dropped into an IT shop. For example, the operations and management of both the architecture and newly developed services need to be considered by IT operations.

More often than not, I find most IT operations groups are aware that a SOA is being designed, services (versus applications) are being developed, and business processes are being modeled and mapped to these services. However, IT operations groups often have ITIL process improvements and BSM initiatives underway and want to know how this new technology architecture will affect current operations, processes, and how they should plan for the future.

As such, I’m often asked, “Does your technology support SOA?” Quite simply, the answer is yes, Managed Objects can manage the new SOA infrastructure; provide bi-directional integration to a SOA-based infrastructure; and manage SOA services via integration mapping processes and transactions/activity to supporting technology.

However, the more important question that should be explored deals with dependency. What impact will this new architecture have on projects such as configuration management – as in the CMDB (also referred to as the configuration management system or CMS)? If IT operations thinks current CMDB projects are challenging – consider for a moment “decomposing” those legacy applications into many smaller pieces like Lego blocks: the complexity of the CMDB just exploded in scale and in the sheer volume of CI’s and relationships.

The future challenge and success will rest upon building sound change, configuration and CMDB foundation today. A well constructed CMDB will reap many rewards going forward regardless of new technologies and architectures.

SOA is dependent upon a CMDB that is constructed with the least amount of constraints and is flexible enough to receive inputs from different technology in the future to deliver to the requirements of the future as they evolve. Maximum control with the least amount of data is the best rule of thumb and do not be constrained by today’s technology and requirements.

- Michele

Few that would argue that rolling out a business service management approach to an organization is highly valuable and beneficial. One of the biggest challenges, however, continues to be what this BSM solution should look like to its consumers. Is it a dashboard with a stoplight like layout? Is it speedometer tracking how quickly things are moving along on a production line? Is it information laid out on a world map highlighting contributions from various regions to a global marketplace?

Consider this analogy to highlight just how important this look and feel really is – I like eggs and toast for breakfast, as do a lot of other people. The raw contents of this breakfast are the same for everyone but preparation and layout will absolutely determine how successful breakfast is on any given day. It will determine how likely I am to recommend the meal to other people, how much satisfaction I gain from eating it, and how much value I associate with it as an everyday exercise. For the record, I like mine prepared as two eggs over hard with wheat toast cut in half on either side of the eggs, almost like a face. How many possible permutations are there? A lot.

Building dashboards at the presentation layer of a BSM solution is arguably the most important and most difficult task during any deployment, akin to making breakfast for a group of people all of whom agree that they want eggs for breakfast but can’t always articulate how they want them prepared or presented. This is exactly why in selecting a BSM vendor, it is absolutely crucial to evaluate flexibility in presenting information and also being able to change it very quickly to look like something completely different. In addition, the ability to quickly add/modify/delete the data feeds allows for new ingredients to be added to the mix so that the presentation layer can truly take on the shape that the BSM user community needs.

All this flexibility comes with its own challenges, the most significant of which is soliciting user feedback and building in mechanisms for comments, suggestions and approval from the user base. It’s one that is certainly reflected in the feature development cycle of a lot of companies, in particular ones with varying types of users. MySpace’s SVP of Product Strategy described their approach of soliciting feedback using blogs along Tom Anderson’s profile. A similar approach was described on CIO.com's blog.

These approaches can be creatively applied to building and maintaining a relevant presentation layer for a BSM solution by allowing communities of interest to provide feedback and suggestions on what they would like to see. It is then up to the administrators of the system to extract themes and concrete ideas from the feedback stream and construct new views. These should then be promoted in Beta form to further distill them, and then brought to the full user community. Sound like a BSM group inside of a larger enterprise social network? You bet.

Analysts in both the US and UK have been anticipating Microsoft’s move to extend its IT management capability into the Linux and UNIX platforms. For example last fall at Gartner’s ITxpo, one analyst theorized that if application vendors moved into the IT management space, it would be game-changing.

There is little doubt Microsoft’s move will make ripples in the market. The company has incredible influence in so many aspects of IT, that if this proves a serious commitment to IT management, there is a high probability for success. That success will likely come at the expense of incumbent vendors – mainly by way of taking market share from the Big 4.

By expanding beyond the realm of Windows it is conceivable that customers might find it attractive to extend their existing MOM implementations to other platforms. However, this does not guarantee gentle westerly winds nor smooth sailing since there are several market dynamics and competitive factors that will influence how – and how quickly – Microsoft’s initiative evolves.

First, cost reduction and cost containment are perhaps the most substantive pressures on IT decisions today. As such, it’s reasonable to expect the Big 4 will respond to this event with more aggressive pricing. In this approach, Microsoft will essentially be trading space for time, and slowly chipping away at Big 4 revenue streams. This will weaken the Big 4 over time.

Secondly, there will remain some doubts in the market as to Microsoft’s credibility. For example it will have to prove it can manage mission critical environments as well as the incumbent vendors. This means IT decision makers will see tremendous risk in migrating to a Microsoft management platform – which can prove to be a difficult and time consuming sales objection to overcome.

At the same time, the Big 4 are investing in two key product functionalities that will extend the vast distance among product innovation that Microsoft, despite its prowess, will find it challenging to cover. Mainly these investments are in behavioural logic – the detection of unusual activity that provides predictive capabilities – and data centre automation.

Perhaps then, Microsoft has long range plans to move into the BSM space given it’s newly found operating system independence. BSM is still very much a level playing field with the Big 4 attempting to buy (rather than innovate) their way into a space with more agile pioneers, like Managed Objects, where our vendor neutral approach and pervasive integration is proving a difficult capability for them to match.

- Jim

It's not surprising to us that analyst firm Forrester has predicted that companies will spend nearly $5 billion on Web 2.0 technologies – blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc – over the next five years. Social networking has become the next generation of knowledge management, but it is one where user adoption is driven by the end user: think Wikipedia.

Social networking has dramatically changed the media landscape in North America. Blogs enable individual consumers to change corporate behavior and have taken the limelight for breaking political news by framing election issues on cable networks. In fact, during live coverage of the presidential primaries, CNN often runs segments reviewing the latest buzz in the blogosphere.

The Economist magazine says that blogs have affected Britain differently, as most of the major news networks rather than Web savvy upstart pundits have been the dominant force However, the government in London may have been faster than its Western siblings to grasp how Web 2.0 can involve the populace in more effective policy making.

With the ability to capture knowledge, interact more closely with constituents, shape viewpoints, and ultimately influence behavior, its no wonder Forrester foresees sizable corporate investment in Web 2.0. Enterprise social networking is, in essence, $5 billion worth of industrial strength fun.

Managed Objects has been no exception. Internally, the company uses Twiki to easily and rapidly communicate about support issues, software development and generally share tribal knowledge. Externally, we’ve launched our own blog with the intent of contributing to public discourse on BSM with other blogs engaging in discussions on future directions of IT, and inviting interaction from the ITIM community, including our customers. We’ve also been quick to innovate our product line – as a long time provider of role-based dashboards, we launched myMO (my Managed Objects) last fall as a Web 2.0 front end for BSM.

And there’s more to come, we can promise that!

- Dustin

Over the past couple of years I have grown to find that there is no other combination of 4 simple letters of the alphabet that can stir as much passionate debate as these do within the world of IT. We all know better than to speak about politics and religion in mixed crowds, I add CMDB right up there with those two topics in the world of IT technologists.

ITIL carried the promise of clear, concise and standard definition….right up until you get to the CMDB. All the topics of ITIL leave room for interpretation, however, the interpretation of just what is a CMDB and just how to implement it can become a powerful debate amongst IT professionals. So much so I consider it a 4 letter word when I speak to IT professionals, until I better understand their “religion” on the topic.

Never do I consider anyone’s view of their CMDB inaccurate, each environment carries with it varying objectives, technologies and processes by which the CMDB can be delivered. I recently had articles published in The Data Center Journal and ITSMWatch.com on CMDB and several key questions often arise when I am out in the real world talking to the folks in the day-to-day trenches:

Who owns and updates the CMDB?
Simply put, everyone does – that is everyone with a vested interest and use of the CMDB. It must be considered a corporate asset and source of “information” and “data”. The more that contribute to it, the more accurate and richer it becomes.

That said, yes, there must be an organizing and policy body that sets the rules for standards to insure consistency. However, it should not restrict the free flow of update, meaning it should not force a single person to perform all updates. Policies, standards and audit notifications should drive the enforcement of standards consistency without crippling the free flow of data.

Why consider implementing?
The 4 letter word often sends shivers down the project owner’s spine, “what did I do to get tasked with this beast?”. Fair sentiment with the crossing of so many organizational barriers this task brings with it. Technology projects are never difficult (work with me on this) until they cross organizational boundaries and then the organization behaviors tend to slow down forward progress of the project.

In this case, data is just that until it is correlated and related to other bits of data turning it into information by which to take action and perform analytics for the growth of the organization. Without a mechanism by which to bring this data together, track it and provide a vehicle by which to apply the intelligence, the sheer volume of data would never expose the actionable information that leads to an agile and growing organization.

So don’t fear the CMDB, embrace the opportunity to contribute to a network of information that begins to connect the whole of the organization over time with true actionable information.

-- Michele

As the saying goes, all politics are local. This adage seems to be true, even for Global 2000 companies with thousands of IT components cast around the globe.

In the second part of a blog series that examines future directions for IT, Arthur Cole commented, “…rather than simply deciding which box to plug in where, more and more CIOs are finding themselves at the crossroads of competing strategic influences.” I contend that strategic influences sometimes clash with local politics.

IT organizations invest big money in consultants to develop the perfect criterion by which to evaluate a short list of vendors. Features and functions, ROI and even compatibility or integration with the existing environment, usually top the list. However, unlike the binary or rules-driven logic of the technology so central to our livelihood – whether a consumer or supplier – as humans, there is always an element of subjectivity in any decision.

Political influence extends far beyond the classic case – where an enterprise architect by way of design mandates what tool IT operations will use for monitoring – to the affinity individuals develop for specific brands or products. Some have invested so much time and effort into a given tool or project, in many ways their careers are intertwined, even dependent on its success.

As a result, over the many years I’ve been selling software, I’ve sometimes won and sometimes lost as a result of this phenomenon. In some cases prospects with a bias towards a rival product have effectively killed deals – and on the other hand, I’ve observed some of my customers rise quickly through the ranks based on the results they were able to achieve with our product.

In either case, politics is most certainly and dynamically linked to IT.

-- Randy

I recently attended and enjoyed the DatacenterDynamics Command and Control conference in London. With increasing energy costs and growing environmental concerns optimisation of the datacentre has become topical. I gained an insight into how sophisticated facilities management (FM) in the datacentre has become. There are many technologies in the datacentre that require management: Fire detection systems, power and thermal, security, CCTV etc. Adding to this array of technology, the latest chip designs reflecting cost and environmental concerns include power and thermal monitoring and the ability to throttle back.

There appears to be general agreement that to attain an optimal datacentre requires a convergence of the FM and IT disciplines. Many believe it would be beneficial if the cost of the datacentre fell within the IT budget. IT would then be compelled to take responsibility for this aspect of IT costs. Such a convergence is challenging, since the management tools and the cultures of FM and IT are different.

The danger to avoid is creating silo’d management systems that restrict us into making isolated non-holistic decisions – that is, technology decisions without an awareness of the business services that are involved. In IT management it is now well accepted that service management rather than the traditional component management is the optimal way to manage IT systems. This service management concept needs to be applied to the management of FM technology. So for instance a decision to throttle back would be taken with full awareness of what business function the server was supporting.

Business Service Management (BSM) has proven very successful in bringing this business service perspective to IT and it would seem logical it can also accommodate FM. BSM can be envisaged as consisting of three tiers:

1) The first integrates with the existing management tools. This could easily be extending to incorporate the FM management tools.

2) The second tier models the services and once again could easily incorporate the FM components.

3) The third provides secure views tailored for different user groups and would provide personalised views for FM community user groups.

The advantage of converging the FM and IT management domains at the BSM level is you get a service perspective, making for better informed decision making, and a more common level of terminology, improving communications.

It will be interesting to see if BSM can bring these anticipated benefits of a more efficient and effective datacentre through the service perspective and the cultural alignment.

-- Jim

There were a lot of acronyms and keywords being bandied about at Gartner ITxpo this year. A Google search on the minds of the attendees would have generated a lot of hits on SOA, Globalization, Sourcing, Enterprise [Web] 2.0, “Free” Software, SaaS, and Cloud Computing. Social Networking was also an interesting thread that passed through all the other topics that attendees were abuzz about.

A large majority of the exhibiting vendors of course tagged their displays, demonstrations, and 30 second pitches with these terms to ensure that they too garnered as much attention as possible. I had a number of discussions with existing Managed Objects customers as well as parties interested in BSM about these trends and how to incorporate them into a cohesive strategy.

The BSM approach to dealing with these varied (and sometimes opposing) technologies is to focus on the service as a whole vs. individual moving parts and silos. As a customer of the power company, I expect that a flip of a light switch produces a predictable outcome every time – the lights come on. If they don’t, I don’t expect to hear details from the power company about all the potential issues that they are looking into ranging from failures in relay stations, downed power lines, problems with grids in neighboring states, etc. I count on them knowing the scope and source of the problem very quickly and getting it resolved. Electricity is an essential service and that level of understanding of what’s going on in the various moving parts of the power business is crucial.

Translating this type of operational model to IT management is what produces an effective BSM strategy. With IT becoming more complex (SOA, Enterprise 2.0, open source) and diffuse (Globalized, xSourced, SaaS, Cloud Computing) simultaneously, it is crucial to provide the best-of-breed management solutions for SMEs in each of these areas. Stopping here, however, leads to the all too common trap of too many tools and not enough answers. The key ingredient is a federated system that combines KPIs from each of the specialized solutions and allows a business level view to be constructed from it, that is, a true Manager of Managers with customizable dashboards for all parties with a vested interest in service availability and performance.

Implementation of this BSM strategy requires access to data connectors that span multiple vendors’ management solutions, expansion opportunities for the next generation of platforms, and most importantly – an analysis engine that can handle the complexity of the combined data feeds and make it available to a flexible presentation layer for the users of the system.

Although there were many different solutions to these challenges presented at ITxpo, a successful BSM deployment should offer a simple and personalized iGoogle-like experience for managing and viewing content of underlying IT infrastructure and the applications that run on top of it, and that’s one thing that everyone agreed on.

-- Abbas

Long time CMP writer and veteran technology watcher Penny Crosman recently blogged about a flood of new start-ups developing solutions aimed at reducing data latency for financial institutions. For example, one provider offers “software that sits on network switch mirror ports and monitors the traffic going by, combined with correlation algorithms that, the company says, can pinpoint latency to the box level.”

While such a tool may pinpoint latency to box level, component-based management only takes you so far. The next step absolutely must be to put this information in a business context - to understand the effect of any single box’s latency on IT’s ability to deliver business services. This is important because financial institutions often have tens of thousands of servers (among other components) in their enterprise, which means potentially tens of thousands of latency alerts. Without business context, the question becomes, ‘which latent box do you fix first?’

One way would be to incorporate Business Service Management (BSM) solutions to allow IT operations to make this determination quickly and easily. BSM manages IT from a holistic, service perspective, and dynamically links the underlying IT components according to the business service they provide – so, for example, IT operations can place the latency at a box level in the context of business impact. Since BSM platforms can integrate to a range of heterogeneous IT management tools from performance monitoring to service desks, it may prove more useful than trade data latency monitoring tools.

In many ways because of their reliance on technology, financial services institutions were among the early adopters of BSM technology in the late 1990s. Today, BSM has evolved to include a range of modular components to include discovery, service level management (SLM) and the configuration management database (CMDB) or as ITIL perhaps more aptly calls it a configuration management system.

-- Jim