The ITIL Request Continues To Evolve And Grow

Check out this enlightening article by ITSM Watch columnist Rob England on the evolution of the humble request from no standing at all to an equal peer of the Incident in the latest version of ITIL. The request continues to grow in importance with each new version of ITIL, writes ITSM Watch columnist Rob England. With the recent release of ITIL v3, the differences and changes should be noted when using ITIL for your service management framework. This article will help illuminate the changes and discuss the affect they will have on existing ITIL-based operations. Take careful note of his points regarding the SLA(s) as this is a point of continuing confusion for many. By the way ITSM watch is a great source of information on IT service management.

HP's New Approach To BSM - Groundbreaking or not?

Here is an interesting article on HP's new approach to BSM via the aggregation of some of their Openview elements with the Mercury software acquired earlier this year.  Their description of BSM does not really match up with what the analysts are saying though.   The analysts are prescribing to a BSM definition that takes business data and couples it with IT operations data in a manner that shows the true impact of IT operations on the business and vice versa.   I think this latter definition is revolutionary and insightful, while the description in the article is more of the same, in other words incrementally evolutionary...but not ground breaking from a customer's perspective.  What do you think?

The Evolution of Business Service Management - Part 1: Defining BSM

Welcome to the first posting in the “The Evolution of Business Service Management” blog series. So, we will begin with a definition of Business Service Management (“BSM”) and then cover the fundamentals of BSM in my next posting. My definition of BSM is derived from my recent experience as the Global CTO for one of the largest private equity companies. In this role, I continually saw that each of our seven + data centers, as well as, in the IT operations of most of our portfolio companies the proliferation of siloed point solutions each covering two or less of the elements of a critical service. For example: In one of our Asian data centers we had three network management products, eleven host or device-oriented point tools, five network monitoring products and at least five security products. Most of these were either not being actively monitored or they were not adequately performing the function in which they were purchased for. For that matter, three of these items were not even installed (“shelfware”). Needless to say this seems to be common amongst medium and large businesses, since most IT organizations do not have a cohesive strategy around monitoring and managing their critical services nor do they fully understand the business impact of the loss or degradation of these service(s) to the organization. BSM is both a strategy as well as, a framework within several service management strategies like ITILfor linking business processes and data with the critical IT services, so their true business impact both good and bad may be determined. This helps management understand the strategic value of their investments in technology and plan for its impact on the organization.  For more on BSM

Please note that even the analysts are having a hard time determining  a single concise definition of BSM.  This is because th idea of strategically aligning your IT organizations operational goals with the Company strategic goals in an actionable way has been a trial of errors till recently.   There are numerous vendors out there now trying to come up with a definition of BSM that closely relates to their current management or monitoring products versus producing a solution that aligns itself with the idea of true BSM.  So when selecting a BSM product be careful and do your homework. 

So, after reading this post and my definition of BSM…it is easy to understand how important BSM is becoming for IT organizations around the globe. The linking of corporate strategic goals and objectives with the IT operations in a measurable and actionable way is quickly becoming another major step in maturization process for world-class organizations.

The Evolution of Business Service Management - The Blog Series

For the past couple of years…I've been getting a lot of questions about business service management (“BSM”), and a lot of these questions seem to have common points of confusion.  Well…let me tell you I have been doing this for a while and I am the creator of the technology for the FireScope solution and I completely understand.  With so much information and disorder out there, it’s sometimes hard to see the big picture amidst the chaos.  Determining how things go together, why they are important and their value to IT organizations is puzzling at best.  Even the analysts have a hard time defining and determining what is and makes up a BSM solution.

So, I've put together with any luck, a more cohesive guide of key concepts, best practices, and innovations around BSM and converted it to a blog series that will seek to organize and point out things that are important when considering BSM for your IT organization.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting thoughts, ideas and concepts to make it more this series more useful.  I will kick the series off with some definitions ( areal source of confusion for many); fundamentals and early history regarding BSM’s evolution out of monitoring and network management, then go over the blueprint and concepts for improving IT operations using BSM, covering frequently asked questions and discussing ways to limit the areas of confusion, and noting best practices, innovations, and helpful tips for success along the way. Discovering the power and value of BSM through this series should arm you with the appropriate knowledge to ensure your IT organization realizes value from any proposed BSM deployment.

Here's a summary preview of what we will cover in this series:

• The definition of BSM; Intro to BSM fundamentals
• Early history regarding BSM’s evolution out of monitoring and network management
• BSM blueprint and concepts for improving IT operations
• Key factors when choosing a BSM solution
• BSM best practices and innovations
• Frequently asked questions about BSM
• Final Thoughts about BSM

Hopefully, this series will help you and your organization down the BSM path. So let’s get to it.