Business Service Management Hub

For several years, analyst told us that you must have Discovery in order to do a CMDB project.  Sure… I’ll buy that concept, but it doesn’t mean I have to start with it.  I think discovery does wonders for a CMDB, as long as your CMDB has a good way to drink from the firehose  🙂

One obvious starting point that is typically omitted is leveraging existing tools that do different types of discovery.  Connecting into the existing management tools to get inventory types of data about the devices is powerful.  Several of the tools are able to determine the type of hardware, OS installed and a slew of other tidbits.   Integrating with other tools such as Help Desk, Change Management and Asset Management systems can provide even more information such as the applications or services being used, potentially a list of the end customers/users in order to provide a impact mapping.

The typical difference between a management system that has discovery capabilities and a full fledge Discovery product is that the Discovery product also does relationship/dependency mapping while the management tool understands different levels of health and availability.  Both are useful, both are potentially good starting points.

A good starting point to feed the CMDB might be to connect into existing management tools, bring in the CI’s it knows about, the attributes it understands and then expand from there.  There are several silo’s of data to pull from.    Discovery tools typically work on schedules and sweep the network, integrating with the existing management tools provides a more up-to-date, closer to real-time update to the CMDB…. oh wait, that assumes the CMDB is able to consume it in that manner, the list of vendors just got real small.

– Tobin

The Hub Commentary_

I respect my friend JP, however, on this post I might have to push back a bit.  Business service management isn’t really a single tool, nor is it ITIL, but the practice of aligning infrastructure as services to facilitate the cost and value discussion.  That takes bringing many data points together to understand the infrastructure in a logical manner.

Discovery is a nice automation for input into knowing what you have and relationships, however, I have found there are many types of discovery.  Some are good at physical devices and configurations, others read network topology maps, some sniff network traffic and others listen to ports and communication between devices.  All add relevant pieces to the puzzle, but none are BSM or the CMDB.

It takes an integration platform to bring it all together, make sense of it and provide the best early warning view possible to mitigate risk prior to changes and in live environments.  It also could include business data and volume of transactions or value of those transactions to illustrate value of business impact at a point in time raising or lowering risk based upon true business impact.

Many tools have something to contribute to the practice of Business Service Management and it is the organization that can piece them together in the manner that best meets the needs of their business that becomes successful.

How do you define Business Service Management?

Michele

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I have in the past lamented the evolution of BSM into more of an ITIL support solution than the pure IT management project that we embarked on seven years ago. In the early years of BSM, we all were convinced of the importance of application dependency discovery: It was the bridge between the user, who sees an application, and IT, which sees infrastructures.   (Read Full Article…)

Earlier this year I suggested a prediction regarding the waning discussion of ITIL and this week I expanded upon that prediction in a post, “ITIL will be the end of ITIL”. The same day I posted my discussion, I received my brochure for the HDI Conference where Malcolm Fry is set to speak on “What’s up with ITIL?”.  The description starts with questions regarding the dying of ITIL, what’s going on, etc.  Defense – first indication that a wave is starting to swell in the market.

I received many great questions and discussion, which still says ITIL is alive and well in the ranks of IT organizations, trainers, consultants, certifying organizations, etc.  I do want to mention again, I do not see the practices and advice dying, going away or becoming replaced, just that the outward facing conversations will and need to stop being about ITIL and need to start being about the business service, value and performance.  ITIL is merely advice on how to manage your internal operations efficiently.

The catalyst in the market is the cloud and the explosive growth of service providers.  They need to have good operational processes in place or they are one outage away from being out of business.  However, the difference is they are not talking about ITIL, they are talking about the benefits to the business and the simplicity of running and subscribing to services in The Cloud.

The business leader has an internal organization  talking about justifying a CMDB project and a cloud provider talking about monthly subscriptions to online purchasing systems at a monthly or usage fee and here is a rate card, use it like a credit card.  Did I just see that leader walk away from the project justification discussion table and walk off into the sunset all googly eyed with the cloud service provider?

Last night I pulled another article from CIO regarding the innovation expectations the business has for its IT organization.  Embrace the development of innovating services and automate the commodity, routine, mundane that merely powers the lights – free yourself to drive growth.

I had a discussion with a very large and mature cloud service provider organization this morning on just the topic of providing the value add transparency on top of their services – the dashboard view that will communicate service performance to their customers.  The providers know that the business wants transparency and the providers want to insure that there isn’t a perception challenge regarding service delivery and the ones that will be most successful are baking it into there infrastructure and services from the beginning.  IT, are you or are you still talking about ITIL?

I’ve digressed, but the example is clear.  Those that sell technology services for a living know how to speak to your business leaders and how to bake proper service monitoring, management, measuring and communication into their services.  Steal a play from their playbook – implement and deliver the communication of service performance and service value into your services and sell your services, not the process of building services.

Are you communicating Service Value by selling the car or are you still selling the parts and directions as to how to build the car?

Michele

The Hub Commentary_

The theme of driving growth, innovation and value based upon the customer experience continues.  2011 will be a year of innovation and next year’s Fortune 500 list will see organizations swap places for the lead of their industry.  Very refreshing to see focus on technology again for innovation over back office automation.

My post of yesterday regarding ITIL generated many questions both in the Twitter and on The Hub regarding what replaces it and why did I post such blasphemy.  This article again solidifies the opinion.  The focus is the customer you sell goods and services to, not the end user in your company, technology for growth and innovation will be king in 2011.  Those focused on justifying ITIL projects will be left behind.

Again, I’m not against process for efficiency and there is a balancing act as this author states at the end of the article.  For far too long IT has been inwardly focused and thus turning up the heat of frustration by the business to drive to focus on services that your business offers to the market and driving growth.

I find this curious as technologist or maybe I’ve been on the software development side for far too long.  I thought most of us liked to work on new, cool, gee whiz things rather than just keeping the lights on.

Are you just keeping the lights on or driving innovation?

Michele

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Most of the CIOs I speak with are looking at the year ahead as an opportunity to drive innovation within their organizations, usually by automating back office activities. That’s a good place to start.  (Read Full Article…)

Service Value is the Next Generation!

Time for ITIL.  Year-end is always a good time to watch the predictions fly and I too had to add 4 to my friend Richard Whitehead’s post with his top 10.  In my post I made a prediction that this would be the year that ITIL begins to wane as a topic of conversation for a couple of reasons.  Last week reinforced one of those beliefs with a CIO article I commented on, “ITIL versus the Cloud:  Pick One”.  Even this week, I still cannot wrap my head around this article and this is where my reasons for ITIL waning is deeply rooted.

First, I will mention I have been ITIL Foundation certified 2 times (version 2 and version 3) and was around in the service desk world during the days of all the little books for version 1.  Yes, I started working when I was 12.  Seriously, ITIL is prescriptive, not a remedy.  It is guidance about processes, not a mandated set of principles by which to govern an IT organization to the point of suffocation.  I have done my fair share of consulting and once folks get past the hurdle that it is merely advice, adapt it to what makes sense in their environment without suffocating, then the sessions are more successful.  However, I find that ITIL is one of those topics I would rather not discuss in mixed company, much like politics or religion, as it brings out very passionate debates and you need to know the party lines to consult.

Why do I believe it is really waning, it’s an inward facing operational process that is expected, it is a consulting and training industry.  Business doesn’t want to hear about how you do your job, just that you do it, do it well and do it efficiently.  It’s like this, as consumers we take our cars to the shop for routine maintenance and fixes when things break and what we are most interested in is how much will it cost and when will it be done.  We don’t really care what processes and procedures the mechanic follows or how many certifications he/she has to perform the job, we just care he/she can do the job, do it well and cost efficiently.  So why is it as IT professionals we go to work everyday and speak jibberish to our business colleagues?

I would find it a safe bet that your business would love to hear you come in and tell them exactly how implementing an updated service, a new technology, or automating a process will reduce XYZ cost, will drive XYZ additional revenue and this is how we will monitor Service Performance mitigating risk of service impacting events.  Just as this article implies, ITIL is very silo focused still.  Sure version 3 speaks of a service lifecycle, lifecycle not so much on the service performance and value to the business.

Here is a picture to help explain, click on it to enlarge it.  ITIL is going through a process maturity as well.  Here are the stages:

• version 1 – Processes Identified as individual processes
• version 2 – Processes Integrated
• version 3 – Process Lifecycle
• version 4 – still to come and already too late

I’ll end with this, I’m not against ITIL if it is taken as a prescription, training, examples.  However, when it becomes the way we speak to our business and customers and our sole focus, I find it like new technology for the sake of technology.  When I read articles about How to Justify an ITIL Project to the Business, I know the service providers are knocking on your door to take over your data center because they speak in terms of creating efficiencies, saving money and driving revenue.

We have lost all focus when we start speaking in terms of a new technology not fitting ITIL and choose one.  In that situation, I’d leverage new technology and work to service enable it to manage it, control it and communicate the value it is delivering to the organization over ITIL as it is, again, merely training, prescription and examples

The only thing I can guarantee is change and technology evolution are sure things.  As technology professionals, we must be seeking automation, technology and methods by which we can start communicating to our business in their terms.  Communicating Service Performance, Growth and driving Value into our businesses is the focus of those that lead their industries with technology.

I believe the explosion of cloud computing and the service provider market will be the catalyst described by Nicholas Carr’s article, “IT Doesn’t Matter”.

I know this controversial, give me your thoughts!

Michele

Below are some of the common reasons that CMDB implementations fail.   They are in no particular order.

Lack of Management Buy-in

Face it, one group is going to be the buyer and installer of the CMDB, there are many other groups/departments that will be needed to help maintain the data as well as use the data.  If there is no edict to leverage ITIL processes, there is a good chance that the CMDB project will fail or more accurately… not get used.

Owner of CI’s do not have easy access

I’ve seen several times that the change management team/group are the buyer/install/owner of the CMDB.   There is nothing wrong with that, the problem comes in that they do not have buy in from the CI owners to help maintain (or validate) the CI’s, or the CMDB solution is cumbersome and it is implemented in a manner that makes it hard for the CI’s to be maintained.  The Change Management team doesn’t want to own the CI’s (and can’t/shouldn’t), but the owners are not able to easily access the CMDB.

Garbage in, garbage out (and/or stale data)

There are lots of sources of data to populate and maintain the CMDB, exporting XML from one system and importing into another system is only part of the process of ensuring data accuracy.  XML exports are not the only ways to integrate with other sources also.   Make sure the vendor has ways to filter out noise (who cares about an SSH session from an admin workstation to the server, it’s not a dependency).  If the there is to much data, it may be hard to find anything, if there is inaccurate data, no one will trust the CMDB.  Find the middle ground.

Lack of third party Integration

There are many reasons to connect to the products to pull in additional details.  You can think of some of these applications like mini silo CMDB’s.  The HelpDesk system knows anything and everything about customers, the asset system knows tons-o-things about servers.  Integrating with different sources is a great way to get started as well as ongoing maintenance of a CMDB.

100% or NOTHING

Do not fall into the trap of holding back releasing the CMDB to the company until it is completely done.   I understand that there needs to be a certain level of data witin the system before there is value, I understand that there needs to be processes in place to maintain the data and then there is the accuracy challenges.  The point is, pick a few slices of the entire pie, define what it is, set the expectations, roll it out, get some internal wins (and learn from it), then go after a few more slices of the pie.

Hard to search/find things

The interface must be intuitive, the end users shouldn’t have to understand a database schema in order to search for CI’s.   Many of the users will only log into the CMDB a few times a year.  A user should be able to hit some internal website, get forwarded to the CMDB interface, issue a search, press print and run off to their DR planning meeting (or Solaris migration project, etc).

Over designed/engineered Schema

For those doing a roll-your-own CMDB, good for you, it is nice that you are spending time to design the database schema and planning for the future… don’t get stuck planning for 2020, your plans for the CMDB and schema WILL NOT BE ACCURATE, accept it.

One Stop Shopping

We are looking for a CMDB, this is a good time to purchase a new Change Management System, Problem, Help, etc, etc, etc…. and you have just delayed purchasing and rolling out anything for the next 18  – 24 months between the pilots and lengthy executive signoffs due to costs and implementation time frame.   Again, good idea, they need to work together in harmony, you need a plan, you need interoperability, but you also need to solve some business problems sooner.

Bottom Up = WRONG approach

If you’ve ever talked to the builders or owners of a CMDB, many times it quickly gets down into the weeds of attributes, relationships, types of CI’s.  This is all interesting information and details but… who cares.   In the end, who is the target audience, what is it that they will need to get out of the CMDB.  Take a top down approach to the implementation.  If you have a clear vision (or atleast a goal of a vision), in turn it can clearly define the types of CI’s you will initially need, potentially the specific attributes and dependency information.   It probably help you determine what types of integrations the CMBD might need with other system in order to populate and maintain the CI’s.  If you take a bottom up approach for the implementation of the CMDB, you will get stuck in the weeds and you may not have a clear answer if the design/approach/solution/product/etc will meet the end users vision/goals.

Okay, for those of you not counting, I only listed 9, in the comments below… give me your 10^th one.  Don’t be shy, share a 10^th one or a funny story about one.

Tobin

I ran across this article the other day by Doug Mueller and it reminded me of the multi-layer Service Catalog.  I’m not sure if this is an actual term or not, but it’s a good description of what it is.  If you take a very large organization that is broken up into distinct areas such as the teams that support:

• Hardware & Operating Systems
• Technologies (web servers, databases, messaging bus, etc)
• Applications (email, timesheet, payment processing)

For mature IT groups, they typically will drive towards a list of supported hardware and support operating systems, they will also typically drive towards a list of support technologies that will be supported within the environment.  On top of these, some common applications (or services) are then provided to the employees such as email and the corporate web server.

If you walk through this, each of those teams has their own Service Catalog (and as Doug said, a Service Request Catalog).   Someone in the technology area, after significant research wants to make this new technology available for sharing documents.  The person requests from the hardware group for hardware and an operating system to be provisioned for this technology to run on.

Someone in the application area then decides to tie the document sharing, email, web and video together for a collaboration solution, so they in turn request services.  The end users then request access to the collaboration service.

I have seen a few different approaches to this such as different links on the internal website to request hardware w/OS and another set of  links to get applications/technologies installed to simple help desk requests.   Regardless, while it may not be a full fledge electronic Service Request Catalog at each layer, there are lists of approved hardware, operating systems and technologies for many companies.

Tobin

The Hub Commentary

The opening statement of the article says it all and what I heard is, “the technology and services are incompatible with our processes” and resistance to change and why I predicted the service providers will feast on data centers in 2011 in my predictions post and why I also predicted first in the list that ITIL will wane in the conversation.  Data  center staff has to wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak.  Technology is commodity, driving business is the value.  Think of it this way, when you go to the bakery do you care how they make the chocolate cake or do you just want to buy a chocolate cake?

It is no longer about the monitoring and managing of technology and configurations, that’s the commodity and those jobs are with the service providers.  The IT jobs are analytics, business performance, using technology to grow the business.  All three of my posts today are articles referencing the impending transformation that the data center must embrace in 2011 or be outsourced.

Business is frustrated with IT because IT does nothing but talk and impose “how” to manage technology on the business rather than delivering and driving services.  When you outsource (cloud, as-a-Service, take your pick), you are purchasing a service, not managing the infrastructure and how they manage their processes.  Define the contract, service expectation, reliability/performance/availability considerations and what you expect during an service impacting event.  That’s it.  The service provider is tasked with meeting that service contract and defining the processes that insure they do.

Now I also state in these conversations over and over again, many of these start-up service providers are one outage away from being out of business because they do not have good practices in place.  Yes, as a customer you should quiz and probe to gain comfort that they do know how to run the business (you notice I said run the business – not manage problem tickets), write the contract and manage to the contract.

I have several service level agreement posts and cloud service provider posts.  ITIL (I am certified) is advice on processes, not SEC filing rules for public companies.  ITIL and it’s followers will slowly fade into the woodwork if they do not embrace changing market dynamics and technologies.  The single biggest problem with ITIL that I will blog separately on is that it is still stuck in defining a life cycle, a process for the service and not how to deliver service value driving business value.   More on that another day…

2011 is the year of the cloud, virtualization, service providers, analytics for business performance and mixed /complex environments, not ITIL in the least.  Communicating performance inclusive of right sourced components as part of the service is the transformation goal.   No one will care how the data center communicates business performance, only that they do and drive value!

Are you communicating business performance and driving value or still communicating how you manage a data center resistant to the cloud because it changes a process?

Michele

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The Cloud is fundamentally incompatible with ITIL — the most widely accepted framework for professional IT management.  (Read Full Article…)

So you have a console that has your Business Service Management views.   You set up the views to show the key Services you are providing to your end customer(s) (EMail, Databases,  CRM, etc).  You somehow are bringing in monitoring data in order to light up the service views in order to show some type of condition and health. You figured out how to measure the Service Levels and provide all of these details back to the end users and management in a dashboard.  The question is, how do you maintain it?

If you have been following ITIL, one approach is to integrate the BSM solution with the CMDB solution (assuming they are different solutions).   The CMDB probably has discovery populating it with new CI’s and updates to CI’s.  The CMDB should have inputs to other systems for additional details around the CI’s.   In the end, the CMDB is the location for the factiods around the Services such as all of the CI’s comprising the Service, relationships between the CI’s, current configuration of the CI’s and so on.   If those details are available, why wouldn’t you use it to drive the way in which IT is managing the environment.   As things change within the enterprise, the CMDB is updated and in turn the BSM views should auto-magically update also.

Tobin

Tis the season for Vegas, gambling and the Gartner Data Center Conference and thus many top 10 Predictions for the coming year. I’m not a gambler, take these as you may, but for those who know me might say she might just have a bit of challenge the status quo in her and a knack for blowing things up from time to time. As a bit of a researcher of the IT management industry, these are just my musings to add to recent flurry of top 10 lists from my friends on WorkloadIQ and Baseline that sparked my imagination of further possibilities. Here goes, a tad controversial, I welcome the discussion!

• ITIL has reached its height in the America’s and ITIL will begin to wane in conversation. Data center efficiency is an expected given to the busines and are tiring of investing in inward focused programs and are demanding a focus on the top line versus the bottom line and deployment of agile technology for growth.
• ITIL will begin its next revision to release late to the wave in late 2012 in reaction to waning interest. Second rev took 20 years, 3rd rev took 6 years and the 4th rev is late. Service Value will take ITIL center stage in the 4th revision in advancing ITIL up the maturity curve from silos of processes, integrated processes, a service life cyle to finally focusing on the Service Value contribution.
• Service Providers will experience double digit growth driving the growth in IT Management Technology spend leading to new licensing models with lower up front costs and longer term revenue sharing with the vendors. The tide begins to turn with the customer to the vendors shifting toward the Service Providers. Growth in the Management market and the Service Provider market is driven by virtualization, private cloud and public cloud deployment.
• Management of the private/public cloud and virtualization is the make or break key to value and success, whether internal or external. Service Providers that ignore management are one outage away from being out of business and data centers that ignore management are in the process of being outsourced.

I’m not a gambler, won’t bet my house on these, but having been witness to the same new technology, IT Management and Sourcing cycles for >25 years (I started working IT when I was twelve I agree with Richard’s blog that we are at a tipping point. Sourcing options become appealing when the level of frustration for change is high and we are in a perfect storm of agile technology, sourcing options and an increasing focus on growth and innovation.

Those who embrace new technology and sourcing options and harness the power with agility for driving value with speed are those that will drive their industry. All you have to do is look at the annual F500 list and see who leads your industry and leads it by magnitudes greater than #4, 5, 6, etc. and you see those that lead with technology.

Which cloud does your data center choose to be on, the Cloud Leader or a Stealth Cloud Follower?

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library is designed to help cut costs and streamline IT operations, and is finding converts seeking to maintain regulatory compliance as well. Initially popular overseas, ITIL is growing in use in the U.S., where four out of 10 organizations will adopt it by 2007, according to Meta Group (now part of Gartner). Former Meta analyst Michele Hudnall, now director of service management at software vendor Managed Objects, recently spoke with Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie about the realities of ITIL and how corporate IT shops can make the most of their implementations.  (Read Full Article…)

This week, Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie chats with Michele Hudnall, director of service management at software vendor Managed Objects, about the realities of ITIL.  (Listen to the Podcast….)