IT Innovation-Unifying Infrastructure and Service Management

GoldMine Datasheet Title Subtitle: Reinvent your Sales, Marketing and Support Proceses IT Innovation 1 SUCCESS KIT Table of Contents Chapter I: Jumpstart IT Innovation 2 Business Expectations Rise, Pressure on IT Intensifies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 An Innovative Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Unifying Infrastructure and Service Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Jumpstarting the Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Use Case 1: Employee Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Use Case 2: Software Upgrade Requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Use Case 3: Remote Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Use Case 4: Reactive Break/Fix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Use Case 5: Proactive Patch Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Chapter II: A Prescriptive Path for Implementing the Service Catalog and CMDB Together 6 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Roles and Interrelationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Service Catalog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Service Level Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A Prescriptive Path for Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Service Catalog: Begin with the Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 CMDB: Federated Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Service Level Management: Business-centric Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Service Example: Tying it Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 About FrontRange Solutions 11 2 IT Innovation SUCCESS KIT Chapter I: Jumpstart IT Innovation Business Expectations Rise, Pressure on IT Intensifies Improving business processes was the No. 1 business priority for the fourth consecutive year in Gartner’s worldwide survey of 1,500 Chief Information Officers (CIOs).1 Business process improvement is just one part of an overall focus on strate- gic contribution that the business is expecting from CIOs. In addition, 83% of the CIOs in the Gartner survey anticipate significant change in their enterprises over the next three years. These priorities and predictions pose a challenge for overburdened IT organizations. Traditional management processes cannot scale to address an environment of change and growing IT complexity. Workflows must become more automated and integrated to optimize efficiency. Operational ex- ecution must more closely align with service processes to contain costs. As IT evaluates opportunities to innovate, they will naturally look for solutions that bring together technology silos to deliver strategic differentiation. An Innovative Approach A new, innovative approach to IT is required: the unification of IT operations management and service management. Combining PC lifecycle management and IT service management tools can facilitate improved business processes when operational execution is tightly coupled with the control process. PC lifecycle management solutions are focused on opera- tional execution, helping ensure that system availability is high and that IT assets are optimized throughout their lifecycle. By contrast, service management products are focused on control processes and function to ensure that service quality, customer satisfaction, and first-call resolution levels are of a consistently high standard. Unifying Infrastructure and Service Management Blending these critical applications and unifying infrastructure management and service management enables IT to meet rising expectations by delivering broader and more proactive services to the business. This innovative approach benefits customers by increasing first-contact resolution rates and enhancing infrastructure availability. Cost savings are realized when the service desk is armed with tools to perform remote desktop support, reset passwords or redeploy problematic software in an automated fashion. Service levels are achieved when first-line support can deploy standard changes with automated service request fulfillment processing. Jumpstarting the Process Below are five tangible use cases that can jumpstart your unified infrastructure management approach. As you use these innovative processes to solve traditional problems, you will be laying the groundwork for end-to-end automation, merging control processes with IT operations systems. This distinctive approach will bring together the capabilities, processes, and resources within your cross-functional IT teams to meet rising business expectations. Use Case 1: Employee Provisioning Use Case 2: Software Upgrade Requests Use Case 3: Remote Control Use Case 4: Reactive Break/Fix Use Case 5: Proactive Patch Management 1 “Making the Difference: The 2008 CIO Agenda,” Gartner, Inc., January 2008 IT Innovation 3 SUCCESS KIT Use Case 1: Employee Provisioning In its 2008 benchmark report, Aberdeen Group observes that while many businesses focus on metrics such as time and cost to hire an employee, it is actually the time to productivity that is critical for new employees.2 When a new employee starts his first day with his workspace and phone, computer, required software and email fully functional, he can hit the ground running. With the rapid pace of employee transition, you need automated tools to simplify new employee provisioning as well as internal moves. Your company has hired a vice president of marketing, and a “new employee setup” is requested from the Service Catalog. Once the requester submits the service request, auto-tasks are routed to various departments including human re- sources, facilities, and IT operations. Behind the scenes, standard provisioning policies have pre-established the appropriate hardware and software to be issued based on the employee’s job profile: a dual-core computer with 2GB of RAM and the entire Adobe CS3 suite of software might be appropriate in this example. Automated business processing with PC lifecycle management identifies the new “bare metal” PC in inventory, auto-boots the system, then selects the software profile and installs the operating system and applications defined in the standard configuration. Typically, within an hour, the configu- ration setup is verified, and the task is automatically closed in the service desk. The unified infrastructure management approach allowed the service desk team to access policy-based compliance to drive provisioning. Additionally, the governance burden and costs associated with desktop configuration management are reduced and the process transparency required for regulatory audits is achieved seamlessly. Use Case 2: Software Upgrade Requests Policy-based compliance is introduced to reduce unauthorized changes to a server or an employee’s PC. However, there are many cases where individual needs dictate an addition or upgrade to the standard software profile. When a user submits a valid request, IT must respond quickly to ensure the employee remains productive. A marketing department employee is using Microsoft Project to manage a partner marketing campaign, and needs to col- laborate on the project plan with the partner to hit an end-of-day deadline.