ibm service lifecycle management final

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----------- 2009 Ptak, Noel & Associates LLC -----------

IBMs Service Lifecycle Management

Many IT process integrations to date have focused primarily on

processes for IT Operations, as well as interlinked Service Desk

and Operations processes. IBMs recent Dynamic Infrastructurefor Service Management announcements extends IBMs service

management capabilities not only within the data center, but IBM

continues to expand its reach to monitor and manage business

assets in selected industries (energy and utilities, healthcare,

banking, and chemicals and petroleum). In addition, IBM also

broadens its span of service management capabilities with

integrations aimed at helping service desk, operations, testing

and development staffs manage the Service Lifecycle, which they call Service Lifecycle

Management.

The term integration is used ubiquitously for a wide range of functionality in our

industry today. A high level review of IBMs new functionality included a list of new

integrations in Service Lifecycle Management. In order to understand what these

integrations are, PNA investigated further by viewing demos of a few of IBMs new

integrations. Some are enhancement to already existing integrations, while others

actually extend the Service Lifecycle from service desk, to IT operations, to Testing and

Development teams. Whats interesting is it allows each group to use the tools that they

use to do their day-to-day jobs, and IBM is providing the integration between the tools to

enable smoother handoffs and communication. Lets look at a sample of IBMs new

service lifecycle management integrations.

Enhancing the Software and Hardware Connection

The first steps toward a more Dynamic Infrastructure require that the various software tools

supporting the infrastructure are integrated with each other, and in many cases with the hardware.

The operations group in the datacenter gets bombarded with information from different software

tools and they have the task of putting it all together to solve any problems that might arise. One

key point is that the software that discovers a problem might not control the resource necessary

to fix the problem. In this case, the operations staff must understand enough about the problem to

decide which software product controls the resources and can fix the problem. Then, they need to

communicate what the problem is and decide on a fix. A good example of this is the interactionbetween a hypervisor like VMware, IBM Systems Director and IBM Tivoli Monitoring. The

hypervisor may discover a problem but it may not have the ability to fix it.

IBMs integration of VMware, the IBM Systems Director and IBM Tivoli Monitoring shows

how software integration can ease this problem for operations staff. When VMware discovers a

problem with a virtual machine, the Tivoli software is able to detect the problem and suggest a

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IBMs Service Lifecycle Management Page 2


solution. Then, the situation can be easily passed to the IBM Systems Director to be fixed. For

example, if the problem is related to the use of memory by the virtual machine, IBM Systems

Director can power off the server and then power it up with more memory to correct the problem.

Other hardware-related problems detected by the hypervisor can be handled in a similar fashion.

IBMs integration of these products streamlines the resolution of problems discovered by the

hypervisor but requires the IBM Systems Director to perform the actual fix. Today, IBM

supports VMware and IBM Power in this combination but shortly they plan to support

Microsofts Hyper-V and IBMs KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine, a component of Linux)

hypervisor.

We believe this case illustrates how the road toward a dynamic infrastructure will require

more integration of the software in the data center. It is error prone and time consuming

to expect the operations staff to manually provide the link between different software

products needed to analyze and remediate problems occurring in a dynamic data center.

Connecting Service Desk and Development

IT processes requiring cooperation between Service Desk and Operations teams, such as change

management and trouble ticket tracking, have been streamlined through integrations between

Service Desk and Operations tools. But what happens when the issue reported to the Service

Desk is an application software issue that the development team needs to work on? The service

desk and operations team uses a trouble ticket number to track the status of a reported incident.

On the other hand, the development team uses a unique defect tracking number in its defect

tracking system to track the status of a software issue. IBM integrated its service desk solution,

IBM Tivoli Service Request Manager, with IBM Rational ClearQuest to help the service desk,operations and development staffs by synchronizing the two tracking systems. It automatically

includes the trouble ticket number with the associated defect tracking record. And conversely, it

includes the defect tracking number in the trouble ticket for better coordination between the

teams.

In our experience, enterprise Service Desk, Operations and Development teams

typically operate in distinctly separate silos, using their own tools and processes.

Although IBMs integration may seem like a small change, it could have an impact on the

productivity of organizations with internally developed applications. As an incident gets

handed over from one group to another, and then to another group, the communication

and coordination can become confusing and frustrating when several groups are usingdifferent numbers to track the same issue. This sharing of tracking information across

service desk, operations and development aids in better communication and

coordination as they work together to resolve the issue.

Users should note that this integration is out-of-the-box for organizations using both IBM

Tivoli Service Request Manager (service desk) and IBM Rational ClearQuest. If you are


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using another service desk or defect tracking solution, you will have to build your own

integration. However, IBM informs us that this integration was done using the open API

available with these solutions. So those customers using another vendors solution with

one of these two products can use the open APIs to integrate their tools.

Connecting Operations and Test/Development

In this case, IBM is extending the life-cycle of managing applications outside of the Operations

group to Development and Testing groups while catering to the unique aspects of each groups

responsibilities.

For example, the Testing groups view of solving application problems is different from

Operations. The Operations team is under the gun to fix application problems immediately,

resulting in real-time and by-any-means-necessary aspects to their approach to solving problems.

When testing groups become involved in application problem solving they are often tasked with

determining how to eliminate recurring problems. Their pressures come from trying tounderstand baseline application behaviors, recreating problematic conditions in a lab

environment and performing gap analyses, even as the actual production environment changes

over time.

This is a fundamentally different job than real-time problem solving. However, for it to be done

effectively, testers should have data about the behavior of test transactions under different types

of normal and abnormal production conditions. However, trying to get Operations attention to

run a set of test transactions during a real problem resolution situation is like shouting into a gale

force wind. Operations experiences similar frustrations when the Testing team is unable to

recreate problems based on data provided.

This situation is only exacerbated if the groups are also separated by a wide gulf of non-

integrated tools where staff must play manual conversion games between different data formats,

naming and categorization conventions.

What IBM is trying to do with its new integration between Rational Performance Tester and

IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager is to simplify and automate the information hand-

offs between Test and Operations, to minimize:

The manual effort to massage the data into a format their tools understand so that the

tester can get to doing their real job -- data analysis,

The length of time between data request and delivery, and

The number of person-to-person requests needed to get the info that people need.

We believe that part of the value of doing this is ratcheting down the level of frustration

that occurs when working with people outside of your particular realm of expertise --

when this friction is eased the business benefits with productivity gains that span the


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organization. It is an interesting paradox -- reducing the number of times people HAVE

to interact to get what they need to function can improve the quality of interactions that

ARE conducted.

PNA PerspectiveIBMs latest Service Lifecycle Management integrations, released as part of their

Dynamic Infrastructure announcements, is less about technology and more about

streamlining processes as they are handed off from one self-contained group to another.

At first glance, Dynamic Infrastructure conjures up images solely of virtualized servers,

cloud computing or other provisioning-specific technologies. And those technologies are

certainly part of IBMs Dynamic Infrastructure. However, what we find most interesting is

IBMs extending of the service lifecycle to include processes that span more broadly

across service desk, operations, test and development teams. Sharing information

between these disparate teams, and especially automating this sharing, facilitates these

groups to begin working together or working together more effectively.

Reducing frustration and friction between groups by smoothing the bumpy road that

interconnects one group from another can actually increase the dynamism of an

organization. This could be significant, particularly as organizations use web and

composite applications with shorter and more frequent refresh development cycles. If

this is the case, Dynamic Infrastructure does mean more than quickly-provisioned, virtual

servers, storage, networks, etc. it should also include all of the processes that extend

across the entire service lifecycle, and that includes software development and testing.

One limitation of these lifecycle integrations is that they are only out-of-the-box betweenthe selected IBM solutions. As such, customers with non-IBM solutions will not

immediately reap the full benefits. However, in fairness to IBM, they cannot be expected

to include integrations for all possible OEM solutions. However, customers can use the

integrations that IBM has done as models for writing their own integrations using IBMs

open APIs. It is also possible that other vendors may choose to support integration with

IBMs product.

The Final Word

IBM extends the service lifecycle from service desk, to operations, to testing, todevelopment teams. Bridging the gap between operations and the test/development

teams have always been a challenge for IT management vendors, particularly when it

comes to user adoption. Will IBM be successful this time? Only time will tell. If IBM

customers can begin bridging the gap without the teams knowing it, through their

automatically shared information, perhaps the walls will crumble slowly. We hope to see

more of these wall crumbling integrations and enhancements in months to come.


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Publication Date: November 10th

2009

This document is subject to copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any method whatsoever

without the prior written consent of Ptak Noel & Associates LLC.

To obtain reprint rights [email protected]

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While every care has been taken during the preparation of this document to ensure accurate information, thepublishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. Hyperlinks included in this paper were available atpublication time.

About Ptak, Noel & Associates LLCWe help IT organizations become solution initiators in using IT management technology to business problems. Wedo that by translating vendor strategy & deliverables into a business context that is communicable and actionable bythe IT manager, and by helping our clients understand how other IT organizations are effectively implementingsolutions with their business counterparts. Our customers recognize the meaningful breadth and objectively of ourresearch in IT management technology and process.www.ptaknoel.com

About the Authors

Audrey Rasmussen leverages her experience of over 30 years in theinformation technology industry, to help her clients as they navigate through theaccelerating changes in the information technology industry. Over the years, shehad developed experiences in various contexts (expertise in systems andapplication management, working with very small companies to very largecorporations, industry specializations, business focus, and technical focus),which combine into unique insights into the information technology industry.Previously, Audrey served as vice president at Enterprise Management

Associates, where she focused on systems and application management. Shewas also a systems engineer at IBM, where she supported customers with small-to-medium sized distributed systems, as well as industry specialties. Audrey wasalso co-author of the Network World Fusion Network and Systems Managementnewsletter for several years, and she is widely quoted in publications such asNetwork World, InformationWeek, Computerworld and eWeek. Audrey holds aBachelor of Science in business administration/finance from the University ofSouthern California

[email protected]

Jasmine Noel has 10 years experience as analyst and researcher. Noel servedpreviously as director of systems and applications management at Hurwitz Group,where she formulated and managed the companys research agenda. She wasalso a senior analyst at D.H. Brown Associates, where her responsibilities

included technology trend analysis in the network and systems managementspace. Noel is regularly quoted in publications such as CIO Magazine, eWeek,InformationWeek, InfoWorld, and NetworkWorld. She also has contributedarticles to several leading publications on various IT management topics. Noelholds a bachelor of science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology anda master of science from the University of Southern California.

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Bill Moran is an experienced IT analyst with more than 35 years experience inbusiness. He has managed projects in several companies including IBM,Coopers and Lybrand and most recently for D. H. Brown Associates and IdeasInternational. As a Senior Vice President for research at Ideas, Bill wasresponsible for delivering consulting projects for the companys clients whichincluded IBM, Sun, Microsoft, HP, etc. Bill worked with the clients to determine

their requirements and structure the project. Bill managed other consultants todeliver results for these companies. However, he was also hand-on on many ofthe projects to guarantee client satisfaction and on time delivery. For Ideas, hehas published white papers on a range of technical topics. Earlier at D.H. BrownAssociates he managed teams of instructors in developing classes on a range oftopics for the companys clients. He taught these classes on a worldwide basisfor clients. He has also presented to major organizations in the computer industrylike Share and Guide. Bill is currently Research Director at Ptak Noel Associates.Bill has a Bachelor of Science from Fordham University with a major inMathematics and is a graduate of IBMs Systems Research Institute.

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