Posts from — June 2006

I’ve been fairly isolated this week working on my first big BSM engagement with a very large insurance company. I had a great week starting the process of guiding and advising this company on their BSM journey based on our Netcool/RAD solution and the BSM engagement methodology I’m developing.

I’ll be out on vacation in central Oregon through the 4th of July with my extended family. I’m not sure how much access I’ll have to the Internet, so things may be quiet here until I return.

• AlterPoint and Cendura Team to Deliver First End-to-End IT Change and Configuration Management Solution for Distributed Systems
  Available now, the Cendura Cohesion AlterPoint Adapter enables customers, who have both the Cohesion and DeviceAuthority software, to get a complete view of infrastructure changes, regardless of how those changes were implemented — either in band (throug
  (tags: NCCM Cendura AlterPoint ITIL CMDB)
• Siemens Signs Contract with Finnish Defense Forces for a Highly Secure Voice and Data Network
  For network and MPLS service configuration management, Siemens will supply the Redcell software from Dorado Software
  (tags: Dorado Redcell NCCM Provisioning ServiceAssurance)
• EMC bus BPM Startup to bolster Documentum
  EMC made another acquisition in a segment outside of pure storage today, picking up business process management (BPM) startup ProActivity to bolster its Documentum platform.
  (tags: EMC BPM)
• Oracle Reveals Event-Driven Architecture Suite
  Oracle Corp. (ORCL | charts | news | PowerRating), revealed the release of its Oracle Event-Driven Architecture Suite, based on Event-Driven Architecture or EDA. Oracle said it was the industry’s first integrated, standards-based product to help organizat
  (tags: Oracle EDA events CEP ESP)
• A Graphic Choice For EMC’s Process Management
  “We were pretty strong in the process modeling and process execution,” Ptacek said. “What we did not really address was what ProActivity is now bringing to us, which is business process analysis and business activity monitoring.” ProActivity’s business ac
  (tags: EMC BPM BAM)
• Systems Management Pipeline | CMDB: A Top-Down Approach
  Managed Objects Outlines a Strategy For Speeding Configuration Management Database Time-To-Value
  (tags: ManagedObjects CMDB ITIL)

• PRESS RELEASE ProactiveNet to Host Webinar on Linking SLA Compliance to IT Performance
  ProactiveNet, Inc., the time-to-value leader in Business Services Management (BSM), today announced that it will host a free, 1-hour webinar Thursday, June 22 at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) entitled, “Linking SLA Compliance to IT Performance: A Business Serv
  (tags: ProactiveNet BSM ITSM)

Atlanta Network and Systems Management Technical User Group

June Meeting Announcement

The Home Depot (THD) will host the June ANSMTUG meeting and Karen Terry
will be our presenter. Karen is an IT Architect at THD and a long time
and active participant in Atlanta’s network and systems management
culture. Karen’s presentation is very timely in this era of compliance
concerns and challenges. She will focus on server-oriented provisioning
and THD’s use of Opsware’s and other tools to achieve that. Karen will
talk about:

* Where Opsware fits in at THD in Change, Release Management

* Configuration and Compliance

* Thoughts on tools

Also, folks, Opsware is providing food and drink! Please help us out by
RSVPing (see link below) if you intend to attend so we can provide
Opsware a headcount to order the food and drink.

What is the ANSMTUG all about?

The Atlanta Network and Systems Management Technical User Group was
created to foster collaboration between administrators, architects,
engineers, and operators of applications and tools used to manage and
monitor networks, systems, applications, services, and business
activities.

There are numerous enterprise and service provider companies in the
Atlanta area who use best of breed applications and tools from companies
such as IBM Tivoli/Micromuse (Netcool), OpenService (NerveCenter), Quest
Software (Foglight), Hewlett-Packard (OpenView), EMC/SMARTS (InCharge),
Concord Communications, InfoVista, etc. The intent of the group is not
to be completely aligned with any particular vendor or solution, but
rather focus on network and systems management applications and tools in
general. There will likely be more focus on a select handful of vendor
solutions than others, but this will be driven by the users and not the
vendors.

Meeting Details

Cost: Free!
Date: Wednesday June 21st, 2006
Time: 7:00PM to 9:00(ish) PM
Host: The Home Depot
Location: 2455 Paces Ferry Rd., Atlanta, GA 30339

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&sll=33.873551,-84.462891&sspn=0.12
4852,0.336456&q=home+depot+headquarters&ie=UTF8&ll=33.92399,-84.462891&s
pn=0.249556,0.449066&om=1

Parking: Free. Details to come.

Refreshments: Food and drinks from to be provided by Opsware.

Please RSVP by Monday, June 19th, 2006 to rsvp@ansmtug.org
.

• RWonline - IT Service Management
  (tags: itil itsm)
• Businesses Gain Maximum Visibility with Ultimus Dashboard for SharePoint; Ultimus Dashboard provides rapid access to vital business information
  The Ultimus BPM Suite enables organizations to automate thousands of processes, resulting in improved productivity and accuracy, lower costs and higher customer satisfaction. By combining the new Ultimus Dashboard with the Ultimus BPM Suite, businesses ac
  (tags: BPM BAM)
• Cognos Selects webMethods for Internal IT Operations
  Cognos is also deploying webMethods’ business activity monitoring to provide the company with increased visibility and control over its IT operations and business processes. Specifically, BAM is being used to provide the business intelligence and performa
  (tags: Cognos webMethods BAM SOA)

• Managed Objects Announces CMDB360; Most Complete, Independent Solution Accelerates Time-to-Value of Any CMDB Project
  Managed Objects, the Business Service Management Company, today announced the availability of Managed Objects v4 and CMDB360, its next generation Configuration Management Database (CMDB) solution. CMDB360 combines a ground-breaking federation technology s
  (tags: ManagedObjects BSM CMDB ITIL ITSM)
• Gartner Report: IBM Maintains Worldwide Market Share Leadership in IT Operations Management Software
  IBM today announced that analyst firm Gartner, Inc. has ranked IBM as the worldwide market share leader in the IT operations management software marketplace based on total software revenue for 2005. This marks the fifth consecutive year that IBM maintaine
  (tags: Gartner IBM Tivoli)
• » Mercury goes shopping–HP and EMC nowhere to be seen | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
  Rumors have been swirling the HP or EMC would acquire Mercury Interactive, but for now the company is continuing on its own buying binge. “It’s further evidence that we want to be the acquiring company as opposed to the acquired company,” Christopher Loch
  (tags: Mercury ITIL ITSM)
• IBM Announces SOA Business Catalog
  The searchable services are really a combination of software code, intellectual property and industry-based best practices culled from internal—think WebSphere—and partner offerings. The catalog leads users to IBM and partner software that includes pr
  (tags: IBM SOA)
• IBM Releases Autonomic Software to Open Source
  IBM on June 14 said that it has released software to the Apache Open Source Foundation designed to help automate the detection and remediation application or transaction problems in the data center. ADVERTISEMENT The software, implemented at IBM as a part
  (tags: IBM Autonomic OSS)
• Bank Technology News | Network Management: Managing Radical Network Changes
  Overwhelmed by current business and regulatory complexities, banks are relying on automated configuration solutions to handle hundreds or thousands of network devices.
  (tags: NCCM changemanagement configurationmanagement ITIL ITSM CMDB)

Managed Objects has announced a CMDB product (or repackaging) today. I can’t tell from the PR and web information if it’s something new or repackaging of what they were calling Business Service Configuration Manager (BSCM), a vCMDB, or if it’s something completely new.

I’d certainly be interested in learning more on what’s behind the scenes and how they’ll integrate/enable process areas such as change, config, release, incident, etc. or how they federate and reconcile (metadata, schemas, etc.). Has Managed Objects been invited to participate in the CMDB Federation Consortium?

In general for any/all vendor CMDB solutions, how does one assess time to value, ease of deployment, integration or federation? What perspective is applied, the executives, the tools group, or the IT operations/support staff? Is this something that industry practioners should create guidelines for? A checklist or assessment rules of thumb? No IT environment is the same and they all generally have their fair share of COTS and custom applications/software and integration challenges (technology, politics, etc.).

Thoughts?

• BMC, Relicore Hone Configuration Management
  Clarity 4.0 integrates for the first time with IBM’s Tivoli Enterprise Console, allowing the tool to be launched from within the IBM console. The tool also automatically sends an event to TEC when it detects changes that occur in the structure of the appl
  (tags: Symantec Relicore CMDB discovery mapping topology ITIL ITSM)
• Entunity and Emprisa Networks Team Up - ebizQ
  Entuity™, Inc., the developer of the Eye of the Storm® (EYE) integrated network management suite and Emprisa Networks™, a provider of smart network change, configuration and compliance management solutions, today announced a partnership.
  (tags: Entuity EmprisaNetworks NCCM network monitoring)
• Compuware adds .NET support for app profiling - Computer Business Review
  Compuware’s Vantage Analyzer tool, which analyzes end-to-end performance for Java applications, now adds .NET support. The Java-focused product has been available for over a year.
  (tags: Compuware Vantage application_performance appmgmt monitoring)
• SchemaLogic·optimizing information access
  Ever had a conversation impasse characterized by “what we’re arguing about now is semantics”? In any communications system (from computers to conversation) organizations need to have agreement on the meaning of terminologies and their interrelationships i
  (tags: Modeling Schema metadata taxonomy SemanticWeb technology)
• Virtual Chargeback: IBM’s New Data Center Move
  It’s a breakthrough for I.T. managers, Big Blue claims—but industry executives say IBM may be a little ahead of the game.
  (tags: ITUAM IBM Tivoli ITIL ITSM)