Posts from — April 2007

The documentation has always been above par from my perspective for the former Netcool/RAD product. The release of TBSM 4.1 kicks it up a notch in what appears to be the norm for IBM Tivoli. While most of this was just a “bluewash” of what we had from the Micromuse days, we have added a few more valuable pieces of content.

• Exploring IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager 4.1: Good overview of key features and functionality. Presents an approach for developing service models in TBSM 4.1 in a step by step manner. I’d start here if you want to get a good overview and to put some thoughts into how you might begin post installation.
• Release Notes: Provides latest information about the product discovered late in the test cycle that cannot be incorporated into the other publications. Check this out for things to keep in the back of your mind as you plan your installation.
• Quick Start: Short and simple overview information about simple TBSM installation. Anything other than that you’ll need the Installation Guide.
• Installation Guide: Provides information about installing the product. This is a must read to get up to speed with the new features that now surround the core TBSM 4.1 product. If you’re coming from a legacy Netcool/RAD background, review this. Everyone that’s new to TBSM 4.1 will use this as their introduction to the product and the other Netcool products under the covers. You may need to review other Netcool product manuals to really understand what your options are for more advanced installations and configuration options.
• Administrator’s Guide: Provides information about managing and configuring TBSM. This is the core foundational administration manual for what you’ll be doing during and post installation. A ton of information in here on the new capabilities surrounding the product such as integrations. Use the Service Configuration Guide for the core design and configuration tasks.
• Service Configuration Guide: Provides information on how to use the features of the product console. This is the core design and configuration manual for all things service model related. How to build templates, instances, rules, visualizations, etc. Print this one off!
• Customization Guide: Provides information on how to customize select features of the product. This will give you some insight into what you can do above and beyond the standard configuration and application of TBSM 4.1 features and functionality. There’s a lot more that’s needed in this manual for sure, but it’s a start.
• Scenarios Guide:Provides information how to use key features using test data installed with the product. This is our tried and true “teach it to yourself” manual. It’s a bit dated and could’ve used more content and scenarios, but it serves its purpose. Use this to walk you through application of key features and functionality. Check out the contrib directory as well for more scenarios and demos.
• Troubleshooting Guide: New manual with useful information about resolving common problems with the product. I hope this is updated frequently with real world information from our support, services and development groups. You can also watch the RSS feed from the TBSM 4.1 support site on known issues, PMR’s, etc.

The online version of the TBSM 4.1 Document Library is located here.

I’d enjoy hearing your feedback on these manuals and where we can improve. I will ensure your feedback gets back to our documentation team. (Keep up the good work Richard and team!)

• Survey: Ever Elusive ”Five Nines” Availability Remains… Ever Elusive
  Ninety-seven percent of the world’s largest companies expect at least a few hours of consequential downtime during key periods in 2007 – rendering attainment of “five nines” availability (99.999%) an elusive IT goal. Further, a nearly unanimous co
  (tags: managedobjects MO bsm business-service-management outages businessimpactmgmt availabilitymgmt uptime)
• BMC Dashboards for BSM
  BMC Dashboards for BSM enables the linking of critical IT process into a dashboard view that provides aggregated performance indicators within a single pane of glass. By providing a consolidated, graphical interface of best practice IT metrics for inciden
  (tags: BMC business-service-management bsm itsm itil !=bsm)
• TechIQ » Archive » Goodbye, Tivoli… Hello Open Source?
  Perhaps GroundWork has a point: Roughly 55% of recent survey respondents (106 responses) said they would consider open source alternatives to those offered by the Big 4 (up from 29% in 2004 survey).
  (tags: OSS groundwork IBM Tivoli)
• Proto: Blog: RSSBus feeds Proto your business data
  (tags: rssbus mashup enterprise2.0 bsm2.0 bsm-edge Proto)
• Proto Software
  (tags: mashup web2.0 development visualization enterprise2.0 bsm2.0 aggregator)
• The CIO Weblog: Enterprise Information Ecosystem - RSS
  Are these the parts of the Enterprise Information Ecosystem of the future?”, Which would cater to all the information gathering, distributing and compilation needs of the enterprise
  (tags: pipes proto rss rssbus enterprise2.0 bsm2.0 bsm-edge)

• Network Simulation and Application Response Time Monitoring from Itheon Networks
  (tags: itheonnetworks WAN simulation application_performance appmgmt user-experience)

Is now online at the IBM publib site. Expect more IBM Tivoli microsites (product, support, etc.) to start showing up as they move through the final stages of the release process.

TBSM 4.1 Document Library

• IBM provides free ITIL how-to tool - Network World
  IBM today will make available an update to a free tool that provides IT managers with access to best practices surrounding IT service management and governance frameworks.
  (tags: IBM Tivoli ITUP ITSM ISM servicemanagement bestpractices)
• Nagios network monitoring felled by SNMP false alarms
  “We were struggling with monitoring,” Shin said, but that may have been an understatement. Things were so bad, in fact, that at one point last year he contemplated disabling the monitoring application altogether because it was doing more harm than good.
  (tags: OSS Nagios systemsmanagement networkmanagement monitoring)
• Indicative Takes On Big 4 in IT Service Management
  Key among the new features is a Real User Monitoring option integrated with the core product that measures the actual user experience. The core Indicative product combines passive monitoring of the elements that make up a service with synthetic testing fo
  (tags: indicative systemsmanagement monitoring user-experience transx-monitoring)

I’m looking for fellow Business Service Management practitioners, consultants, product/solution/technology SME’s that enable Business Service Management who may be looking for their next opportunity. If you have a background in network, systems, application, user experience, transaction, service management/monitoring, business service (BSM), process/performance (BPM), activity monitoring (BAM), etc. and have a passion for working with diverse clients around the world in consultative, design/architecture and implementation based Business Service Management engagements please contact me as soon as possible.

• BMC product builds ‘Sears catalog’ of IT services - Network World
  BMC’s Service Request Management (SRM) software works on top of existing BMC products such as its configuration management database (CMDB) and helpdesk software to create an IT service catalog.
  (tags: BMC SRM ServiceCatalog ITIL servicerequest)

Get ITUP v2.1.3 FREE (with registration) if you want to learn about IBM’s Process Reference Model for IT (PRM-IT), ITIL, eTOM, CMMI, COBIT 4, etc., how to incorporate these best practices into your own operating environment, align your tools and technologies to these processes, and these exciting new features and content.

This is the ONLY place to get the IBM PRM-IT material that I know of!! Any ITSM practitioner needs to add this to their reference library!

• ITUP now includes the same level of content as ITUP Composer 2.1
• Added task level workflows for 17 PRM-IT processes
• Added the full documentation set for Process Reference Model for IT (PRM-IT) V2 - over 1000 pages of previously proprietary material
• Added the ITUPC style “fully clickable” workflow diagrams
• Upgraded to support the newly available Process Reference Model for IT (PRM-IT) V2
• Improved Asset Management and Data Management processes with improved workflows and updated tool mentors
• Minor changes to other processes, including: Availability, Capacity, Change, Compliance, Event, Release, Service Execution and Service Level Mgmt
• Added an introduction to ITIL V3
• Added support for COBIT V4.1
• High-level swimlane diagrams moved to the process description tabs, which now complement the ITUP Composer style workflow diagrams
• Updated the generic Service Desk tool mentors to Tivoli Service Desk mentors
• Added new tool mentors for MRO Asset and Incident Management, CAM for WebSphere and CICS PA, updated several others for currency
• Improved tool in-context linkage to OPAL for ease of use and added support for new sub-catalogs: Netcool, CCMDB, PMPs and Autonomic Computing