Tivoli Business Service Manager (TBSM) version 4.1 is now generally available (GA). This is the first step in converged Business Service Management (BSM) solution for IBM and marks the future end of life for the Netcool/Realtime Active Dashboard (RAD) and Tivoli Business Systems Manager (TBSM) products. Over the next several releases, the new product will continue to collapse features and functionality from legacy products into the new go ahead product. Note the subtle change in the TBSM acronym to reflect Business Service Manager versus Business Systems Manager.
This release presents an ideal opportunity to step back and revisit why you may have made an investment in IBM Tivoli or the former Micromuse’s Business Service Management story. I have heard, seen and experienced the success stories, the nightmares, the tales of shelfware, feature/functionality “vaporware”, the fancy sales and marketing slicks, etc. all related to our past efforts in the Business Service Management space. I can’t say we’ll be perfect, but we are improving and heading in a great, market leading and innovative direction.
I’d like to encourage you to evaluate where you are in your Business Service Management journey. Have the things that you used to justify your purpose been achieved? Are they providing value to those who use them? Are you really doing Business Service Management or just using this as another IT tool with pretty pictures, maps and dashboards? Is it difficult to justify your maintenance renewal each year? Is your Business Service Management solution an integral part of your day to day operations? Is it frequently reviewed and kept up to date, accurate and managed, patched, etc? Is it difficult to assign resources to your Business Service Management solution compared to all of the other resource demands you face each day?
If you’re not comfortable with your answers to these questions, I recommend that you discuss with your team, peers and management about revisiting your Business Service Management strategy. If you don’t have one, now may be the perfect time to establish one. (more on that later) I offer a few tips in a posting related to developing a Business Service Management roadmap that may help get you started. I’ll be posting some more over the next few weeks on practical applications of TBSM 4.1 features and functionality, deployment scenarios, strategies and keys to success.
I’d be very interested in discussing how we can help with TBSM 4.1 architecture, design, deployment planning and migration from legacy Netcool/RAD 2.x/3.x and Tivoli TBSM 3.x to the new TBSM 4.1. Let us help you find a path towards Business Service Management success and value within your organization. I strongly believe that it can be done, but it doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t come “out of the box”.