Links that I have found interesting for August 12th:
- Birt: A Field Guide to Reporting, Second Edition – This second edition, revised and expanded, adds updated examples and covers all the new and improved product features, including
* Cross tabs and OLAP cubes
* New chart types, including Gantt, bubble, tube, and cone charts
* Web services as a new data source
* New report output formats, including doc, ppt, xls, and PostScript
* The capability for reports to reference CSS
* Localization of report parameter and data values - End-user monitoring company hooks up with HP, CA – End-user performance monitoring company Knoa is working with Hewlett-Packard and CA on a project that could let IT managers get a more complete picture of application performance.
Knoa is one of a handful of companies in the end-user monitoring area, although other larger vendors such as IBM, HP and CA are incorporating end-user evaluation features into their back-end application management products. Knoa is now working with HP and CA on such a project, said Lori Wizdo, Knoa's vice president for marketing, in an interview last week.
- Orb Data – ITM 6 Host Type Codes –
- Orb Data – Configuring Process Control – Process Control executes external procedures specified in automations and manages local and remote processes such as ObjectServers, probes and gateways. The scripts can be installed on UNIX based platforms to allow the process agent to start automatically when the system boots.
- Orb Data – Tivoli Common Reporter and BIRT – # ITM 6.1 SOAP Reporting with BIRT: The Basics
Introduction to using BIRT to create reports from the ITM 6.1 SOAP interface
# ITM 6.1 SOAP Reporting with BIRT: Parameters and Batching
Generating ITM 6 reports with BIRT using report parameters and the API.
# Alternate Row Highlighting
This tip shows how to highlight alternate rows in a table in BIRT. - Democratizing IT Service Management – This new social model for managing information collection and dissemination based on communities is a radical but interesting idea. The visionaries will see many other opportunities for this model, while others may consider it to be no more than a gimmick and point out many of the problems that its use raises.
However, this approach provides an opportunity for IT to break down the barriers that have previously existed between IT and its customers, and by using a community-based approach it can make IT more realistic to the end user in terms of cost and value.
- Measure What Matters… Critique of the RFM Model – Like the Pharisees who would keep scripture-filled boxes around their arms at all times, us Marketers need to stay focused on ACTIONABLE analysis only. Whether it be customer survey data, customer behavior data, industry trend data, competitive analysis, or any other analysis activity, let us keep this question on our minds, “How will this information help me market MORE accurately and effectively.
I put the emphasis on “MORE” because you can waste your time tracking metrics that tell you something you already know from an ACTIONABILITY (<–new word) standpoint. Even if some new insight into your customers can enhance your marketing efforts, it needs to be approached from a cost/benefit perspective. In other words, “Will the changes I make to my marketing program from this new insight produce enough ADDED profit to justify the resources (time, energy, money) it takes to retrieve that insight?”
- It’s All About RELEVANCE— A Broad Introduction to KPIs – To achieve your goals in the Age of Information, there are few principles more vital than that of Relevance.
For our purposes, Relevance is: the ability to sift out the circumstances, variables, possibilities, and data that do not give insight into the progress of your goals, in order to make a decision that will achieve those goals based on what matters, and nothing else.
A Key Performance Indicator is a super-concentrated piece of information that delivers maximum insight into the progress of your goals. In other words, Key Performance Indicators are the most Relevant factors in your decision making progress. If you have specific and clear goals for your business, then Key Performance Indicators do exist for those goals, whether you’ve been using them or not.
- "We've Found the Killer App … and It Is Voice." – "In the investment banking world," Reidy said, "there's something called a Ready for Business check. At 6am every morning, the brokerage goes through a checklist—sort of like a jet at the airport before takeoff. They go through a checklist before saying, 'OK, we're ready for business today.' So, throughout the day, that brokerage's Ready for Business check is confirming that it's continually ready for business. Even this call we're on, there's a constant check to confirm that the call is satisfactory. It's taking the equivalent of a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) score through several metrics every 8 seconds, looking for peaks and lows, and packet loss and jitter, then combining all those metrics into a database for comparison, trending, and troubleshooting. We're constantly testing and monitoring networks."
** What are you doing to check that your critical business services, applications, transactions, processes and activities are "Ready for Business"? **
- Mainframe confidence growing, survey says | IT PRO – Almost two thirds (63 per cent) currently operating separate mainframe and distributed systems said having shared tools and applications across both platforms was very important and something they plan to implement. While broad business service management (BSM) disciplines including service desk, change management and IT service management were seen as particularly important tool set features.
- IBM SJ 47-3 | SOMA: A method for developing service-oriented solutions – Service-oriented modeling and architecture (SOMA) has been used to conduct projects of varying scope in multiple industries worldwide for the past five years. We report on the usage and structure of the method used to effectively analyze, design, implement, and deploy service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects as part of a fractal model of software development. We also assert that the construct of a service and service modeling, although introduced by SOA, is a software engineering best practice for which an SOA method aids both SOA usage and adoption.
- More on the IBM/ILOG Relationship » Smart (Enough) Systems, the blog – IBM was getting focused on events, rules and policies – they talked about Points of Agility, points in a business where variability is critical to success. Rules, analytics, business events and policies were all identified. While today’s briefing could not cover any future plans, I did get an overview of IBM’s current relationship with ILOG.