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Service Management Platforms are used to structure and automate processes. They enable the tracking of each process and ensure faster response times while automating procedures, which means that the personnel can be better distributed and the service provided is improved and performs faster.

ITSM builds a bridge between IT and the customer. The pure focus on information technology is changing to a Customer and Service-Oriented approach, intending to secure and monitor business services to increase efficiency, process quality and profitability.

In the practice

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a best practice or framework that describes how ITSM can be implemented in real business situations. It contains 26 core processes, functions and roles that describe the processes of IT services. It should be noted that not all ITIL processes necessarily have to be established in a company. This allows companies to choose services that are best suited to their business. Incident Management, Change Management, Problem Management, are however those processes that are used in practice by many companies.

Choosing an ITSM tool

There is a variety of different ITSM tools with multiple solutions. When choosing the right tool, you should first consider which needs or requirements the tool should meet. In the second step, the necessary support for a tool must be available within the country. It can happen that a company would have found a perfect solution in a tool, but the provider is mainly focused on a foreign market. This would mean that support would only be possible to a limited extent (an argument against the tool). Furthermore, it is important to consider to what extent ITIL is already established in the company, what significance the topic of the cloud has in the business, or what industry circumstances influence the choosing process. Only when these questions are clarified, we can move on to the third step. At this stage, one is only able to decide which tool represents the optimal solution.

An Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS) is an example of a cloud environment. It is used to build, test and run applications in the enterprise to automate workflows. Data is not stored on a local computer, but in a cloud environment, allowing users to access the platform or information from anywhere through a web browser. Data collection and storage, workflow automation and report generation all take place on the same platform. In other words, it is a data system that can be accessed from multiple user interfaces and that maps all company activities in a single environment.

In addition to the ITSM field, such solutions also offer the possibility to automate other areas in the company, such as the human resources department, marketing or facility management. ITSM tools thus bundle as a single system to record all the service needs within the company. This ranges from the booking of a business trip by a Record Producer to the onboarding of new employees using an Order Guide, including the administration of smartphones, laptops and access cards, to the ordering of consumables or the booking of training courses, to name just a few possibilities.

All these services can be ordered and automated via a catalog. Actions related to the order, such as error messages or similar can be managed independently by the user. This way, valuable working time can be gained for innovative projects. With the help of service management platforms, services can be ordered and consumed just as easily as they are known from the private lives of online service providers.

The Internet of Things (IoT) & ITSM – Digitalisation Process

The combination of IoT and Big Data with ITSM, opens up completely new dimensions for non-IT processes. For example, facility management can be transferred quickly and easily to such a platform and made available for ordering. If the infrastructure is linked with sensor technology used by the Internet of Things, the status of buildings, heating or other assets can be called up to be able to react quickly in the event of faults. Besides, the use of Big Data on such a platform in combination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning makes it possible to predict failures before they occur.

Market determining trends

IT trends are subject to constant change. However, the topics “IT security”, “cloud computing”, “IoT”, “industry 4.0”, “big data” and “digital platforms” and “artificial intelligence” can be named as market-determining trends. Companies should not ignore these trends, but respond to increasing digitization with intelligent solutions.

When used correctly, artificial intelligence and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) create the necessary freedom to react to these developments with innovative ideas. This is of enormous importance against the background of a growing shortage of skilled workers, because due to a lack of skilled workers the to-do list is getting longer, while at the same time the pressure of expectations and performance is increasing. Automation can help both entrepreneurs and employees alike.

SVA Software, Inc. offers you an ITSM feeder solution to simplify the ingestion of IT infrastructure performance data into your ITSM solution. The solution called BVQ is a monitoring and troubleshooting software platform that takes care of your entire IT infrastructure. Having central access to your performance data makes it easier to integrate it with your ITSM tool, allowing your entire infrastructure to speak the same language (no need for individual scripts per system anymore).

Challenges

Five percent of companies have neither an ITSM nor an ESM tool. This is particularly true for smaller companies with up to 1,000 employees. The challenge is to procure a suitable ESM tool that contains all the functions required for a company. When choosing the tool, the integration capability, Cloud Brokering/Hybrid Cloud and the support of ITIL processes must be considered. Also, the solution should be applicable company-wide in all departments and offer the possibility to model processes flexibly. Other areas that need to be considered are service automation, a powerful Configuration Management Database (CMDB), social media interfaces, predictive analytics/big data analytics, financial management and service design.

Conclusion

ITSM in combination with ITIL and can bring together the benefits of innovative platforms for End-User Computing (EUC) and ESM. The user has access to all tools, data and services necessary to work across all devices since all processes have been optimally described and configured on your service management platform. As a result, service management platforms offer the possibility of taking services in IT and other departments to a new level.

The original version of this article by Marcel Stumpen (SVA GmbH) can be found at https://focus.sva.de/wie-service-management-plattformen-den-arbeitsplatz-von-morgen-automatisieren/.

SVA Software, Inc.

provides solutions to secure, monitor, improve and troubleshoot the data and performance of your IT infrastructure, get in contact with us for more information.

• General IT infrastructure automated monitoring: check out more about BVQ which provides transparency on the status and communication of your entire infrastructure from the compute to the Storage and SAN layers. (link)
• Mainframe performance optimization: visit our Mainframe Service platform that provides solutions from reporting up to automated dynamic capping and maintenance. (link)
• Ensuring data quality of your backup & archive data on tape media: visit our Tape Audit Tool solution which provides automated auditing on the quality of your backup data and ensure the data can be read when needed. (link)
• Disaster Recovery: visit our IDR solution which provides a stand-alone application that makes it easy to be Disaster Ready. (link)
• VMware License Management: visit our GetVMware solution which helps you manage and decrease the licensing cost of your VMware infrastructure using different dashboards and tables in Splunk. (link)