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Analyst Insights
Efficiency Through Automation: A Study On Quantifiable Benefits
IBM commissioned Forrester Consulting to help understand the key issues, benefits received, and critical success factors of IT service automation. This thought leadership paper reveals the results of Forrester survey and points to a model approach for strategic IT service automation.
IBM Seeds Blue Cloud Strategy with Service Management Toolkit (IDC Report)
This IDC Insight discusses how IBM’s first off-the-shelf software offering addresses the needs of internal and public cloud service management.
Integrated Service Management: Beyond IT Service Management
This ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) Impact Brief discusses how IBM’s approach to service management goes beyond traditional IT service management and delivers industry specific solutions.
Decision Matrix: Selecting an IT Systems Management Vendor (Datamonitor)
This Datamonitor report reviews the vendors it believes to have the widest technological coverage and will have the most influence in the market over the next two to three years.
Featured report
The New Face of IT Service Management (Macehiter Ward-Dutton)
OSS Observer ranks IBM #1 in Service Assurance
This report examines the drivers for growth in the service assurance market, IBM’s capabilities in helping CSPs transform their business, and the trends influencing the next wave of managing the customer experience and the end-to-end service quality.
Business Transformation: It's About the Customer, Not the Network
This report identifies the market factors driving communication service provider business transformation and the need for new operations functions such as Customer Experience Management (CEM). The report explains how IBM’s CEM solution offering addresses these requirements.
OSS Transformation: Challenges and Opportunities (a report by Heavy Reading)
This report provides a detailed assessment of the market and technology forces that are shaping the OSS sector, along with a competitive analysis of the suppliers who are emerging as leaders in this area.
Datamonitor Report – Decision Matrix: Selecting an IT Systems Management Vendor (Competitor Focus)
The increasing complexity of IT infrastructures, coupled with the pressures on IT departments to be more efficient, has given rise to increasing demand from enterprises for IT systems management solutions that are better suited to their needs. Datamonitor provides a complete view of vendor capabilities and advises on those you should explore, consider and, most importantly, shortlist.
The Evolution of Build and Release Management
This in-depth survey of 18 Rational customers by Hurwitz Associates validates key industry trends impacting the software delivery organization. It explores the experiences of customers who set out to improve their build and release management process, and quantifies the resulting improvements in development speed, team productivity, and product quality.
Enterprise Management Associates report: IBM Surges Ahead in the Service Desk Market with Maximo
This new Impact Brief from EMA describes the IBM Tivoli Service Request Manager and asset management solutions. One key quote from the report: "Maximo places IBM Tivoli front and center in the service desk management arena, and puts IBM on the shortlist for companies considering service desk and enterprise asset management solutions.”
Butler Group technology audit: Rational Portfolio Manager
Butler Group analyzes the IBM Rational Portfolio Manager, which addresses some of the key issues of IT governance, including business and IT alignment; risk and change management; and visibility into complex projects and programs.
Ovum Summit Report: Integrated Service Management Initiative Promotes Process and Product Integration
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and virtualized IT infrastructures necessitate more collaborative and tighter coordination services planning, deployment and problem solving across the full IT services lifecycle. In response to these emerging requirements, IBM’s Service Management initiative is driving unprecedented integration across IBM products and services, with the goal of creating modular process-centric management offerings to help customers transform their IT management and software development environments. This report describes how a leading customer is implementing this type of service management strategy, and discusses IBM's efforts to integrate IBM Rational and Tivoli products and go-to-market programs in order deliver modular service management solutions.
Gartner Research Note: Business Needs Will Force a Refresh of IT Change Management Policies
Effective IT change management offers improvements in service quality and cost reductions, yet it remains one of the most difficult processes to implement and manage. A strategic approach to policy development vastly improves what can be achieved. ITCM requires rigorous a cross-IT organizational policy adoption. Unfortunately, cultural issues, increased frequency of change activity, and compliance requirements challenge its success. This note focuses on the key areas to reengineer the first-generation ITCM policies to address cultural hurdles, integration challenges, and government regulations standards, which can be done without thwarting the IT organization's ability to perform IT changes activities in an agile fashion.
Read the report (link resides outside of ibm.com)
Read Gartner's insights on the Service Provider OSS Market
In 2006, the operations support systems (OSS) market saw players emerging and consolidation through mergers and acquisitions (M&As) worldwide, to address evolving requirements, technologies and standards. Some vendors have achieved significant market power with product suites that provide complete solutions. As a result, these vendors maintain thought leadership positions in the critical network and OSS focus areas.
Read the report (link resides outside of ibm.com)
The New Face of Service Management: Aligning Business, Development and IT Teams for Strategic Advantage by Neil Ward-Dutton
Author, researcher and IT luminary Neil Ward-Dutton explores the changing nature of IT service management: its current state of the practice, future direction, and practical steps you can take to accelerate your progression along the service management maturity model. Explains Dutton, “Says Dutton, "The single key element that’s missing from many IT organisations is an effective model for engaging consistently with business teams throughout the whole lifecycle of IT investments – from when they’re first considered, to when systems are being managed, changed and upgraded in operation."
The New Face of IT Service Management (PDF, 247KB)
IT Service Management Vendor Report Card 2006 by Ovum Summit
For years, Ovum Summit has been tracking the ITSM strategies of major vendors such as CA, Hewlett Packard, BMC Software and IBM. The analyst firm recently issued its 2006 report card on how well these vendor strategies are meeting customer requirements. “IBM comes out as the player with the greatest basis of differentiation thanks to its service management message, high market credibility survey rankings and a long-term commitment to SOA/IT governance and business/IT alignment,” writes Mary Johnston Turner, vice president of the Ovum Summit.
Read the entire Ovum Summit analyst report (PDF, 2.59MB)
View analyst quotes and reports
CMDB or Configuration Database: Know the Difference
With all vendors offering a configuration management database strategy and few offering true CMDB capability, it is critical to know the difference between a CMDB and a configuration database.
View the Gartner analyst report "CMDB or Configuration Database: Know the Difference." (link resides outside of ibm.com)
Summit Strategies' Dynamic Computing Industry Report Card: IT Service Management Software
Summit Strategies' ongoing dynamic computing report card series provides an apples-to-apples comparison of how well market leaders are packaging, communicating and executing on the roll-out of emerging dynamic computing technology. This report card examines the progress that the top four IT management software leaders (IBM, BMC Software, Computer Associates and Hewlett-Packard) are making.
Summit Strategies Report Card for IT Service Management (PDF, 1.72MB)
EMA-Enterprise Managment Associates report: "IBM's IT Service Management Vision"
IBM's IT Service Management vision is highly focused on IT processes, and the integration of process, technology, people, and information. It has breadth and depth into automated service management and ITIL, and shows continued commitment to On Demand business. Just how much of the IT world is ready for this wide-ranging concept is yet to be determined.
IBM's IT Service Management Vision (PDF, 112KB)
Summit Strategies report: "Can IBM's Conversion to Process-Centric IT Set Tivoli and Rational Apart?"
IBM has painted a bold, long-term roadmap for the process-centric architectural integration of its own software portfolio and the way its customers manage the full span of IT lifecycle services. We expect that real progress for both IBM and its customers will come in fits and starts. Over time, however, IBM's commitment to process-centric ITSM and IT lifecycle management, using a tightly integrated and reusable software portfolio, should make it an even more formidable player in both the IT management and application development tools software markets.
IBM's Conversion to Process-Centric IT Set Tivoli and Rational Apart (PDF, 280KB)
Verghis Group: Redefining Command & Control in Today's IT Reality
The traditional ‘Command and Control’ service desk and IT asset management models that served corporate IT so well are now straining to keep up with the pace of 21st century business. This white paper looks at the challenges and trends that are driving the need for change, and presents some of the actions that can be taken today to enable IT to move at the speed of the business in a complex, rapidly changing world.