"I think of it as an elegant architecture of interdependence, and this what I think gives ITIL its true strength," says Erin Casteel.

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Are you trying to solve problems by thinking within the framework in which they were created? Has your ITIL implementation gotten off track? Are you looking for new inspiration to move forward with ITIL in these tough economic times? Do you understand the true strength of ITIL?

Join us as we talk with Erin Casteel, Solutions Architect with BMC Software. Draw on Erin's wealth of experience as an ITIL consultant for tips on leading change in the organization. Learn when a sense of urgency is useful, how you can avoid reinventing the wheel, what it really means to sell ITIL in the organization, and why it pays to find opportunities in crises.

Bio

Erin Casteel is an IT Service Management Consultant in Sydney, Australia. Her prior experience includes work as a solutions architect for BMC Software. She has more than 18 years of experience in IT. She has worked on IT service management projects in multiple industry sectors. She has trained thousands of people in all levels of ITIL, and has also lectured at the University of Sydney. She is the representative from Australia on the international ISO/IEC 20000 Certification Committee.

Questions

1. You’ve been at this quite awhile and ITIL’s been out for quite awhile now. In fact it's moved on to ITIL Three.  If ITIL is all that great, why isn’t it happening more... or maybe it is happening? What's your perspective of the adoption of that now?
2. What really is the core message of ITIL?
3. So what I'm getting is that lot's of people have gotten on board with ITIL? Some have gotten into it out of survival. Others have taken a more formal path. But everyone gets off track at some level. From your perspective, what are the two or three ways that you see most companies getting off track with their ITIL implementations?What do you recommend based on where they’ve gotten off track?
4. People get excited about implementing ITIL, and often there's a great sense of urgency to get it done. So,what really works? Do you push that feeling of urgency through the whole project, or do you do it sometimes for specific phases of the project?
5. What do you mean when you say that people need to be able to sell ITIL within their organization?
6. What words of advice would you like to leave with our listeners?

Resources

Check back later to download Erin's new article about ITIL implementations in a down economy.

Recommended Reading

by John Kotter

• Leading Change
  Kotter examines the efforts of more than 100 companies to remake themselves into better competitors.
  

• A Sense of Urgency
  Kotter reveals a distinctive view of the kind of urgency needed in every organization.
  

Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton

• The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action‎
  The Balanced Scorecard translates a company's vision and strategy into a coherent set of performance measures.
• Alignment: using the balanced scorecard to create corporate synergies‎
  In this book, the authors apply their revolutionary Balanced Scorecard management system to corporate-level strategy, revealing how highly successful
• Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage‎
  Building on their breakthrough works on strategy-focused organizations, the authors describe a multistage system that enables you to gain measurable benefits from your carefully formulated business strategy.
  

Peter Brooks

• Metrics for IT Service Management
  This book considers the design and implementation of metrics in service organizations using industry standard frameworks. It uses the ITIL process structure and many principles from the ITIL and ISO20000 (BS15000) as a basis.
  

Jan van Bon and Leo van Selm

• ISO/IEC 20000: An Introduction‎

This Introduction provides an easy to read document that explains the nature, content and aim of ISO 20

"  ... CMDB is a living organism that is going to continue to grow. ... Recognize that you're not going to get it perfect the first time," says Atwell Williams.

Are you just getting started with a CMDB and looking for the right implementation team? Are you in Stage II and your project is losing steam? Or are you still wondering how to get started?

Join us as we talk with Atwell Williams, Solutions Architect for the Office of the CTO at BMC Software. Get insights into where to start when building and managing a CMDB and find out how to define  what "done" looks like. Learn whether a bottom-up or a top-down approach will work best for you, hear important tips for training your team, and get some great practical advice from one of BMC's experts.

Bio

Atwell Williams has been responsible for assuring the overall performance, availability, and recoverability of BMC's internal production applications, has led the initial implementation of Business Service Management (BSM) within BMC Software, and is currently responsible for educating customers on ITIL® and how to implement Service Management in their organizations.

Resources

BMC Industry Insight: Step-by-Step Approach for Building and Managing Your CMDB

Questions

1. In the BMC Industry Insight: Step-by-Step Approach for Building and Managing Your CMDB, it's said that pulling together the right team increases the chances of a successful CMDB implementation. What would a CMDB implementation dream team look like?  
2. How would you respond to someone who says a CMDB cannot be done?
3.  How about a specific example of an industry outcome?
4. It's been said that some teams implementing CMDB can get "mired in the mud" in Stage II while trying to make sure the CMDB is designed properly and anticipating the entire organizations' needs. How can teams keep the project moving yet be assured they've thoroughly discovered and defined requirements?
5. How do you get started? Is there a difference from a strategy perspective? Is it Bottom up or Top Down when you are trying to do your CMDB?
6.  These are big projects.  How do you know you're going to be successful in a CMDB project before you finish? What will increase your changes of success along the way?
7. The final step in Stage 4 (Construct and Maintain the CMDB) is training the CMDB team. Would you share some examples of how training can make or break adoption?
8. Any final words for our listeners?

"While mainframe is considered a mature and well-managed platform in most organizations, we still find there are ample opportunities to improve and save companies real hard dollars," says Mike Moser

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Are you getting the most value out of your environment for the least possible cost? Are you getting the most bang for your capacity? Is there unrecognized risk in your environment? Do you wonder what the Service Optimization maturity model applies to your operation?

Listen in on our conversation with Mike Moser, Product Management Director at BMC Software, as we discuss Mainframes and Service Optimization. Find out how Service Optimization is relevant in the mainframe environment, hear examples of how large companies have increased productivity and reduced costs, and learn how the Service Optimization maturity model can help you identify the highest impact opportunities.

Bio

Mike Moser is a product management director and program executive in BMC Software's Mainframe Service Management business unit. Before coming to BMC, Mike was involved in IT strategic planning, technology planning, and application development. Mike has spent the last nine years with BMC as a product manager in both distributed and mainframe product lines, focusing on making BMC's extensive mainframe solutions portfolio a fully integrated member of their Business Service Management solutions.

Questions

1. Mike the subject of cutting costs is on the top of everyone's minds given the current turbulent world economy.  What are the effects on IT and the mainframe in particular?
2. Downward pressure on costs coupled with a need to perform at even higher levels, strikes me as a paradox. Would you elaborate a bit on this please?
3. Is the potential aspect you mentioned where Service Optimization comes in?
4. Tell me a bit more on what service optimization can do for the mainframe environment?
5. How does someone get started?
6. What exactly 'is' service optimization and why is it important to an IT organization, especially in today's volatile economic environment?
7. What are the three goals of Service Optimization?
8. Why is Service Optimization relevant to mainframe environments?
9. Will you describe the Service Optimization Maturity Model? Why would an IT executive be interested in moving to the next level of Maturity?
10. How does Service Optimization reduce risk for business?
11. Do you have some examples you can share that illustrate the value of Service Optimization to the enterprise?
12. How do you identity the areas where Service Optimization can make the biggest positive impact on the business?

Resources

Service Optimization: How Mainframe Systems Management Can Deliver More Business Value at Less Cost

"After all, IT is only about delivering the company's product. . . . That's the end game of looking at this more holistically and being able to say 'I am more service and company business aware,' " says Doug Mueller.

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Do you want to lower service support costs significantly and still meet the growing demand for new and improved services? Is your IT department siloed and relying on point solutions? Does your IT department know how it really fits into your company's business goals?

Join us as we talk with Doug Mueller, Chief Technology Officer in the Service Management Business Unit of BMC Software. Get insights into ways to incrementally move into taking a holistic approach to ITIL and service support. Hear examples of how a holistic approach benefited various types of businesses, while increasing accuracy, efficiency, and responsiveness. Find out how becoming company business aware can enhance IT's role in delivering the company's product.

Bio

Doug Mueller serves as Chief Technology Officer, Service Management Business Unit of BMC Software. Doug is responsible for helping drive the architecture and direction of the BSM, Service Support, and Atrium initiatives. He joined BMC in 2002 as part of the acquisition of Remedy where he was a co-founder.

Questions

1. I've heard you talk about a holistic view as it relates to Service Support. Can you explain what you mean by that? I'd like to know more about that. 
2. From a pragmatic approach, you know how IT shops are. We're all really very busy. How do I go about implementing this holistic approach while still getting things done?
3. Do you have some examples or use cases you can share about service awareness?

Resources

White Paper: Why You Should Take a Holistic Approach to ITIL and Service Support (pdf)

Intelligent automation allows you to see a problem as it unfolds. You can respond to problem at that point as opposed to waiting until the application goes completely down and then you’re in react mode, says Bill Arledge.

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 IT organizations are being driven to reduce costs, yet service-delivery expectations remain very high.  We may be putting off CPU upgrades, but the business wants to deliver high levels of service.

Listen in as Bill Arledge, Consulting Product Manager, at BMC Software talks about Service Optimization and data management. Find out about combining intelligent automation with best practices, managing your environment to drive down costs and achieve the goal of improving service. Get tips for determining how Service Optimization can benefit your environment, and steps for implementation.

Bio

Bill Arledge is a Consulting Product Manager, at BMC Software. Bill is an IT veteran with 33 years experience across a variety of roles, including application development and database administration. Bill’s database experience began in the late 1970’s as an IMS DBA and developer. He began working with DB2 in 1984 as a database specialist at IBM. He worked with DB2 throughout the late eighties, consulting with numerous IBM customers on existing and planned DB2 implementations. Bill joined BMC in 1990 and is currently a technical product manager responsible for BMC’s DB2 data management products. In that capacity he consults extensively with BMC DB2 customers and works closely with BMC’s Research and Development organization to drive product direction.

Questions

We're really in a challenging environment for data management these days. IT organizations are being driven to reduce costs, but the service-delivery expectations remain very high. We live in  24 by 7,  on-demand world and customers expect no downtime and the competition is always pushing new features to woe customers.

1.  Will you tell us a little about BMC’s service optimization strategy and how it can help accomplish these goals?
2.  What's your experience now, in 2009? Surely larger companies and data centers have gotten on board with Service Optimization or automation, or is this still a new concept--are they still struggling with it? Can you give me an example where automation has made a difference, especially when it's dealing with the way things have traditionally been done? 
3.   What are some questions IT managers should ask to determine the value Service Optimization would bring to their IT and business environment environment?
4.   What are the steps needed to implement Service Optimization?
5.  Can you provide examples of IT data management disciplines that can be improved using service optimization?

Resources

Service Optimization: Delivering More Business Value at Less Cost From Mainframe Data Management

"The mainframe environment still contains the vast majority of the mission-critical applications for business.  They are the lifeblood for that business," says Mike Spencer. "Service Optimization is about increasing performance without increasing your costs."

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Even in 2009, the mainframe environment still contains the vast majority of the mission-critical applications for businesses. Mainframes are the lifeblood of our businesses. Storage on mainframes continues to grow each year due to current compliance requirements. More and more data has to be retained over longer periods of time, yet be accessible to business, auditors and government agencies.

Today, due to the graying of the workforce, IT struggles with delivering higher service levels, reducing risk to business, and increasing productivity in the mainframe environment. Service Optimization can help. Service Optimization is a disciplined approach that combines intelligent automation with best practices, to take advantage of advanced technologies out there today to make the business more effective and efficient. Listen is as Mike Spencer, Storage and Optimization strategist in the Mainframe Service Management business unit of BMC Software, talks about Service Optimization for storage in the mainframe environment.

Bio

Mike Spencer is a Storage and Optimization strategist in the Mainframe Service Management business unit of BMC Software.  He has over 20 years of IT industry experience, primarily focused on storage, capacity, performance planning and business continuity solutions.  He has presented at multiple technical conferences and user group events on storage and storage management best practices. 

Questions

1. What are the top trends you see in the area of storage and in particular with the mainframe?
2. How does the IT paradox -- being asked to deliver higher services levels to support the business, while at the same time being asked to cut costs, how does that apply to storage?  Are there any other issues that impact that? 
3. A term I hear more and more is Service Optimization. How can service optimization help IT tap the potential of mainframe storage management?
4. For those who are just getting an assignment in this area, what exactly is Service Optimization and how does that relate to storage management?
5. Would you share the 3 ways that effective management of storage can help IT  lower costs and improve availability?
6. I know you have the opportunity to speak in front of a lot of IT groups. What's the one question you wish they'd ask you, but that they're not asking?

Resources

Service Optimization: Delivering More Business Value at Less Cost With Mainframe Storage Management

"Nothing is Ineligible for automation," says Peter Armaly. Particularly when it comes to achieving success with BSM in the Enterprise.

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Have you thought about BSM, but haven't quite gotten the buy-in you need? Do you have an existing installation that isn't quite living up to your initial expectations? Get down and dirty with BSM installations and implementation. Listen in as Peter Armaly gives pointers that will help you get the greatest benefit from your BSM solution. Learn some pragmatic and specific tips that can help you make BSM even more business relevant.

From planning, to company-wide communication and asking the right questions, this podcast is useful whether you're just considering implementation or you've been using your solution for awhile.

Bio

Peter Armaly has been employed with BMC Software for 11 years and has served in a variety of roles during that time, from Systems Engineer to Principal Solutions Consultant, to his current role as Premier Support Manager for BMC Customer Support. In this latest role, Peter leverages his combined 26 years in IT operations and systems administration, and global technical software sales and management to lead a team of account managers and engineers who are assigned to provide dedicated technical support for the BSM installations at BMC’s largest global customers.

Questions

This is an opportunity to get down and dirty with BSM.  I understand that you and your team spend your time working closely with BMC clients. So let's just say that you're spending time with me, and my company is getting going on a BSM implementation.

1. If we were having marginal success with our BSM implementation, what are some questions you would ask us, ask me to help turn  around the project?
2. When you have client that's just getting started with BSM, or one that's maybe been going with it for awhile, and they ask you that question, what do I do things aren't quite going right? Would it be fair to say that maybe they've lost sight of their incremental goals?
   
3. Are there 3 or 4 keys for us to have enduring success? Do you have some examples?
4. I have another one. It has to do with being afraid to implement BSM. There's a view that it could be looked upon as somehow locking down things in such a way that BSM essentially inhibits innovation. Talk to me about that, why would that be so, and in essence why is that really not the case?
   
5. Are there some questions that every customer, or business that is considering BSM, really ought to ask you before launching a BSM project?

"Automation can really take your organization to the next level. As far as your creativity, your imagination can go," says Eli Almog.

The IT environment in a large organization is full of complexity, replete with islands of information and architecture, and staff who work in relative isolation, but who may make decisions that have the potential to affect operations enterprise-wide.

Have you, or someone on our staff ever installed a service on a server, and rebooted it, only to discover you brought down a critical application in the process? Have you ever looked at the myriad applications, hardware, and personnel under your direction and wondered how you can effectively manage all of them? How do you know when when it's time to start looking at third-party Business Service Management (BSM) tools? How would a CMDB fit in?

In this Podcast with Eli Almog, Corporate Architect in BMC's CTO Office, discusses how IT managers can know when it's time to look at BSM, consider CMDB, learn how virtualization fits into your organization, and how automation can help your company retain its competetive edge.

Bio

Eli Almog joined BMC in 2007. He focuses in R&D on Service Assurance, Virtualization, Service Automation and Atrium technology.

Eli brings a unique perspective to BMC, helping advance BMC's efforts to gain greater customer intimacy. He brings 18 years of experience at Morgan Stanley headquarters in New York as the Executive Director responsible for systems management in institutional securities.

Eli's expertise is in high-scale system management and monitoring solutions – architecture and engineering of homegrown IT solutions, integrated across vendor products including CMDB, Discovery, and Infrastructure Management and Monitoring. Eli has a long record in dealing with all the major software and hardware vendors in the marketplace, working with the vendors' engineering teams, sales, vendor negotiation, and management.

Questions

1. You know, in your own career prior to BMC, there came an "ah ha" moment when BSM (Business Service Management) came into focus and it made sense to have a third party, like BMC, come in and deliver that solution. Can you discuss some of the signs that would alert an IT manager that it's time to look at a vendor for BSM, as opposed to inventing solutions in house?
2. One of the things I hear alot about over the last 2 to 3 years, is that CMDB is the core to the story, the answer to everything, because it's aware of everything from end-to-end. But where do IT managers really need to focus in order to provide end-to-end infrastructure and application management?
3. Tell me about three applications managers need to focus on now. How can managers monitor and manage these?
4. Let's take a minute to talk about virtualization. How much of it is really buzz? How much of it makes sense and where is it most useful at this point in time?
5. Looking ahead, what do you think IT folks will want to know for 2009, especially so their organization can manage all the moving parts in this current economic climate?

"With the mushrooming of the sheer number of moving parts in data centers, manual baton passing is just not going to cut it for this new world," says Kia Behnia.

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Over the last decade, IT infrastructures have become exceedingly complex, resulting in a highly interconnected network of new and powerful technologies. In a world where IT budgets are shrinking and mergers and acquisitions are more and more common, how do you get the most value from your existing IT resources yet maintain agility?

In this Podcast, with Kia Behnia, Chief Corporate Architect at BMC, find out how service automation can help you navigate the”perfect storm” of new technologies such as server virtualization, as well as legacy distributed and mainframe computing environments that support millions of transactions through multi-tiered applications.

Discover the pain points that can lead a company toward service automation, and how you can benefit from not only from thinking tactically about holes that automation can plug, but also by looking at areas the enterprise that can get the biggest bang for the buck both in the near term and long term. Behnia talks about looking beyond the individual elements that currently exist in the data center or IT environment, and looking at the many ways that automation can help prevent critical human error in the highly interconnected environment. Finally, he outlines ways companies can get service automation right, and leaves us with a summary of the three most critical benefits of service automation.

Resources

BMC Industry Insight: Five Steps to Gaining Control and Managing Complexity in the Data Center through Service Automation

Bio

Kia Behnia Chief Corporate Architect at BMC responsible for virtualization management. over the last 2.5 years he’s also be responsible for setting BMC’s service automation strategy and direction. Prior to joining BMC Software, he was CTO for Marimba, and earlier in his career he was one of the principal technologists for Tivoli Systems.

At BMC. Kia Behnia offers strategies to reduce the frequency and scope of IT failures, better support dependent business services and drive down operating costs with the right change and configuration management approach and technology.

Questions

1. Are there any notable differences between data center automation and service automation? If so, what are the differences?
2. In your paper, you say you should start with identifying pain points. Do you have any examples of extremely painful starting points you’ve seen?
3. What types of holes might persist in an update and maintenance plan that you constantly have to “plug” with automation? Or is that too reactive of an approach?
4. What sorts of environments lend themselves really well to service automation? In other words, what do you consider to be “low hanging fruit?
5. What’s the number one thing an IT department can do to get automation right?
6. Any other stories you want to tell today, and do you have any remaining important points to leave with our listeners?

While he's quick to say that he didn't choose the title of his white paper, "Between the Bazaar and the Cathedral - Where ITIL®, Business Service Management, and Open Source Converge" in this podcast, Whurley openly talks about the lessons learned and leadership of enterprise software meeting open source, and community involvement in producing quality software.

Listen in on this half-hour conversation where he and Tom Parish talk about community as a self managing and self governing entity. As a case study, the 13,000 registered members on BMC Developer's Network at developer.bmc.com comprise that community and entity for BMC Software.

As Whurley loves to state - software is software is software. He means that you have to decide if you have time or money for any software deployment. Learn if there are mystical calculations for whether open source is better for your situation. You'll enjoy listening in and even finding out what sets Whurley's office apart from other BMC offices.

Resources

Between the Bazaar and the Cathedral
Where ITIL®, Business Service Management, and Open Source Converge

Bio

Whurley (William Hurley) is the chief architect of Open Source Strategy at BMC Software, Inc. Famous simply as "whurley," he is responsible for creating BMC's open source agenda and overseeing the company's participation in various free, and open source software communities to advance the adoption and integration of BSM solutions. A technology visionary and holder of 11 important patents, whurley brings 16 years of experience in developing groundbreaking technology. He is the chairman of the Open Management Consortium, a non-profit organization advancing the adoption, development, and integration of open source systems management. Named as an IBM Master Inventor, whurley has received numerous awards including an IBM Pervasive Computing Award and Apple Computer Design Award.

Questions

1. Your paper talks about the merging of open source, the babbling bazaar with different agendas and approaches, with the cathedral of enterprise software, complex architecture built painstakingly by “individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation.” Since a CMDB is a basic requirement following ITIL, it would seem that the CMDB isv a cathedral. In what ways is that a good thing, and what are some of the downsides of the church of the CMDB?
2. You’re probably familiar with the terms “whuffie” from and “psychic income” – for our listeners who may not have heard these terms, they roughly translate to reputation, clout, and influence, but are terms usually reserved for individuals’ motivation to contribute to a community or open source project. Do you believe that similar terms are available to describe a company’s reward for participating in and supporting open source?
3. Your office at BMC is creative yet comfortable, with giant green IKEA leaves overhead and a traditional rug beneath your feet. How do both creativity and comfort levels come into play when companies evaluate open source solutions for solving business problems?
4. One concern about combining open source with traditional enterprise software is the claim that total cost of ownership is more with open source. Your paper appears to refute that claim – could you expand on that particular concern especially when merging the two makes it more difficult to calculate TCO? Is it valid?
5. As you know, the ITIL acronym represents a Library with fairly expensive, tightly controlled books. Often people associate open source with free. What are your thoughts on
6. Do you have any good stories of an IT department that lives between the Cathedral and the Bazaar, and benefits from cathedrals built in an open company culture?
7. You have a nice list of over a dozen open source solutions for service management, yet only two provide support for ITIL and BSM. Do you think the trends are moving in a way that mean more and more of those open source solutions will support ITIL and BSM, or is there a mismatch in the audience and purchase decision makers – ITIL and BSM solutions are sold to the business types, while open source solutiosn are “sold” to the technical types?
8. What takeaways do you want to leave listeners with today?
   
   

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In your IT department, what happens when your alarm levels go from 300 alarms an hour to 30? Would you trust your tools enough to know that the alarms it sends you are truly halting a business service? While Mary Nugent won’t use this podcast to attempt to tell you technical details on the correct alarming thresholds, she will share some excellent stories.

Discover how IT affects even moving the most precious deliveries safely, thanks to IT predictions and avoidance of failure. When does monitoring a printer actually stop trucks from leaving the premises? What surprises her about the future of predictive intelligence? What can non-futurists learn about predicting a system’s behavior with enough data collection? Find out this and more in this informative interview with Mary Nugent, vice president, Service Assurance, BMC Software.

Bio

Mary Nugent, vice president, Service Assurance, BMC Software, is an accomplished software technology executive with extensive expertise and in-depth knowledge in the emerging service management marketplace. She manages BMC’s customer-facing efforts for the company’s Service Assurance portfolio, including infrastructure management, event and impact management, and capacity management products. In addition to her 15 years of technology experience, she also has 10 years of experience in public accounting and is a certified public accountant.

Questions

1. Predictive intelligence involves a lot of data collection, analysis, and configuration of thresholds and seeking the truth of many data inputs. What can we non-futurists use to help “see” and predict the future? Are dashboards with combined views helpful, or are most people more comfortable in front of their usual threshold and management tools?
2. One concern about predictive intelligence is that if the collected data is wrong, it’s a very costly problem. What do you think about that concern? Is it valid?
3. Are there trade-offs to consider when collecting and storing all this data, or is storage so inexpensive to maintain that the returns on storage investment pay out quickly?
4. Do you have any good stories of an IT department that became “alarm-deaf,” where the noise level of alarms was drowning out meaningful information?
5. What has surprised you the most about predictive intelligence and where it is today?
6. What final message do you want to leave listeners with today?

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When does an IT department stop playing shoot 'em up games with their toolset and start playing cooperatively with tools that work like snap-together blocks? Learn this and more in this podcast with Dennis Drogseth, Vice President of Enterprise Management Associates. His viewpoint and experiences lend themselves well to stories of how CMDB adoption is emerging across several different industries from financial to health care.

He also works out some predictions for how a CMDB can age gracefully and grow modularity, talking about a constituency-driven CMDB model, where the staff, CFO, CEO, or CTO can be satisfied constituent groups supported by the Configuration Items (CIs) included in the model.

Dennis reminds us that it's not just the technology, but the politics, commitment, communication, and executive buy-in all have a role in the success or failure of a CMDB or ITIL project. Dennis explains how the process planning for a CMDB can be political whether it's an ITIL process that you're adhering to, or some derivative of ITIL. Decide if your people and team are up for the task of enabling the IT team to help the business grow and meet its service levels, and learn more about the emergence of the CMDB in helping people get their job done.

Bio

Dennis Drogseth is the Enterprise Management Associates Vice President and joined EMA in 1998. He currently manages the New Hampshire office. He has been a driving force in establishing EMA’s New England presence. Dennis brings 24 years of experience in various aspects of marketing and business planning for systems and network solutions. He directs a team of analysts that focus on the development of the Networked Services Management practice areas that span performance availability and service management across enterprise and telecommunication markets.

Dennis is a featured columnist of the Network Systems Management newsletter for Network World Fusion. He is an author of featured articles in Network Magazine and Business Communication Review.

Questions

1. What forces have come into play between 2006 and 2008 that are driving CMDB adoption - the "meteoric rise" as you show in your paper?
2. To what extent does process and process planning affect the success of CMDB projects?
3. When you talk about a "system of sources" in your white paper, does federation immediately come into the picture?
4. If there was so much growth in the last two years, what are your predictions for changes in adoption over the next five years?
5. How well will CMDB systems implemented now, in 2008, age with time?
6. What factors will help your CMDB mature gracefully?

EMA Webinar

Title: ITIL v3’s Configuration Management System in Context and What it Means for You
Speaker(s) Info: Dennis Drogseth, Vice President, EMA
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Time: 11:00 a.m., CDT (GMT -05:00, Chicago)

Join EMA VP Dennis Drogseth for an informative webinar on the concept of the Configuration Management System (CMS) in ITIL v3 and the dynamics behind the CMS and the CMDBS. He’ll discuss the constituency-driven CMDB model of the future in which federated CMDBs are optimized to support unique constituents united through a core system with consistent CI definitions. The presentation will draw from real-world adoptions, and will conclude with critical lessons learned from CMDB deployments in 2008.

EMA Whitepaper
The Emergence of the CMDB: What it Means to You
Many vendors offer CMDB systems, and the capabilities of these offerings vary dramatically. This whitepaper clarifies the definition and role of a CMDB, emphasizes the importance of alignment to the ITIL v3 Configuration Management System (CMS), and showcases the value IT stands to gain through successful CMDB implementation.

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Mobility has two meanings, when you stop to think about it. There’s the mobile technology we’ve all come to appreciate, but there’s also the legs that you walk around on and the vehicles that workers use for business. Mobile devices such as cell phones are technology-based movement enablers, but what happens if you put a pedometer on an IT worker and measure their steps? How can IT work directly affect gas and energy expenditures? Find out in this interesting podcast with Dan Turchin, President of Aeroprise, and Tom Biship, CTO at BMC Software.

Dan and Tom have thought about mobility and share stories from their mobile lifestyles. As you might imagine, there are distinct, measurable connections between IT worker mobility and a businesses’ dependence on IT service desk and IT service availability around the clock. As the world flattens, making geography boundaries less meaningful, so does a clock’s ticking become less and less the focus of an IT department’s tasks.

They also discuss how the end of the exclusively-PC computing environment is near as the mobile-centric environment marches in. With a mobile phone knowing your calendar, your availability, and perhaps even your location, more context is available with mobile devices than a desktop computer. Is your mobile office simply your pocket and a Blackberry or iPhone? Or perhaps both a Blackberry AND an iPhone? Find out in this fun and future-forward podcast conversation.

Questions:

1. (IT workers seem to have the toughest schedules due to the 24/7 uptime required by many businesses.) Do IT workers already work from home, but unofficially so?
2. Do you think that scheduled server downtime due to upgrades means that IT workers never get to enjoy the holidays, because server downtime is often scheduled during business slow times? Or is that an oversimplification?
3. What mobile technologies enable a mobile workforce? What’s new in this area?
4. (When some people think of work-at-home arrangements, they imagine a computer desk in the kitchen or living room.) What does the most modern mobile office look like today, in your imagination?
5. (The city of Birmingham, Alabama in the US is going to a four-day work week, but continuing to have five-day-a-week service to the city.) Could you enable a shortened work week and still maintain quality IT services?
6. How much does the cost of fuel and energy directly affect an IT department? Let’s talk about movement towards energy-conserving green IT.

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Peter Armstrong, corporate strategist for BMC Software

Listen in while Peter Armstrong, corporate strategist for BMC Software, talks about the needed skills for the direction that Enterprise IT is headed. In this interview, he gives his observations on an interesting opposition he sees forming. Now that IT does not have to run as if having the lights on day to day is their only goal, and instead, running the business efficiently is their goal, what can happen with those efficiency gains? Now that people realize they can run IT more efficiently, saving money, then do they get to do lots of innovation with that money, and how do you innovate a controlled manner?

So, the question Peter returns to is this: if you run IT with business goals in the forefront, then how will you resolve your priorities? Peter talks about ways to uncover the mentalities and rewards that will help move your department in the right direction as team members get out of a rut. He even describes his own perfect compensation package, and yes, a driver would be pertinent.

Peter travels extensively and has plenty of great stories to go along with the workplaces that are examples of people who really “get” business service management and has a workforce that is enabled to do the same. What story goes along with his ability to recognize the Swiss flag? What’s his true definition of hero? Here’s a small hint, the definition of a true IT hero is a little different in this podcast than the hero described in his white paper.

Take a listen and do talk back. If your experiences or “ah-ha!” moments match any of Peter’s, let us know.

Resources

Six Guiding Principles to Changing Behavior and Speeding the Adoption of BSM and ITIL

Bio

Peter Armstrong is responsible for the increasingly important domain of how business and information technology need to work together. Armstrong has helped to develop the company’s Business Service Management (BSM) strategy. He is also responsible for educating BMC Software’s customers and employees, the media, and analysts about the company’s vision and strategy. In addition to evangelizing, he works closely with the company’s development labs to keep them informed about customer plans and activities, particularly in the non-U.S. marketplace, helping to ensure that the solutions BMC Software delivers are pertinent worldwide both today and in the future.

Production Credits

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Doug Mueller, BMC CTO for the Service Management Business Unit

Perhaps your service desks are humming along quite nicely, thank you, but you're wondering what challenges or opportunities are around the corner. Maybe you've been listening to media outlets discuss home-based and outsourced service desk workers and want to know a service desk insider's view point. If you are looking towards the future of service desks, you'll want to listen to this conversation with Doug Mueller about how standards and processes have evolved to bring us the service desk of today and tomorrow. Discover what changes in direction surprise even Doug Mueller as he builds architecture for the technologies and directions for efficient service desks both working with internal and external customer service levels. Doug's enthusiasm for taking the service desk to the next level is noticeable in this podcast, and you just might come away with some new perceptions of the service desk of the future. Does that future involve mobile computing, follow-the-sun hours coverage, and flying cars? Find out by listening in to a conversation about the future efficiency and quality levels that the service desk can attain.

Bio

Doug Mueller serves as Chief Technology Officer, Service Management Business Unit of BMC Software. Doug is responsible for helping drive the architecture and direction of the BSM, Service Support, and Atrium initiatives. He joined BMC in 2002 as part of the acquisition of Remedy where he was a co-founder.

Production Credits

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Brent Sullivan, Lead Solutions Manager, BMC

What is Service Automation and how does it go beyond Data Center Automation? What are the benefits? Where do you start? Find the answers to these questions in this interview with Brent Sullivan, Lead Solutions Manager at BMC. Learn how you can deliver IT services faster, safer, and more cost effectively in this 20-minute podcast on Service Automation.

Bio

Early in Brent Sullivan’s technology career he was instrumental in helping a Houston start-up earn its spot on the Inc. 500 list, creating and marketing availability and performance management services and outsourced administration. Brent has since brought innovative ideas to both Compaq Computer Corporation, where he developed Pre-Failure Warranty and an innovative database deployment and configuration capability, and BMC Software, Inc. where he initiated enterprise application solutions and transaction management solutions. Today, with BMC Service Automation solutions, he is once again focused on helping customers solve problems around data center deployment and configuration.

Production Credits

• Tom Parish, Executive Producer, Audio Producer
• 5 alarm music, intro and outro music
  

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David Savino, VP of Services, Column Technologies
Tom Bishop, Chief Technology Officer, BMC

Show moderator: Ken Jochims, Lead Solutions Marketing Manager, BMC
 

Are you wondering what, exactly, is a configuration management system, or CMS? How is a CMS different from a configuration management database (CMDB)? Why should IT organizations even care?

While the CMS is not a new concept, it is given considerable focus in the latest release of the IT Infrastructure Library^® (ITIL^®), an integrated and cohesive set of best-practice recommendations with common definitions and terminology published by the Office of Government Commerce. Listen to this podcast to learn more.

Resources

Column Technologies

Ken Turbitt: ITIL v3 and Identity

Production Credits

Tom Parish, Executive Producer and Host
5 Alarm Music, intro and outro music

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Quentin Mackey
Regional Director of Delivery, Column Technologies Inc.

Quentin Mackey looks at both the business and technology aspects of an organization so Column Technologies can provide solutions to better manage their internal and external service delivery. Through Column's approach, a business need is translated into an IT solution to support the needs of the organization. In BMC’s case, that translates to continuous training and certification, project management methodology, and adaptation of business service management.

Resources

Column Technologies Inc.

Our Relationship with BMC Software

Bio

Quentin Mackey is Regional Director for Delivery with Column Technologies. He has more than ten years' experience with Remedy ARS development. Quentin has been instrumental in Column Technologies' growth since 2002. His IT Service Management expertise have enable him to design, manage and deliver complex IT Service Management solutions to leading, global organizations across many industries. Quentin brings a wealth of process and technical knowledge, customer success and best practices experience to each and every engagement.

Production Credits

Tom Parish, Executive Producer and Host
5-alarm music, intro and outro music

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The value of identity management goes beyond alpha-numeric password protection. The same goes for the identity data itself. Colin Fletcher, BMC Solutions Manager, covers numerous identity management-related topics, including how you can use identity data in conjunction with proactive incident and problem management to ensure you can get home in time to pick up the kids, how identity management projects can lead to unanticipated results, why you need to beware of the rogue server sitting under your desk, and how regulatory compliance can become the identity management conversation starter.

Join us for a thought-provoking identity management conversation.

Production Credits

• Tom Parish, Audio Producer