Asset management and service desk solutions To support your IT objectives
Address IT costs and streamline operations with IBM service desk and asset management.
Highlights
Help improve the value of IT by enhancing service support and increasing availability of critical business services
Help gain better visibility into service performance, manage change impact and improve customer satisfaction
Manage incidents, problems via a single point of contact
Use asset management to help drive key business decisions, effectively redeploy assets and avoid over provisioning
Address compliance risk in IT situations, from mainframes to distributed environments
Employ change management to enable proactive planning for modifications as part of the IT asset management process
IBM Tivoli® Service Desk and IBM Tivoli Asset Management for IT are both key components of IBM Service Request Manager, an approach to helping IT integrate people, processes and tech- nology through a unified platform for incident, problem, change and release management. IBM Service Request Manager supports extensions to all other aspects of service management and serves as a tangible demonstration of how it can transition IT from a cost center to a profit center that is aligned with your business priorities.
Both Tivoli Service Desk and Tivoli Asset Management for IT utilize a Web-architected, J2EE™ platform, with
advanced business process manage- ment based on service oriented architecture (SOA), Web services and extensible markup language (XML).
These advanced service desk and asset management solutions enable adapta- tion, configuration, rapid deployment, robust scalability and deep integrations with enterprise applications.
Unlike many other IT solutions that may only fulfill a single need — such as incident and problem management, procurement or IT inventory main- tenance — Tivoli Service Desk and Tivoli Asset Management for IT provide much more flexibility and are easy to configure and upgrade. Furthermore,
these two software products are excep- tional in their work management and job planning capabilities. In fact, this technology enables the management of not only IT assets, but also critical operational assets such as facilities, production equipment and transporta- tion assets. In addition, they can be easily integrated with other compo- nents of the Tivoli software portfolio, as well as additional asset and service management components from IBM and other vendors.
Tivoli Service Desk: delivering enhanced support to every aspect of your enterprise As technology becomes increas- ingly complex, problem resolution can become more time-consuming, skill requirements can increase and costs of maintaining quality services can esca- late. Your service desk delivers critical support to your entire organization by helping keep key business systems and services available and reliable.
Tivoli Service Desk helps maximize the availability of business-critical
IT services by focusing on two key attributes: prioritization and responsive- ness, making it much easier for you to manage incidents and problems across your infrastructure, restore failing IT services more rapidly and help mini- mize costly service desk calls. It can provide:
• Increased availability of critical IT services and fewer disruptions.
• More efficient, streamlined service desk operations.
• Better adherence to IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) guidelines and other best practices.
• A common solution for global support.
• More accessible business reporting and
“on demand” views of key performance indicators (KPIs).
Tivoli Service Desk is a highly flex- ible service desk solution built from the ground up on the ITIL framework.
The software allows you to move from incident management to problem management to change and release management — all on a single platform.
Automated incident and problem management
Tivoli Service Desk provides a single point of contact to manage incidents and problems. It receives and records service requests and updates from end users, technicians and monitoring applications — even those related to non-IT assets such as heating, venti- lation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and copy machines. Tivoli Service Desk can:
• Prioritize service restoration.
• Resolve and help prevent future problems.
• Monitor and escalate incidents based on designated service levels.
• Implement processes to manage change and establish efficient procedures for the distribution of changes.
Key capabilities that differentiate Tivoli Service Desk
Workflow and escalation threshold configuration works in any Web browser to help implement proactive business process automation to automatically monitor and manage any data point in the common database, process or event.
24x7 support to end users through multiple “self-service” capabilities for submitting, updating and reviewing incidents via a Web browser, searching for solutions to common problems and browsing through frequently asked ques- tions. These capabilities can increase customer satisfaction while helping reduce costs, because users address service requests themselves, lightening the workload for service desk agents.
A searchable knowledgebase provides access to common solutions, known errors and workarounds. Using classification and keyword searching, agents can resolve issues faster, improving first-call resolution rates.
Real-time, role-based dashboards and reports provide insight into multiple levels of service desk opera- tions to monitor KPIs using an intuitive, graphical user interface (GUI) from any Web-based client. Data objects are stored in a common database and reports on each can be viewed in the dashboard.
Centralized control for global organi- zations to simultaneously deploy multiple languages from a single server. Multisite and multiorganizational capabilities allow the deployment to be mapped to your organization’s structure, enhancing security and consistently delivering quality services at any local level.
Change management capabilities, by leveraging a powerful visual workflow, allowing you to automate requests and approvals and thus manage the impact of change.
Configuration tools to facilitate changes to the user interface, work- flows and reports. Easy, “on-the-fly”
customizations that do not require manual, costly development rework for release upgrades make the software easier to upgrade than offerings from other vendors.
The Tivoli Service Desk difference Tivoli Service Desk helps manage the complexity of technology, speed deployment and lower total cost of ownership. It also facilitates additional security, maintenance, upgrades and
configurations through standardization, helping you avoid becoming locked into proprietary applications and vendor platforms, and it helps enhance inter- operability with key IT infrastructure systems.
Tivoli Asset Management for IT: a place for everything and everything in its place Manually tracking and managing inven- tory data can be costly, time-consuming and error-prone. IT organizations typi- cally need a way to manage software, hardware and related information across the infrastructure — throughout the asset life cycle — and to manage the financial impact of IT assets and costs related to procurement, provi- sioning, budgeting and compliance.
Tivoli Asset Management for IT is an enterprise asset management applica- tion that combines inventory, financial, maintenance and contract manage- ment into one easy-to-use interface.
IBM Maximo applications leverage common services such as roles, security, reporting and administration.
Other vendor offerings have separate workflows, infrastructures and data repositories.
Tivoli Service Desk and Tivoli Asset Management for IT support ITIL-based processes.
IBM configuration management
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT
RELEASE MANAGEMENT
PROBLEM MANAGEMENT CONFIGURATION
MANAGEMENT
IT organization
Tivoli
Service Desk IT infrastructure
THE BUSINESS
AVAILABILITY MANAGEMENT SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT Change management
Identifies and classifies Routes through correct approval process Plans and schedules all tasks and personnel Standardizes process to minimize outages
Release management Identifies and classifies releases Plans and schedules subordinate changes for rollout Configuration management
Maintains all details of assets through entire life cycle Understands relationships between assets Tracks owners and custodians
Includes all service and work management history
Incident management Identifies, classifies and prioritizes incidents Views asset details Solution searching to improve resolution times
Records details in central management database automatically Tivoli Service Desk
Single point of communication Receives, records and resolves Self-service capabilities Search solutions/FAQs
Service level management Defines services, captures agreements and proatively monitors performance Escalation management Any Maximo process, not just service desk processes
Availability management Records availability metrics (downtime)
KPIs to ensure availability Escalations and workflow to monitor and proactively modify
Problem management Identifies and classifies problems Creates and implements solutions Enables transition from problem to known error
Tivoli Asset Management for IT automati- cally tracks and efficiently manages the complete life cycle of assets. It provides:
• Control over procurement, licensing and main- tenance agreement costs.
• Forecasting of future IT needs.
• Maintenance and documentation of internal, contractual and regulatory compliance issues for software licenses and hardware leases.
Automated asset life-cycle management The key technology components for Tivoli Asset Management for IT include:
• An embedded, robust process automa- tion system to create dynamic, customizable workflows.
• A comprehensive escalation and noti- fication engine with automatic incident and problem alerts.
• A comprehensive database that stores and tracks IT-related asset information.
• Screen-designing tools to configure the software to meet business objectives.
• A standards-based approach, for simple integration with key financial and HR systems.
• The ability to manage both IT and operational assets, allowing organizations to achieve greater efficiencies by leveraging a single asset management system for all asset classes.
Key capabilities that differentiate Tivoli Asset Management for IT
Asset tracking to help avoid over provisioning Tivoli Asset Management for IT delivers thorough and accurate asset tracking to drive key business decisions, effec- tively redeploy assets and avoid over
provisioning. It can discover and store asset information and relationships, and help plan and manage asset reconfigu- rations, moves, additions and changes, while assigning assets to users, general ledger accounts and locations. In addi- tion, it integrates with automated asset discovery applications from IBM and other vendors.
Tivoli Asset Management for IT can play a key role in helping to miti- gate compliance risks due to under licensing. It can automatically asso- ciate mainframe licenses with software inventory and use activity, to eliminate manual inventories. Detailed reports help reduce cost and proactively maintain, manage and document compliance efforts across the organiza- tion. Tracking use and licensing helps ensure that companies pay only for the software they need.
Promote proactive planning through change management
Further, change management capabilities allow your IT operations to proactively plan for modifications as part of your overall IT asset management process.
It can help plan, review and report on work, resources and costs associated
with implementing IT infrastructure changes, as well as notify support staff of changes and schedule rollouts.
An end-to-end solution from a single platform and vendor
Tivoli Asset Management for IT is an end-to-end IT asset management solution available to you from any Web interface through a single, unified platform. You can use it to enhance service levels and response times by delivering asset and configuration information, and to improve first-call resolution rates by standardizing configurations. The software helps boost employee productivity through more effective management of provi- sioning requests.
IBM delivers leadership in the enter- prise asset management arena, helping customers bridge IT and core busi- ness assets to manage the impact that IT has on the business — across the enterprise. By using a single applica- tion for asset tracking, reporting and service management, organizations can integrate each into a single set of processes to make the business more efficient and effective.
Open standards increase flexibility Equally appropriate for both midsize businesses and large enterprises, Tivoli Service Desk and Tivoli Asset Management for IT are built on an open standards–based J2EE platform. This helps increase reliability and access to third-party software and widens the pool of users who can customize and main- tain your service management system.
The IBM asset management and service desk difference
IBM asset and service desk solutions provide:
• Mature work management processes and support for proactive work activities.
• An architecture built from the ground up on the ITIL framework.
• Ability to easily configure the solution and ensure that these changes upgrade and do not have to be redone when migrating to a new release.
• Integration with operational management products for process automation.
• Built-in report designers and viewers.
• Automatic IT asset discovery capabilities through IBM Tivoli Application Discovery and Dependency Manager.
• A centralized, GUI-based workflow.
IBM Service Management encom- passes decades of cross-industry experience in helping thousands of organizations around the globe imple- ment service management. Our broad portfolio of solutions and depth of expertise can help align technology investments with business objectives and demonstrate the proven value that IT brings to the organization to drive business growth. Through a broad port- folio of software, hardware, financing and consulting services, IBM Service Management helps organizations both create and manage value, with products and services that address the complete service management life cycle — from business management to IT development and IT operations.
For more information
To learn more about how IBM Service Management solutions can help your organization better manage service levels and IT assets, contact your IBM repre- sentative or IBM Business Partner, or visit ibm.com/itsolutions/servicemanagement
About IBM solutions for enabling IT governance and risk management IBM enables IT organizations to support governance and risk management by aligning IT policies, processes and projects with business goals. Organizations can leverage IBM services, software and hardware to plan, execute and manage initiatives for IT service management, business resilience and security across the enterprise. Organizations of every size can benefit from flexible, modular IBM offerings that span business management, IT development and IT operations and draw on extensive customer experience, best practices and open standards–based technology.
IBM helps clients implement the right IT solutions to achieve rapid business results and become a strategic partner in business growth. For more information about IBM Governance and Risk Management, visit ibm.com/
itsolutions/governance
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IT Infrastructure Library is a registered trademark of the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency which is now part of the Office of Government Commerce.
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It is the customer’s sole responsibility to obtain advice of competent legal counsel as to the identification and interpretation of any relevant laws and regulatory requirements that may affect the customer’s business and any actions the reader may have to take to comply with such laws. IBM does not provide legal advice or represent or warrant that its services or products will ensure that the customer is in compliance with any law or regulation.
