An ICT services provider to enterprises across the Middle East, Smartworld meets and exceeds its customers’ expectations with efficient, high-quality services. HP Business Service Management makes this possible by bridging IT silos and consolidating network, system, and application events. Integration with HP Service Manager enables proactive alerts and ticket creation, accelerating mean time to repair.

In the end, Smartworld optimized IT operations efficiency, delivered superior service levels, and reduced TCO by between 30 and 60%. Now that’s smart.

To learn more about the benefits of BSM at Smartworld

Many of you have asked for HP Business Availability Center (BAC) lessons learned and customer success stories. Here’s one from Deloitte Australia, a member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one of the world’s leading professional services firms.

Deloitte is using HP BAC to monitor the health of its business services and the entire underlying infrastructure including servers, operating systems, network, Internet services, and applications.

Aligned with ITIL processes, HP BAC has streamlined incident and problem management and reduced mean time to resolution from a few hours to a matter of minutes. In addition, Deloitte has decreased downtime of external systems (client business systems), enriching the customer experience. These results, among others, contributed to the service excellence that made Deloitte the 2008 Accountancy Firm of the Year.

Read how Deloitte achieved their exceptional outcomes.

by Michael Procopio

Just over 3200 attendees at the show this year.

Each of the last eight years at the European Universe, Ulrich Pfeiffer, CTO for IT Management in EMEA creates a Live in Action demo showcasing the fictitious Full Throttle Company (FTC) on mainstage. Live in Action is a demonstration of HP Software integrated into a complete solution.

Ulrich Pfeiffer

This year, the Live in Action team recalled Hamburg of the early 1960s when this German city gave the Beatles a start before the group became a mainstream sensation. The demo featured the HP Performance Optimized Datacenter (“POD”), a datacenter in a container, along with music by the re-Beatles band and an on-stage yellow submarine in a disaster recovery scenario involving a flooded datacenter.

The POD is a standard container completely fitted with servers, storage and HVAC. You can see the POD demo here.

BTO (Business Technology Optimization) solutions demoed live on stage showed capabilities in three areas: 1) business and disaster recovery; 2) service recovery and web security; and 3) business improvements to avoid service disruptions and enhance capacity via virtualization management.

Disaster recovery highlighted HP Operations Orchestration configuring the POD to the state of the original datacenter.

Web security started with finding the problem using End User Monitoring, HP SiteScope and HP Problem Isolation. The problem was a hacked web site. The knowledge base in HP Service Manager (SM) which was populated during QA testing by HP Quality Center has the solution to the problem.   QA had not originally done security testing on every release but it is now added to their plan in HP Quality Center (QC) to run HP Security Center.

HP WebInspect, was run directly from SM. The test failed and WebInspect automatically created a ticket in SM for the QA team.  Once the QC test passes the SM ticket is automatically closed.

The website having the problem was supporting a reseller using a configuration utility to order Snowmobiles, a new business line for FTC. When Ulrich, playing CIO for FTC, called the reseller to tell him service was restored the reseller claimed his SLA (Service Level Agreement) was violated and would not pay. Ulrich brought up HP Service Level Manager to show that while any further downtime would violate the SLA, it was currently in tact.

Now that the problems is solved the infrastructure manager looks to see how the failure happened and what can be done to prevent it in the future.

They review the infrastructure using HP Asset Manager and Operations Manager Virtualization Smart Plug-in, both now running on Linux. The CIO wants this Virtualization data to show up in his 360 degree dashboard and it does.

It is much more fun to watch and it was video recorded which will be up after the holidays.

Related items:

• HP Operations Orchestration


• HP SiteScope


• HP End User Management


• HP Problem Isolation


• HP Quality Center


• HP Application Security Center


• HP Service Manager


• HP Service Level Management


• HP WebInspect software


• HP Asset Manager software


• HP Operations Manager software


• HP Smart Plug-in for Virtualization

by Michael Procopio

Wednesday was Day 1 for Universe and cloud was the word on announcements. Here is a video of the HP Software Universe Press Conference.

Here are the official announcements, I’ll provide some comments on them in another post.

» HP Accelerates Cloud Computing Adoption for Businesses and Service Providers

» HP Helps Businesses Optimize Costs of Cloud Adoption

» HP Helps Telecoms Tap New $6.2 Billion Market: Communications as a Service for Midsize Businesses

» HP Extends Automation from In House to the Cloud

• HP Cloud Assure service: Assuring security, performance, and availability to enable business confidence in the cloud (1.25MB, PDF)


• Clarifying the cloud


• Clarifying the cloud hype


• HP Cloud Consulting Services


• HP Software as a Service


• HP Operations Orchestration


• HP SiteScope


• HP Diagnostics 

Are you a blogger? Are you attending HP Software Universe
Hamburg? We'd like to meet you and discuss what you blog about and
highlight your work.

Five of our bloggers will be blogging from the event. Please look them up,
you might get a drink out of them!

Genefa Murphy - covering Agile
Development and Requirements Management

Amy Feldman – @HPITOps, covering Application
Performance  Management

Aruna Ravichandran - covering Application
Performance  Management

Mark Tomlinson - covering Load
Runner and Performance Center

Michael Procopio - @MichaelAtHP, covering Application
Performance  Management and Business Service Management

Mike Shaw – interested in meeting IT Operations management for something
new in 2010

Peter Spielvogel - @HPITOps, covering Operations Management

 Roi Carmel - covering The Future of Testing

Follow
the event on Twitter – Twitter.com/HPSWU
@HPSWU, hashtag #HPSWU

Or become a Facebook
fan

More on HP Software Universe 2009 Hamburg

· Sneak
Preview – Application Performance Management Blog

· Sneak
Preview – Infrastructure Management Software Blog

· Optimizing
cost by automating your ITIL V3 processes

· Event Information
Page

Draft

The Cloud and your Applications:  What is the Impact on Application Management? (Free webinar)

Are your applications doing what they are suppose to be doing?  Can you confidently answer the question, are you cloud assure when it comes to your critical business applications?  Cloud computing, tiered applications, Software as a Service (SaaS) – all add complexity and make that question more difficult to answer.

Customers are finding more business service problems. The result: customer satisfaction and retention is at risk. The good news is that despite declining budgets, you can reduce downtime, increase service levels, and improve user experience quality. 

Hear EMA Research Director Julie Craig share the early results of a recent market research survey.  You’ll also hear from HP Product Marketing Manager Amy Feldman, who will share customer best practices and success stories.

Date:  Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Time:  6am PST/9am EST/2pm UK

Learn how you can become more cloud confident by registering for this free webinar at http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/asset.php?id=1593

Thanks

Amy Feldman

Product Marketing - HP Business Availability Cente
HP Software and Solutions 

YES - large-scale applications such as SAP and Oracle Siebel support core business functions. Many build and implement integrations between SAP systems and non-SAP applications such as Seibel using SAP NetWeaver, SOA and/or other middleware components to support complex business processes. If they fail, business goals are in jeopardy. These complex applications are woven into heterogeneous networks, and every change or fix ripples through multiple systems and applications.

The focus of IT has been on managing systems, efficiently and at low cost. In today’s environment, this systems orientation results in disconnected monitoring data that does nothing to indicate the health of overall business services, making end-user complaints the first indication that service levels aren’t being met. It also makes it extremely difficult to assign problems to the team that can fix them most quickly.

HP Business Availability Center for SAP applications is a comprehensive solution to proactively manage SAP & non-SAP environments in a production environment, so that IT is able to best leverage its resources and respond faster to SAP incidents, thus increasing the value its SAP applications deliver to the business.

We have a very exciting flash demo (total run time 3:34) highlighting our approach to helping our customers better manage their business services and complex IT landscapes.

Check it out:

https://h30406.www3.hp.com/campaigns/2009/demo/bsm_sap/index.html

You can read more details on the solution here: http://h20229.www2.hp.com/partner/protected/assets/pdf/4AA1-9302ENW.pdf

 <-->

by Michael Procopio

Top 10 Ten ways to improve IT Cost Optimization. Another fun video from Mark Leake, this time with an appearance from Freddy and James.

Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps http://twitter.com/HPITOps

Join the HP Software LinkedIn Group

For the Business Availability Center, Michael Procopio

After a break Mainstage split into a
Business Intelligence session and a Business Technology Optimization (BTO)
session, I went to the later hosted by
Robin
Purohit, vice president and general manger, Software Products, HP Software &
Solutions

Here are some bits I found
interesting:

1. There are 15M virtual servers now and
   it is expected to double in 2 years.
   


2. Three key areas of change IT will see
   are: virtualization, SaaS and Web 2.0.
   


3. Web 2.0 screws up a lot in management,
   HP is building Web 2.0 compatibility into BTO tools.
   


4. Dataprotector, monitoring tools and
   mapping tools are including or working to include virtualization capability.
   
   


5. Service Manager and Asset Manager are
   now available as SaaS.
   


6. 35% of flash apps violate Adobe best
   practices. HP released a testing tool which you can download for free called
   SWFScan. The same
   technology is built into some of HP’s BTO products. Customers can also do a free
   trial of our scanning SaaS.
   


7. One customer cut $5M  in costs just in
   automating incidents with HP Operations Orchestration.
   


8. HP Software recently announced a suite
   of software for operations of Blackberry implementations. See HP and RIM Announce Strategic Alliance to Mobilize Business on
   BlackBerry for more details.
   


9. HP Software is publishing
   configuration management best practices later this month.
   


10. Brian Byun VP Global Alliances from VMware came on stage
    and announced announced an expanded partnership with HP to jointly develop
    software to manage VMware hypervisor technology. Denise Dubie at Network World
    wrote HP, VMware team to manage virtual
    servers.

There are a variety of Twitter accounts
you can follow as well as the hashtag #HPSU09. Search Twitter for
#HPSU09.

HPITOps  – Covers BSM, ITFM, ITSM, Operations and
Network Management

HPSU09  – show logistics and other
information

HPSoftwareCTO

informationCTO

HPSoftware

BTOCMO – HP BTO Chief Marketing Officer

For HP BSM, Michael Procopio

 By Mike Shaw, BSM Product Marketing

 Last year, we did a series of in depth interviews with customers (28 of them, actually).  As part of these interviews, we asked if people did proactive user experience monitoring - either using synthetic scripting technology to pretend to be a user, or using a probe on the network to look at the data going to the users' screens and monitoring the response time.

About half the respondents said they did. This ties in with a recent Aberdeen study that found 57% of companies didn't do user experience monitoring.

So, we asked on IT manager who didn't do user experience monitoring, why had he not invested in this technology. "Because we respond very quickly when the first customer rings in", was his response.

And since that day, I've been on a quest to get a magic number. How many minutes, on average,elapses between a business service giving a poor user experience and the first customer calling in. I have only three data points, but no definitive study. The average seems to be about 30 to 45 minutes.

To get another angle, whenever I present to a friendly audience, I'll ask them how often they have called a company when they have had problems with a user interface (e.g. on an ordering web site). Of the 160 people I've asked, just two had actually picked up the phone, and in both  situations, it's been something critical like sorting out a mobile/cell phone bill.

I have another data point. A study by Corporate Executive Board in 2004 found that the average cost to a company of down-time is $1.3m per hour. That's $27,000 per minute.

So, we have 30 to 45 minutes (very rough estimate). We have $27,000 per minute. Being conservative (and very rough), we have a cost of 30 minutes X $27,000  or $81,000 per poor user experience problem. 

Do you have any data on the average time between a poor user experience situation starting and the first customer calling in? If you do, could you please post a comment with the data - it amazes me that such data is not readily available "out there".

By Bryan Dean: BSM Research

In part 1 of this post I introduced some research conducted a couple years ago where we explored the IT professional’s perception of the role that their IT played in the business.

I think the bottom line is whether you are an IT Executive, Director, vendor, or analyst… do not fall into the “monolithic trap” of prescribing one-size-fits-all BSM evolution roadmaps. Clearly establishing and recognizing IT’s role in the business, AND getting all parties on the same page up front is imperative and will save a ton of time, money, and anguish.

You will want to revisit part 1 to get the full discussion, but here is a thumbnail of the core research results, followed by some observations.

The Research Revealed Three Major Segments:

Segment A: “Business Innovation Partner”

• Business & IT equal partners in business process design, measurement, analysis and optimization


• High IT investment to revenue ratio


• Actively transforming IT to interrelate IT services to business processes


• Utilize real-time, automated IT & business measurement; with dynamic capacity adjustment


• ~20% of IT Execs put themselves in this bucket; less than 5% of IT Directors

Segment B: “Business / IT Service Providers”

• Business leaders drive business process design, analysis and optimization; IT partners with business to measure and advise on optimization


• Medium to high IT investment to revenue ratio


• Actively transforming IT service management processes and tools


• Provide IT dashboards & regular service level / business impact reports; respond relatively quickly to adjust capacity


• ~50% of IT Execs put themselves in this bucket; ~ 35% of IT Directors

Segment C: “Operate IT Supporting Business”

• Business drives all aspects of business process design, measurement, analysis and optimization; IT’s job is to run IT well, thus supporting the business


• Low-medium IT investment to revenue ratio


• Targeted improvements in IT process and toolset


• Provide IT performance and availability metrics; adjust capacity via periodic projects


• ~30% IT Execs put themselves in this bucket; ~60% of IT Directors

Observations on Results

Business or IT Perception:

One of the most common responses by our IT Executives and Directors in this research was, “Do you want us to talk about IT’s role in the business from our IT perspective, or from our business leader’s perspective?”

In general, IT believed their contribution to business process design, analysis and optimization was much more significant than their business counterparts believed. When I was in IT (about a century ago), we didn’t have to walk in the snow up hill, both directions… but we did have significant issues with business credibility, and being recognized for our contribution. A million blogs have been written on this subject and how to improve IT’s standing, but the research continues to reflect a difficult reality.

The Spread:

There is a relatively small percentage of IT that put themselves in the “Business Innovation” category, and a surprisingly high number of IT continue to put themselves into the “Operate IT Supporting the Business” category. The percentage of IT that identifies themselves in each different segment may have changed significantly in the last two years, but I doubt it.

The IT Executive - Director Gap:

I wrote a previous BSM blog post on this perception gap, but here is more evidence that IT Executives and the lower level IT operations staff are not on the same page. 60% of the IT Directors put themselves into the “Operate IT Supporting Business” bucket, compared with only 30% of the Executives.

Most of the executives in the research freely admitted that one of their biggest challenges was to change the culture in IT, and get IT operations out of their technology comfort zone. One the other hand, many Directors said they would like to focus on the business, but it wasn’t practical with their workload, staffing, and budget… and the limited hours in the day.

ITSM/BSM Tool & Process Maturity

There was a strong correlation between IT’s identified role in the business, and the progress they had achieved in their ITSM/BSM journey. The “Business Innovation Partners” were consistently early adopters for advanced IT management software tools, very strong at dynamically managing and monitoring end-to-end business/IT services real time, and were interrelating IT performance to business impact. They were also advanced on IT process maturity, but not as noticeably as with their technology.

The “Business / IT Service Providers” were very IT process savvy, and had invested significant budget to in their words, “Get our IT house in order”, so that they could build business trust and operate in a very consistent, cost effective manner. IT software management tools also received significant investment, but aimed more at automating IT processes than interrelating to real time business performance. Although clearly demonstrating Service Levels and IT’s value to business was strong.

The “Operate IT Supporting Business” consistently struggled to prove the business ROI for process and tool investments, so they targeted new spending very carefully, and their progress reflects this investment profile.

The Monolithic Trap

One recommendation, don’t fall into it! Start by assuming everyone is not on the same page, and that everyone does not have the same assumptions about IT’s role in the business... and then you will be ready to make progress on that BSM evolution roadmap.

When developing and marketing products, we often have questions  which can only be answered by going out there and seeing what people are doing. We have a guy on the BSM team who does this for us. His name is Bryan Dean. I've worked with Bryan for many years and I've always been impressed by his objectivity and the insight he brings to his analysis (i.e. he doesn't just present a set of figures - he gets behind the figures).

At the end of last year, we asked Bryan to analyze the top 20-odd BSM deals of 2008. He formed a number of conclusions from this research. One set of conclusions concerned how people "get to BSM" - how they evolve towards an integrated BSM solution. I asked Bryan to help me with a series of posts to share what he learnt about evolutions towards BSM because I think that knowing what our other BSM customers are doing may help you.

________

Mike: Bryan, can you give a summary of what you learnt?

Bryan: There is no one evolution path. It's fascinating to me that a hundred different IT organizations can have virtually the same high-level goals, fundamentally agree on the key factors for success, and yet end up with a hundred unique execution paths.

Before I answer your question, can I create a definition? The term "BSM" is very poorly defined within the IT industry - different vendors have different versions, and so do the industry analysts (in fact, some other research I did last year concluded that very few people had a clear idea of what BSM means).  So, I'd like to introduce the term "Automated Business/IT Service Management"  or AB/ITSM.

Back to your question, I think I can group all the different evolution paths into five key types:  

1. 
   
   ITSM incident, problem change & configuration:  this evolution is driven out of the need for process-driven IT service management with the service desk as a key component


2. 
   
   Consolidated infrastructure event, performance and availability: this is driven by a recognition that having a whole ton of event management and performance monitoring systems is not an efficient way to run IT, and so there is a drive to consolidate them into one console.


3. 
   
   Business service visibility & accountability:  this is more of a top-down approach - start with monitoring the customer's quality of experience and then figure out what needs to happen underneath. This is popular in industries where the "web customer experience" is everything - if it's not good, you lose your business


4. 
   
   Service discovery & model: this is where evolution towards integration is driven from the need for a central model (the CMDB). Often, the main driver for such a central model is the need to control change


5. 
   
   Business transaction management: today, this is the rarest starting point. It's driven by a need to monitor and diagnose complex composite transactions. We see this need most strongly in the financial services sector

Mike: How about the politics of such AB/ITSM projects?  (I don't see the AB/ITSM term taking hold, by the way :-) )

Bryan: Politics (or, most specifically, the motivational side) is important. I think many heavy thinkers in our industry have the mistaken assumption that that there is a single evolution path, controlled from the top on down by the CIO following a master plan. Trying to manage such a serialized, mega project is a huge challenge and too slow, not to mention that 99% of CIO’s are not in the habit of forcing tactical execution edicts on their lieutenants (I know I’ll get some argument on that one :-) ).

What I see from my research is that the most successful IT organizations are those who have figured out how to balance between discrete doable projects, and an overall AB/ITSM end-goal context and roadmap.  Typically, the CIO lays down a high-level vision that ties to specific business results, and then allows key lieutenants to assess and drive a prioritized set of federated, manageable projects that independently drive incremental ROI. Some IT organizations may have a well-defined integrated roadmap, but the majority of IT run federated projects in a fairly disjointed fashion.

These parallel paths are owned by many independent personas within IT, each trying to solve the specific set of issues at hand. For them, being bogged down in how their federated project aligns and integrates with all the other AB/ITSM projects is daunting… if not fatal.

And on reflection this makes sense to me - the human side of things plays a large role in such endeavors.

Mike: What do you mean?

Bryan: IT organizations of all shapes and sizes have goals to reduce costs, increase efficiency, improve business/IT service quality, and mitigate risk all while applying technology in an agile way to boost business performance.   What I find interesting is how specific, funded initiatives are created by specific personas to achieve the goals.

In future posts, I will share some specific examples of how customers evolved through these paths, the key driver personas, the core motivations and how these paths come together.