For CIOs

CIOs: Business Alignment And BT Enablement Require Business Capability Maps

At Your Level, You Can't Rely On Any Other Single IT Business Model

by Bobby Cameron, October 30, 2009

CIOs are aggressively tackling their planning and management challenges, deploying tools and building models to address a wide variety of functions like asset management, IT services management, application rationalization, business process efficiencies, . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

The IT Management Software Challengers

SWOT Analysis For ASG, Compuware, EMC, Quest Software, And Microsoft, Q3 2009

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, October 26, 2009

The 2009 IT management software (ITMS) market seems to favor smaller vendors to the detriment of larger ones. Preliminary results for the first three quarters of 2009 show that the megavendors' share of the ITMS market has again declined from 2008. This . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: CMDB And CMS, Q3 2009

by Glenn O'Donnell, July 16, 2009

As IT organizations recognize the high value of structured IT management initiatives, Forrester is receiving many questions related to the configuration management database (CMDB). Since January 2008, Forrester has fielded 172 client inquires on various . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Tech Horizons: ASG's metaCMDB, The Technology That Rocks

How To Optimize Your Path To A Configuration Management System

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, June 16, 2009

The challenging business climate is an opportunity for many enterprises to revisit how IT supports the need for improved business productivity. Better, more efficient IT is often required. This streamlining of IT demands better and more accurate IT management . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

CMDB Manager — Job Profile And Description  (28 KB XLS)

by Galen Schreck, April 1, 2009

Position overview: The CMDB manager implements, configures, and runs the CMDB system throughout its life cycle.

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Market Overview: The IT Management Software Market In 2009

The Current Economy Is A Catalyst For Change

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Peter O'Neill, March 13, 2009

In 2009, IT faces the problem of cutting costs without affecting the productivity of business users. Ideally, enterprises will look at solutions that increase IT ops' productivity, reduce the time needed to correct problems, and eliminate wasted time: . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

BSM 2.0

Predicting The Evolution Of Business Service Management

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, December 12, 2008

Business service management (BSM) has been the battle cry of IT management software vendors for several years now. As a technology, it is founded on the ability to map business services to infrastructure components: This should provide visibility into . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Novell Buys Managed Objects: Is This A New "Routes To Value" Or "SMARTS" Revisited?

by Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., October 15, 2008

Novell has announced its acquisition of Managed Objects, one of the two market leaders in business service management (BSM). This represents an excellent opportunity for Novell to create visibility in one of the most dynamic and business-relevant areas . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

The IT Management Software Challengers

SWOT Analysis: ASG, Microsoft, NetIQ, And Oracle, Q3 2008

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Peter O'Neill, September 23, 2008

Four major companies dominate the IT management software market. Their rich portfolio allows them to successfully compete in tactical sales with point solutions as well as in strategic sales against each other. They increasingly define the market's direction, . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

Global Telecom Manufacturer Uses Automated Discovery To Develop Its Enterprise Architecture

Case Study: Finding Out What You Do Not Know But Should Know

by Charles Brett, September 16, 2008

In an organization with applications spread across 500 networks and many more subnets, knowing what is running where and with what interdependencies is beyond purely human capabilities. A global telecom manufacturer with production and operational facilities . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Microsoft's Leading Solution For Windows Management Aims At Megavendor Status

SWOT Analysis: Microsoft, Q3 2008

by Peter O'Neill, August 21, 2008

Microsoft today presents a management portfolio that addresses the core Microsoft solutions: operating systems management, applications management, middleware management, and database management. This focus provides Microsoft clients with immediate benefits. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Role Overview: CMDB Manager

Take Charge Of Managing And Maintaining Your IT Configuration Items

by Evelyn Hubbert, July 9, 2008

The configuration management database (CMDB) is still a central theme for today's infrastructure and operations (I&O) professional. Organizations are making significant improvements in mastering CMDBs and implementing this as a central process discipline . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

A Federated CMDB Remains Distant, But Start Now

Those Who Wait For CMDB Stability Risk Organizational Irrelevance

by Glenn O'Donnell, June 30, 2008

The configuration management database (CMDB) is a major topic for IT operations professionals, as maturing IT organizations now comprehend its pivotal role in operational process initiatives such as ITIL. The CMDB term is itself an unfortunate misnomer, . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

The Megavendors In IT Management Software

SWOT Analysis For BMC Software, CA, HP Software, And IBM Tivoli, Q2 2008

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Peter O'Neill, May 21, 2008

Forrester's IT spending outlook for 2008 forecasts that software investments will fare better than average, with 19% growth in 2008 compared with12% growth in 2007. The four IT management software megavendors — BMC Software (BMC), CA, HP Software (HP), . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Tech Horizons: The IT Management Software Market In 2013

It's Not Business As Usual Anymore; A Paradigm Shift Is Coming

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., May 2, 2008

Predicting the future is a perpetual human quest. Fortunately, market forecasts do not require the sacrifice of chickens or the messy reading of coffee grounds: They are based on simple and logical extrapolations of what we know today. Pending a revolution . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Topic Overview: IT Management Software

by Natalie Lambert, November 13, 2007

Today's organizations are trying to keep up with the continuous pace of technology change and growing business requirements. The importance of management technologies to monitor and manage the wide array of hardware and software systems deployed in the . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Knowledge Management For Business Service Management

You Need An Asset Database And A CMDB

by Evelyn Hubbert, Peter O'Neill, October 16, 2007

Forrester sees an effective IT asset management (ITAM) system as a prerequisite for establishing business service management. The reason is simple: If you don't know your IT estate, you cannot build and support sophisticated service levels. Nor can you . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

CMDB: Get Ready, Get Set, Go!

CMDB Is A Means To An End, Not An End In Itself

by Evelyn Hubbert, October 1, 2007

Most large organizations today use some form of IT change and incident tracking system, making an average of about 500 changes per month. With such a high number of changes, the process of change management becomes critical, and a solid base of information . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The Change And Configuration Management Software Market

Efficiency Through Controlling IT Assets And Managing Change

by Evelyn Hubbert, Natalie Lambert, June 12, 2007

The challenges IT organizations are facing today in maintaining a complex and dynamically changing IT infrastructure can no longer be supported by manual change control solutions. Tasks such as operating system updates, client refreshes, server updates . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

The Bottom Line: IT Management Software

by Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., April 30, 2007

IT is now a fundamental support of business activities — which means the greatest IT operation sins are an unpredictable user experience and a failure to reduce overall service delivery costs. The result: Business service management (BSM) and the configuration . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

The IT Management Software Market

by Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., Jean-Pierre Garbani, March 9, 2007

IT is now a fundamental support of business activities — which means the greatest IT operations sins are an unpredictable user experience and a failure to reduce overall service delivery costs. The resulting quest to improve productivity and the predictability . . .

Application Mapping And The CMDB, Q4 2006 Update

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., November 27, 2006

The world of configuration management database (CMDB) and application mapping evolved considerably in 2006 with the acquisition of a number of the small, innovative companies that pioneered this versatile technology that enables a seemingly infinite number . . .

IBM Ships Its CMDB With An Extra "C"

Collation Is Now Part Of Tivoli's Change/Configuration Management Database

by Peter O'Neill, Jean-Pierre Garbani, July 20, 2006

IBM has been a latecomer to application dependency discovery. After acquiring Collation, the work of turning the technology into a full-featured CMDB and integrating it with the Tivoli product suite was a daunting task. IBM today has overcome these challenges . . .

CMDB: Let's Get Physical

Process Improvement And Current Configuration Management Databases

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, June 19, 2006

The configuration management database (CMDB) is a key ingredient of service management — whether considered in its process incarnation (IT Infrastructure Library, ITIL) or in its technology and product implementation in business service management (BSM). . . .

Mercury Announces New Change Control Management

New Solution Shows How Best Practices Can Translate Into Products

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, May 1, 2006

The net effect of Mercury Interactive's Business Technology Optimization (BTO) initiative is to bridge the gap between the two pillars of IT — development and production. Mercury aims to accomplish this with a series of solutions that manage application . . .