I&O Execs: It's Time To Rediscover BSM

The original business service management (BSM) concept is founded on the capability to map business services to infrastructure components. This gives end users visibility into IT as well as bridges the way IT and users see applications. However, the foundational technology of application mapping discovery and the configuration management database (CMDB) or configuration management system (CMS) has not yet fulfilled all of its promises. Typically, the first generation of discovery tools failed on two counts: 1) The mechanism used does not allow real-time updates, and 2) the granularity of data is sometimes too coarse to be useful. These issues affect some key management processes such as incident management as well as change and configuration management. All hope is not lost, though: A new breed of solutions is appearing that will prove useful in helping IT operations professionals achieve their BSM goals.