Thomas Ellermann - Microsoft System Center Optimizing Service Manager

PUBLISHED BY
Microsoft Press
A Division of Microsoft Corporation
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Redmond, Washington 98052-6399
Copyright 2013 by Microsoft Corporation (All)
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956656
ISBN: 978-0-7356-8312-9

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A high percentage of Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager projects dont deliver on their promises as they should. While each Service Manager implementation has its own unique challenges, all the successful projects share certain common attributes and experiences. In this book, the authors, Thomas Ellermann, John Clark, Kathleen Wilson, and Karsten Nielsen, who collectively represent close to 60 years of IT consulting experience, express this sentiment and provide a blueprint to help deliver successful Service Manager implementations. This is an undertaking of immense value to the community, and I am honored to be writing this foreword and to recommend the book.

This book is not just for new Service Manager projects. The information presented here benefits existing implementations that are in dire need of optimization. This book is also not a substitute for obtaining detailed knowledge on Service Manager technical information or attending training sessions on Service Manager.

This book is about the organizing principle of Service Manager projects and the various roles in the organization that impact the project. In my experience talking to customers, choosing an ITSM solution today is one of the most difficult challenges facing an IT organization. There are close to 350 vendors claiming this space. Coupled with build-your-own alternatives and an ever decreasing IT budget, a host of certifying bodies, analyst recommendations, and the reality of the disrupting effect of the cloud technologies, selecting an ITSM solution becomes a daunting task, even for the experts. The authors of this book understand this complexity. They have taken the lessons from successful Service Manager implementations and have created a framework that can be leveraged by various stakeholders in an organization to move the needle toward a service oriented delivery model.

Any product so pivotal to changes in business process is bound to have its share of shortcomings. Service Manager is no exception, and the authors explicitly call on the dependencies and shortcomings of Service Manager, making it easier for you to make informed choices. The authors further call on you to challenge your assumptions and pave an improved path to efficiencies that come with automation and standardization.

This book will offer you at least three benefits: You will learn about the capabilities of Service Manager and how it can help you transform service delivery in the modern service-centric business. You will learn how to plan and prepare a Service Manager project. Lastly, you will learn to optimize your current implementation, know about the partner solutions in this space, and improve the productivity of your offerings.

I enjoyed the book and found it valuable. I hope you will, too.

Ranganathan Srikanth

Principal Program Manager, Windows Server System Center (WSSC) at Microsoft Corporation

W elcome to Microsoft System Center: Optimizing Service Manager. We (the authors) all work with systems management at Microsoft and believe that the Microsoft System Center suite is one of the most integrated suites on the market for this purpose.

Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager is the only product that can integrate across most of the System Center suite and Active Directory. Service Manager is a fast and reliable product that can create and maintain a dynamic service management database to enable interaction across the organization, both inside and outside the IT department, making it a very compelling product to many organizations.

Over the last several years, more and more customers have implemented Service Manager, either independently or via Microsoft or a partner. Sometimes the project and product implementation are not as successful as they should be. Our objectives with this book are to provide you with a framework for planning and delivering a successful Service Manager project and to share some of our experiences and best practices when it comes to optimizing and maintaining your Service Manager environment.

This book is written with three different roles in mind: business and technical decision makers; IT architects; and Service Manager administrators. You can either read this book in its entirety from A to Z, or you can follow one of the learning paths below depending on your role:

Business and technical decision makers:

Business reasons to choose Service Manager

Deployment costs and non-IT usage

IT architects

How to plan for Service Manager

How to prepare for a Service Manager installation

Service Manager administrators

Management packs

Optimizing the Service Manager environment

Service Manager configuration and customization

The companion content for this book can be downloaded from the following page:

http://aka.ms/SCserviceMgr/files

We would like to thank the following people who helped review the content of this book for technical accuracy:

Rob van der Burg, Business Program Manager, Microsoft Netherlands

Jon Sabberton, Architect, Microsoft Gulf, United Arab Emirates

Murat Erentrk, Senior Architect, Microsoft MEA HQ