IT Service Management
As the product manager, I am responsible for the IT Service Management (ITSM) capability within our platform – so I tried to attend as many sessions on IT Service Management as possible. I found the both the IT Service Management Strategic Road Map session and the I&O Leaders’ Guide to the IT Service Management Unified Framework session challenged my view of IT services. I, like many operations folks, tend to think of services in terms of how they align to specific technologies. Email is always my go-to example. However, as I scoured the slides of the presentations, I realized that I recognized none of the services.
According to Gartner Analyst Suzanne Adnams, you actually shouldn’t reference specific technologies in your IT Service Catalog. What? Puzzled by this statement, I cornered Suzanne between sessions to ask, “Where does my email service belong?” She assured me that looking at services from the technology perspective was common, but went on to challenge me to think about it from a business perspective. It seems a Collaboration Service is more business value-oriented, and it certainly encompasses more than just email.
Debra Curtis challenged another concept in my view of IT services: that each service should be independent on all other services. Well then, I wondered, where do the directory services belong? Wouldn’t a Collaboration and Workplace service require the ability for a user to log in? I later learned that this is not always possible; hence the reason that each service should be independent of all others. Clearly, my past work in IT Operations is starkly different from this new age of business value-oriented services.
Networking Sessions
The networking sessions proved extremely valuable because they provided an open forum for attendees to discuss various topics. There was no Gartner moderator in the room, just a bunch of tables and a lot of spontaneous collaboration. For example, during the Cloud Performance discussion I attended, it was clear that many of us shared a common concern: is it us, or is it them? The ability to quickly determine whether a problem occurred while inside the cloud or during transit to the cloud is crucial when one is evaluating the scope of the issue.
Another concern was how to manage the managed service providers (MSP’s), which led to a great discussion on Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). As one of the few vendors in the room, as well as one that happened to do monitoring of the hybrid cloud, I encouraged them to “trust, but verify!”
Track Sessions
Now, as a vendor, I could not pass up the opportunity to attend the track sessions related to our business. Jonah Kowall’s session entitled The Elusive Promise of Unified Monitoring was particularly satisfying. During his presentation, he showed this road sign:
Imagine my surprise when I saw this; this is exactly what ScienceLogic has been saying for more than 10 years: agentless, multitenant, API, integration, etc. Of the thirteen items he listed, ScienceLogic does them ALL. I can’t deny that I felt a bit like a ‘proud daddy’ when ScienceLogic was listed in his presentation as one of the leading Unified Monitoring vendors. All I can say is, “Thanks, Jonah! We think so too.”
