AR System 7.0 Released by July 2006?
KIRKLAND, WA — At the latest incarnation of the local Northwest Remedy User’s Group (RUG) held at the BMC Software offices today in Kirkland, WA, BMC announced that it expects to release ITSM 7.0 in the second quarter of this year. A number of ITSM 7.0 applications exhibit features only available in AR System 7.0 (code named “thor”).
The Change and Configuration Management application includes the new data visualization fields I mentioned back in July 2005 for an Outlook-style planning calendar, and the SLA application used the new “tree” style table field for a Windows Explorer-like method of navigation.
The remaining agenda was a presentation of existing BMC products, along the lines of what you might expect: a review of the BMC Identity Management solution, an overview of Change and Configuration Management (the Marimba piece), a demonstration of the Service Impact & Event Manager (SIEM), and a presentation of the old KMXperts knowledgebase solution, now known as “Knowledge Management” (since being purchased by BMC Remedy in August of 2005).
ITSM 7.0
We can look forward to a merging of the “best of” Viadyne’s ViaITIL (purchased by BMC in 1994) and BMC Remedy’s ITSM suite. And there are tighter integrations between ITSM and the other BMC Software Business Service Management (BSM) applications as they continue to refine their Discover -> Reconcile -> Refine -> Publish model of service management with the configuration management database (CMDB) acting as the “single truth”, at the core. The entire ITSM suite benefits from more use of flashboards and better use of graphics and improved usability.
Help Desk
Some changes to the user interface are apparent as the ViaITIL functionality is incorporated. Incident tracking includes cost tracking and it’s own, dedicated workflow (previously incidents and problems used shared workflow). Also, it is multi-ternary in nature; supporting multiple business units.
Asset Management
The asset side of things gets a more robust license compliance tracking functionality, auto-linking of contracts, and greater time/cost tracking information.
Change & Configuration Management
Most of the engineering effort went into the Change and Configuration Management module and it shows, with the most new and interesting features of the entire suite.
In addition to the Outlook-style planning calendar mentioned above, tasks are now treated as their own sub-system and are more tightly integrated with discovery services so they push software updates directly (without having to pop over to Marimba).
The service catalog portion of Change and Configuration Management is still being developed and probably won’t make the release date. Expect it within 90 days though.
Service Level Agreements (SLA)
The SLA console has an enhanced look and feel and uses the new table field “tree” mode as mentioned above for navigation. Using tree navigation you can view all of the SLA’s for all organizations and easily drill-down to view the details.
Upgrading From ITSM 6.0
Upgrades will be handled in the standard AR System manner: changed workflow will be overwritten, and new workflow will be ignored (remember, don’t change, add new!). An upgrade disk will be available within 30 days of the release date.
Thoughts…
Call me old school, but I found it interesting (and somewhat odd) that not a single mention of AR System 7.0 was made during the entire meeting. BMC obviously has a strategic vision and makes absolutely sure that we hear about their “routes to value” for IT service management at every opportunity.
I kinda miss the old days when these events were 100% AR System and you were proud to show off and discuss the applications you built.
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