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Introduction to IT Service Management, Part 1: Automate your key IT

processes
Lori Simcox, Advisory Software Engineer, IBM
Kavita Shah (kashah@us.ibm.com), Staff Software Engineer, IBM
Tina Dunton (duntontl@us.ibm.com), Advisory Software Engineer, IBM
David Groves, Advisory Software Engineer, IBM

Date:17May2005
Level: Introductory
Comments:

Summary:DiscovertheprocessintegrationforITservicemanagementstrategy,which
allows companies to automate their key IT processes and to provide IT services according
to best practices. This article gives you an introduction to IT Service Management, and
illustrates the benefits it offers for IT process modeling, process choreography, and service
level management.
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Table of contents

Introduction
Process integration for IT service management is a new strategic focus for IBMthat extends existing IT Service Management
products to key strategic solutions, combining products, processes, services, workflows, and best practices such as the
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). This focus lets you model IT Service Management processes and create a
more efficient and effective IT organization that can better meet the business requirements of an on demand enterprise. For
example, using Tivolisystems management tools you can implement and automate process tasks to deliver your IT services
according to business goals.
This article, the first of a two-part series, provides a conceptual overview of the IBM IT Service Management strategy and some of
the benefits it provides for an on demand enterprise. It shows how process modeling and process choreography allow an IT
organization to integrate its processes according to business goals. The article then discusses self-managing autonomic
technology and how it plays a part in the IT Service Management strategy by simplifying and automating tasks involved in servicelevel management.
The next article in the series will show how self-managing autonomic technology applies to other crucial IT management tasks
and helps to attain IT Service Management's goal of process integration aligned with a company's goals. IT tasks discussed will
include managing applications, configuration, change and release cycles, security, storage, workloads, and the IT life cycle. Part
2 will highlight Tivoli systems management products that illuminate the benefits of the self-managing autonomic technology
inherent in those solutions.

Introduction
Visualizing IT management today
Illuminating IT Service Management
Spotlight on self-managing
autonomic technology
Service level management
challenges
Focused benefits provided by selfmanaging autonomic technology
Conclusion
Resources
About the authors
Comments

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Visualizing IT management today

Enterprises today are faced with an ever-increasing problem of managing their IT processes to efficiently, reliably, securely, and
consistently deliver IT services that further the company's business goals. A wide variety of applications exist within the
enterprise, each of which may have been acquired either as packaged products from vendors or developed in-house. The
individual applications are usually designed to address a specific business need of the enterprise.
Business logic and application data are scattered throughout the organization, across a multitude of systems management
software. Much of the data resides in databases, packaged applications (such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems),
or back-end systems (such as IBM CICS). OtherbusinesslogiccanbefoundinexistingJavaandJava2Platform,Enterprise
Edition (J2EE) applications within the J2EE architecture.
With the rise of open standards and on demand computing, business logic and application data are accessible through
internally and externally available Web services. Instead of reinventing the wheel with every new systems management tool they
build, companies need a way to reuse their existing software and to leverage Web services to develop new J2EE-based
applications.
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Illuminating IT Service Management

IT Service Management is the strategy to let companies automate their key IT processes and to provide IT services according to
best practice approaches, such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL is a public domain description of
how to manage IT processes. (See Resources for more information about ITIL.)
IT Service Management's goal is to reduce the time needed to deliver a company's IT services according to business policies. IT
Service Management reduces the labor cost of the people involved in executing the processes by replacing manual IT process
management with autonomic management. The IT Service Management strategy models the processes of an IT service and
automates the activities involved in the processes by integrating Tivoli systems management tools into the execution of the
process steps.
IT Service Management leverages existing systems management software solutions using a common integration approach,
which can be used for integrating IT processes across the enterprise. For instance, a company may have a business policy to
deliver a customer order within a certain time frame. Using the IT Service Management strategy, the company can model the
steps involved in executing the customer's order as well as the actions to take if the server is overloaded. Using the same
software tools to model business policies and IT processes lets companies integrate their IT service delivery and ensure that it
is driven by their business goals.

A process-based vision
Central to the IT Service Management strategy is the idea of taking a process-based approach for modeling, implementing,

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testing, and deploying IT services. A process is a set of related activities that are invoked in a specific sequence to achieve an IT
service delivery goal. An IT process (such as securing a network) is composed of one or more tasks (such as creating user
accounts, managing passwords, identifying security vulnerabilities, or installation patches).
IT processes vary greatly, ranging from Web services navigation to business transaction support. A company's IT processes can
be automatic and recoverable, or they may require human interaction. In the IT Service Management strategy, a process modeler
describes entire IT processes and models them according to best practices outlined in ITIL and corporate business goals.
Then, a process engine executes the processes, typically as Web services, according to the model and notifies IT administrators
to handle manual steps or anomalies. Such modeling and execution ensures consistent and reliable behavior across the
enterprise and aligns IT responses and service delivery with a company's business goals.

Highlighting a process modeler

Using IBM WebSphereBusiness Integration Modeler (Modeler) in conjunction with IBM WebSphere Application Developer
(Application Developer) simplifies the modeling and development of IT processes. Modeler enables a business analyst to
design, simulate, optimize, and document the processes of the company. Modeler includes a simple-to-use graphical user
interface that lets a business analyst create model diagrams of IT processes. It provides testing and simulation capabilities,
which help optimize the process design. The model includes a costing and resource repository to perform return on investment
assessment. Figure 1 shows a business process modeled using Modeler.

Figure 1. A business process modeled using Modeler

The process models created using Modeler can then be deployed directly into WebSphere MQ Workflow and WebSphere
Business Integration Server Foundation environments. The process models may be exported from Modeler to tools from
WebSphere and Rationalused for developing the actual Web services that implement the tasks of the process. Application
Developer is the IT department tool for implementing and maintaining such Web services code. When Modeler is used in
conjunction with Application Developer and the WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation, it delivers a comprehensive
environment for IT processes development.
For more information on the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Modeler, see Resources.

A bright way to integrate processes

The IBM WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation Process Choreographer (Process Choreographer) defines the
interactions between all kinds of IT processes, workflows, and systems management software tools. Process Choreographer
lets you combine IT process technology with any other service offered by the open J2EE architecture. It increases business
flexibility by leveraging an on demand service-oriented architecture to build modular applications that are designed to adapt
quickly to change. It provides IT process support within the WebSphere Application Server.
With Process Choreographer, developers can visually choreograph the interactions between various IT system management
software assets. They can work more efficiently because they have a standard way of representing and interacting with virtually
any software asset. They do not have to spend time working with different interfaces and low-level APIs. Drag-and-drop tools let
them define the sequence and flow of information between the various system management tools in their environment.
Individual systems management tools and even large application workflows become building blocks that can be reused in
developing other tools.
A typical example of defining interactions between varied processes is combining customer information from an existing
packaged customer relationship management (CRM) solution and J2EE components with new business logic to create a new
Web-based order entry application. The availability of this application can then be extended by exposing it as a Web service for
business partners.
The IT processes that are implemented in an enterprise typically require a mixture of human and IT resources. The process
engine is responsible for efficiently executing the automatic processes and including the human interaction to handle
exceptions. Process Choreographer supports the description of the entire IT process, including the manual steps, as a single
process. It lets companies use existing software, while leveraging the power of Web services in the development of new J2EEbased applications to integrate processes.
For more information on the WebSphere Server Foundation Process Choreographer, see Resources.

Figure 2. Example of an IT process involving automated steps and manual steps

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Spotlight on self-managing autonomic technology

Self-managing autonomic technology lets an IT infrastructure adapt to unpredictable changes by automatically sensing
variations in load or demand and responding to maintain the system's availability and performance. Self-managing autonomic
technology automatically identifies problems and responds to them by either solving the problems or by providing recommended
actions to IT administrators. Internal metrics of an IT infrastructure are continually monitored and adjusted to maintain service
levels to continuously tune overall workflow and performance. Self-managing autonomic technology plays a role in maintaining
system security by detecting, identifying, and protecting itself from viruses and security threats. Solution deployment, centralized
administration, problem determination, and provisioning are key aspects of self-managing autonomic technology.
Solution deployment, in which the software checks for and installs prerequisites, then installs itself, enables systems to
configure themselves. The IBM Integrated Solutions Console provides a common, browser-based user interface for managing
heterogeneous applications from a single portal. The Integrated Solutions Console frees system administrators from learning
yet another tool, and it allows them to perform policy-based management of their applications.
Problem determination technologies provide the self-managing and self-healing aspects of autonomic computing. Problem
determination involves an intelligent cycle of data collection, problem identification, cause analysis, and automated adjustment
to correct the problem. A system can become autonomic by using the standard common log format (or a conversion using the
IBM Generic Log Adaptor) for the information contained in its application logs. The standard log format provides the vocabulary
for a system to analyze logged events and determine if there is a problem and how to solve it.
Provisioning software predicts when capabilities or systems need to be granted or removed. Using autonomic provisioning, a
system can automatically determine when to perform a series of steps defined by an administrator to add new capacities to a
network.

Process integration viewed through an autonomic lens

Choreographing processes implemented by autonomic systems management software tools makes an enterprise operate
more efficiently, freeing the IT administrator from routine tasks. Integrating self-managing autonomic technology in a process
integration solution embeds such technology at the center of a company's IT service management solution. By integrating
autonomic processes using Modeler and Process Choreographer, companies can more efficiently manage their IT organization,
while better delivering the IT services their business needs. The remainder of this article gives examples of process automation
involving self-managing autonomic technology provided by Tivoli systems management tools for IT service level management.
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Service level management challenges

With the constant need to have mission-critical applications available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, business managers
are demanding that IT departments meet specific criteria for delivering IT services. These criteria are defined in Service Level
Agreements or SLAs. At any point in time, IT organizations are involved in managing multiples SLAs for different lines of
business in a complex environment with potentially thousands of machines running on different platforms. The solution to these
challenges is to put in place a service level management process.
Service Level Management (SLM) is an iterative process that includes identifying an IT process, providing services to meet the IT
process, and defining measurable parameters to determine successful delivery of the IT services for that IT process. This
involves negotiating and articulating appropriate SLAs, monitoring the IT processes, fine tuning business practices and
infrastructure to meet business objectives, and ultimately delivering increasingly better IT service to the business.

Figure 3. An integrated view illustrating the relationship between SLM, business systems management, and monitoring

Identifying problems in the network

One of the major challenges facing IT organizations is keeping up with the increasing size and complexity of their network
environments. The ability to quickly and accurately identify the root cause of network failures is critical.
In this arena, IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer automates event correlation and root cause analysis. Tivoli Switch Analyzer performs
network correlation on both switches and routers, including ports that are not IP addressable. It uses technology that is scalable
across a wide variety of devices and network topologies. It provides a quick initialization process, efficient event management,
and leading-edge correlation technology. Such features enable Tivoli Switch Analyzer to aid in problem determination by
analyzing different events across the network to accurately pinpoint problems.

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Visualizing the whole IT environment

Service level management relies on monitoring the health of individual systems management software tools, proactively
monitoring systems, and initiating corrective actions to prevent failures. An enterprise needs the ability to associate business
functions and the individual components in the IT environment.
IBM Tivoli Business Systems Manager (TBSM) is a tool that presents an integrated, end-to-end view of the enterprise. It provides
a graphical interface to quickly see and understand the health of the systems and applications in the IT infrastructure. It shows
business executives how individual components or resources affect a business function. TBSM also shows operation personnel
what business functions are affected by an outage of a single component. It enables real-time monitoring of resources and
applications by collecting status information of the resources from various parts of the enterprise, and providing a view of the
system components as they relate to the overall business. It also provides trend-analysis data for Tivoli Enterprise Data
Warehouse.

Figure 4. IBM Tivoli Business Systems Manager flowchart

Another way to automate problem identification is with IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) and IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction
Performance. ITM automates the aspects of the problem determination closed loop through problem signature-based
monitoring and tight integration with Tivoli Enterprise Console (TEC) for event management. It collects and reports on real-time
and historical information. ITM is tightly integrated with Tivoli's event management and business service management solutions
to ensure the availability of the entire IT environment.
IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction Performance provides alerts to customers if application performance or availability
degrades. It delivers data to validate SLAs to Tivoli Data Warehouse and Tivoli Service Level Advisor. Both ITM and ITM for
Transaction Performance demonstrate autonomic problem determination of performance issues during transactions.

Validating service level agreements

Another goal of service level management is to validate that the IT services delivered adhere to the SLAs. Reporting on the SLAs
is an often time-consuming and labor-intensive process involving manual comparison of data in the environment to the SLAs. IT
organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to provide proof or validation for the IT levels they deliver, and find themselves
needing more and more people and resources to keep up with the demands.
Using IBM Tivoli Service Level Advisor, time and resources to validate and report on SLAs are greatly reduced. Instead of taking
days and weeks, the validation and reporting of SLAs can be done overnight. Tivoli Service Level Advisor works with existing
monitoring and event correlation applications to provide data for service level reporting. These applications are the source of the
Tivoli Service Level Advisor metrics. Comparing these metrics against the terms of SLAs enables Tivoli Service Level Advisor to
proactively monitor and report on SLAs. Tivoli Service Level Advisor provides several levels of reporting, such as SLA violation,
and a historical view of trends toward SLA violation to proactively predict SLA violations. IT organizations can proactively leverage
this information to prevent future SLA violations from occurring.

Figure 5. Data flow in IBM Tivoli Service Level Advisor

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width.

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Focused benefits provided by self-managing autonomic technology

The goal of IT Service Management is to help IT organizations improve the IT services that they deliver in support of an on
demand enterprise. Instead of just managing disjoint systems management software packages and technologies, enterprises
can efficiently integrate and manage their IT processes according to business requirements. Realization of the IT Service
Management strategy involves modeling IT processes using WebSphere Business Integration Modeler and defining interactions
between process tasks using WebSphere Process Choreographer. The process flow provides the prism through which
management of resources, systems, and information is focused into an integrated service management strategy aligned with
business policies.
IT Service Management directs the efficient automation of common IT tasks, end-to-end management of IT processes, and
delivery on service levels through timely prediction and resolution of problems. Self-managing autonomic technology automates
the routine tasks in sensing, responding, and taking corrective actions to fix the problems in the IT infrastructure. The autonomic
technology provided by products such as IBM Tivoli Business Systems Manager, IBM Tivoli Service Level Advisor, and IBM Tivoli
Switch Analyzer provide critical monitoring and problem determination features, which can help an IT organization more

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effectively manage service levels according to business policies. Self-managing autonomic technology is the focal point in
providing enormous benefits for process automation in the IT Service Management strategy.
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Conclusion
This first part of a two-part series gave an overview of IT Service Management and the benefits it offers for IT process modeling,
process choreography, and service level management. The next article will delve into other aspects of IT management and show
how IT Service Management and self-managing autonomic technology provide benefits to help an IT organization better respond
to today's challenging business climate. IT tasks discussed include managing applications, configuration, change and release
cycles, security, storage, workloads, and the IT life cycle.

Resources
l

The Webcast on Process Integration for IT Service Management highlights this new strategic focus for the IBM Portfolio
that extends existing IT Service Management point products to key strategic solutions.

The article "Getting started with the Eclipse Platform" (developerWorks, November 2002) provides a history and overview
of Eclipse, including details on how to install Eclipse and plug-ins.

The white paper ITIL: The most widely recognized approach to IT service management provides an in-depth discussion
about ITIL.

For information on integrating Modeler and WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition, read "Integration
Cookbook for WebSphere Business Integration Modeler and WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition
" (developerWorks, March 2005).

The article "WebSphere Application Server Enterprise Process Choreographer: Concepts and
Architecture" (developerWorks, October 2002) provides a wealth of information on Process Choreographer.

For a better understanding of its architecture, read "Tivoli Business Systems Manager Version 2.1 End-to-end Business
Impact Management" (IBM Redbook, May 2003).

The IBM Redbook " Service Level Management Using IBM Tivoli Service Level Advisor and Tivoli Business Systems
Manager" (IBM Redbook, December 2004) provides a practical guide to SLM with Tivoli products.

To learn more about Tivoli products, visit the developerWorks Tivoli zone. You'll find technical documentation, how-to
articles, education, downloads, product information, and more.

Innovate your business with IBM products. Try IBM trial downloads to find out how.

About the authors

Lori Simcox is an Advisory Software Engineer in Tivoli Storage software development at IBM in San Jose,
California. She received a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Pennsylvania State University and a M.S. degree in
Computer Science from the University of Southern California. For the past eight years she has worked on IBM
Tivoli Storage Manager and IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center. Her interests also include graphical user
interface development and usability.
Kavita Shah is a Staff Software Engineer working with Tivoli Storage software development in San Jose,
California. She received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Washington State University. She currently
works on the IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center Suite of products, and had previously worked for three years on
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. She can be reached at kashah@us.ibm.com.

Tina Dunton is an Advisory Software Engineer at IBM working with TotalStorage Productivity Center software
development in San Jose, California. She received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from California Polytechnic
State University in San Luis Obispo. Having previously worked in development for zOS products, for the past six
years she has been involved in GUI development and, most recently, functional test. Her interests include
usability and test architecture. She can be reached at duntontl@us.ibm.com.
David Groves earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of California at
Berkeley in 1982, where he studied hard and enjoyed the bountiful cultural resources of the San Francisco Bay
Area. He earned his Master of Computer Science Degree in 1993 from Stanford University, focusing on database
and computer network design.

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