Service Management

First in the articles in the series of Service Management, I have started delving into detail on IBM Service Management, called Integrated Service Management, or ISM. ISM is defined as the methods and software needed to assure quality service delivery and reduce infrastructure costs.

Benefits of Service Management include:

• Improved service quality
• Seamless Integrated processes across the business
• Faster, more reliable service delivery 
• Improved efficiency and staff productivity 
• Minimized operational risk and exposure 
• Reduced costs

IBM's key differentiators are:

• IBM offers the broadest, deepest and most integrated service management capabilities
• ISM integrates Business and IT
• Supported by best practices, methodologies and Services across industries

ISM is divided into seven value segments:

1. Service Delivery and Process Automation - improves service delivery through repeatable processes, and manages the lifecycle of configuration items and the assets they represent.
   
2. Service Availability and Performance Management - monitoring and managing of the mainframe, including resources such as operating systems to middleware, databases and Websphere support
   
3. Storage Management - provide customers with visibility, control and automation of all aspects of protecting data, managing storage infrastructure and resources, and controlling the information lifecycle:
4. Security, Risk and Compliance - helps clients secure their assets while also meeting various rules and regulations.
5. Data center Transformation - delivers power management capabilities that effectively "green" datacenters
   
6. Asset and Financial Management - encompasses all types of IT (hardware to software) and enterprise (facilities to transportation) assets, and how to efficiently manage their operation and cost
7. Network and Service Assurance - provides all aspects of managing networks and service quality.

Useful Links
IBM Service Management
End-to-End Service Management Using IBM Service Management Portfolio