Section 3 - cont.
Give that the client understands the value of adopting ITIL, classify which IBM Service Management product aligns with which ITIL processes, so that the client and advisor can begin to create the solution design.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
Service Desk
- Tivoli Service Request Manager
Incident Management
- Tivoli Service Request Manager
- Tivoli Asset Management for IT
- Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Response Time Tracking
- Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA
- Tivoli Enterprise Console
- Tivoli Monitoring
- Tivoli Netcool OMNIbus
- Tivoli OMEGAMON XE and DE
Problem Management
- Tivoli Service Request Manager
- Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Response Time Tracking
- Tivoli Composite Application Manager for WebSphere
- Tivoli Data Warehouse
- Tivoli Decision Support for z/OS
- Tivoli Enterprise Console
- Tivoli Monitoring
- Tivoli Netcool OMNIbus
- Tivoli Network Manager
- Tivoli OMEGAMON XE and DE
Change Management
- Tivoli Business Service Manager
- Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database
- Tivoli Service Request Manager
Configuration Management
- Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database
- Tivoli Configuration Manager
- Tivoli NetView
- Tivoli Network Manager
Release Management
- Tivoli Release Process Manager
- CICS Configuration Manager
- Rational Build Forge
- Tivoli Composite Application Manager for WebSphere
- Tivoli Configuration Manager
- Tivoli Provisioning Manager
Availability Management
- Tivoli Business Service Manager
- Tivoli Data Warehouse
- Tivoli Enterprise Console
- Tivoli Monitoring
- Tivoli Netcool OMNIbus
- Tivoli Service Level Advisor
Service Level Management
- Tivoli Service Level Advisor
- Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Response Time Tracking
Section 4 - Enterprise Asset Management
Give the need to have knowledge of EAM, understand the theoretical concepts of Enterprise Asset Management, the business benefits that an Enterprise Asset Management solution brings to the enterprises, and to have an understanding of various solutions available in EAM domain, so that the EAM solution has been defined.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
Have an understanding of the concepts of Enterprise asset management: Enterprise Asset Management is a business paradigm that integrates strategic planning with operations, maintenance and capital investment decision-making. On the operations side, EAM caters to increased efficiencies of all assets including inventory, regulatory compliance and human resources by combining the salient goals of investment, maintenance, repair and operations management. Simultaneously, EAM addresses business challenges that include productivity enhancement, maximizing asset life cycle, minimizing total cost of ownership and support of the technology and supply chain infrastructure.
Competitive pressures force organizations to minimize asset total cost of ownership and streamline their asset management operations (these typically involve myriad activities ranging from inventory, parts and labor management to contracts and vendor management for new works). As downtimes become increasingly expensive, both in terms of lost production capacity and unfavorable publicity, organizations are compelled to maximize their asset productive life cycles via optimal maintenance programs. Asset registers, risk registers, work planning and scheduling, life cycle costing and systematic methods for problem identification, root cause analysis and continuous improvement are increasingly seen as prerequisites for a robust asset management system. By providing a platform for connecting people, processes, assets, industry-based knowledge and decision support capabilities based on quality information, EAM provides a holistic view of an organization’s asset base, enabling managers to control and optimize their operations for quality and efficiency.
Information Technology Assets are maintained and managed by Information Technology enterprise asset management (ITEAM or ITAM). ITAM differs from EAM only in its focus on IT assets. This focus is important for a number of key reasons:
- Organizational dependence on these assets
- High cost, particularly of datacenter assets
- Rapid pace of change/turn-over for assets
IBM Maximo Asset Manager focuses on both hardware and software asset management, ensuring that the organization has the ability to manage these assets throughout their life. In the case of software, there is the added component of ensuring license compliance.
Enterprise Asset Management packages offer a wide range of capabilities and cover a correspondingly wide range of prices. A typical package deals with some or all of the following:
- Work orders: Scheduling jobs, assigning personnel, reserving materials, recording costs, and tracking relevant information such as the cause of the problem (if any), downtime involved (if any), and recommendations for future action
- Preventive maintenance (PM): Keeping track of PM inspections and jobs, including step-by-step instructions or check-lists, lists of materials required, and other pertinent details. Typically, the CMMS schedules PM jobs automatically based on schedules and/or meter readings. Different software packages use different techniques for reporting when a job should be performed.
- Asset management: Recording data about equipment and property including specifications, warranty information, service contracts, spare parts, purchase date, expected lifetime, and anything else that might be of help to management or maintenance workers.
- Inventory control: Management of spare parts, tools, and other materials including the reservation of materials for particular jobs, recording where materials are stored, determining when more materials should be purchased, tracking shipment receipts, and taking inventory.
- Safety: Management of permits and other documentation required for the processing of safety requirements. These safety requirements can include lockout-tag out, confined space, foreign material exclusion (FME), electrical safety, and others.
Business benefits of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM):
EAM helps to maximize return on assets, and to develop comprehensive programs for preventive, predictive, routine and unplanned maintenance. Together, these programs contribute to organization goals of reducing costs and increasing asset uptime. Following are the key benefits of EAM.
� Improve return on assets.
� Decrease costs and risk.
� Increase productivity.
� Improve asset-related decision making.
� Increase asset service delivery responsiveness and revenue.
� Facilitate regulatory compliance efforts.
� Lower total cost of ownership.
� Improve utilization and performance.
� Extend asset life.
� Increase labor efficiency and reduce overtime
� Implement effective equipment-based maintenance schedules to reduce downtime
� Manage work order processes to ensure on-time delivery
� Reduce maintenance-related inventory levels for increased savings
� Model various scenarios to determine optimum asset levels and drive decision making
� Track information to improve the ability to collect on warranty claims
� Database structure and hierarchy
� Preventive maintenance scheduling
� Cost accumulation and tracking
� Inception recording and tracking
� Standard and exception reporting
� Maintenance administration
� Predictive maintenance analysis
� Maintenance alternatives analysis
� Physical asset risk management
� Reliability-centered maintenance
� Root cause analysis
� Financial cost/life analysis
� Technical document change management
� Strategic usage analysis
� Strategic planning for asset management
Potential Cost Savings/ROI Benefits:
� Labor Utilization up by 10-20%
� Asset utilization up by 3-5%
� Increased planned maintenance by 50-80%
� New Equipment purchases down by 3-5%
� Lost warranty recoveries up by 10-50%
� On-hand inventory needs down by 20-30%
� Inventory carrying costs down by 5 - 20%
� Material costs reduced by 5-10%
� Purchasing Labor reduced by 10-50%
Other benefits:
� Improved warehouse productivity
� Support for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
� Improved regulatory/safety compliance
� More accurate data for improved decision making
� Improved work planning/coordination
� Sales growth through improved service
EAM software suite can be configured to meet the needs of a variety of different businesses, including:
- Manufacturing and utilities production such as power generation equipment, refineries, chemical plants and manufacturing lines.
- Facilities such as corporate buildings, hotels, hospitals, airports, government facilities.
Transportation such as rail, rolling stock, over-road vehicles, ships, aircraft.
- Information technology (IT) assets ( Hardware and Software) such as servers, laptops, network devices, software configurations, licenses, service.
Important key players in the EAM domain are IBM, SAP, Oracle, Infor, Indus International etc.
There are a number of products that cater to the needs of Enterprise Asset Management.
Some of the important product suites are: Datastream, SAP EAM, Oracle EAM, IBM Tivoli Suite, Indus Insite.
Give the need to understand the various processes involved in maintaining different kind of assets, define the processes (like Vehicle, Electrical and Mechanical components etc), so that A clear understanding of Processes for maintenance of different Kind of assets such as fleet, maintenance and facility has been defined.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
Many organizations face a significant challenge to track the location, quantity, condition, maintenance and depreciation status of their fixed assets. Tracking assets is an important concern of every company, regardless of size. Fixed assets are defined as any ‘permanent’ object that a business uses internally including but not limited to computers, tools, software, or office equipment. While employees may utilize a specific tool or tools, the asset ultimately belongs to the company and must be returned. And therefore without an accurate method of keeping track of these assets it would be very easy for a company to lose control of them.
Asset tracking software allows companies to track what assets it owns, where each is located, who has it, when it was checked out, when it is due for return, when it is scheduled for maintenance, and the cost and depreciation of each asset.
The reporting option that is built into most asset tracking solutions provides pre-built reports, including assets by category and department, check-in/check-out, net book value of assets, assets past due, audit history, and transactions.
All of this information is captured in one program and can be used on PCs as well as mobile devices. As a result, companies reduce expenses through loss prevention and improved equipment maintenance. They reduce new and unnecessary equipment purchases, and they can more accurately calculate taxes based on depreciation schedules.
The most commonly tracked assets are:
� Office Equipment
� Medical Equipment
� IT Equipment, for example laptops.
� Vehicles
� Maintenance supplies
� Educational materials
� Software licenses
� Tools
� Instruments
Asset Maintenance deals with the following:
� Work orders: Scheduling jobs, assigning personnel, reserving materials, recording costs, and tracking relevant information such as the cause of the problem (if any), downtime involved (if any), and recommendations for future action
� Preventive maintenance (PM): Keeping track of PM inspections and jobs, including step-by-step instructions or check-lists, lists of materials required, and other pertinent details. Typically, the CMMS schedules PM jobs automatically based on schedules and/or meter readings. Different software packages use different techniques for reporting when a job should be performed.
� Asset management: Recording data about equipment and property including specifications, warranty information, service contracts, spare parts, purchase date, expected lifetime, and anything else that might be of help to management or maintenance workers.
� Inventory control: Management of spare parts, tools, and other materials including the reservation of materials for particular jobs, recording where materials are stored, determining when more materials should be purchased, tracking shipment receipts, and taking inventory.
� Safety: Management of permits and other documentation required for the processing of safety requirements. These safety requirements can include lockout-tagout, confined space, foreign material exclusion (FME), electrical safety, and others.
Fleet Maintenance: In today’s business market, the responsibilities for maximizing the availability and performance of fleet assets have never been more critical. As companies look to transform themselves into a service-oriented operation, they see their transportation assets as central to achieving enterprise value. Asset and Service Management provides a service oriented architecture for managing all of the assets and service providers of a transportation organization. As an industry solution, Maximo Transportation adds key capabilities that address the issues facing transportation organizations around the world.
Organizations maintaining fleets of any kind-cars, trucks or buses-are faced with multiple challenges in today’s environment. They must manage labor costs, warranties and significant inventories, e.g., tires, without sacrificing reliability or safety. They must make immediate and strategic decisions that require effective data analysis capabilities and reporting. And to do this there is a growing need to get information in the hands of maintenance technicians and storeroom personnel.
Asset and Service Management helps meet all of your transportation asset and fleet maintenance challenges, as well as providing a solution for managing service providers. It allows companies to track, manage and optimize performance levels of all assets critical to business operations. This includes the moving assets, from including fleet maintenance of cars, trucks, buses, facilities maintenance of buildings, repair depots and rebuild shops, and IT equipment such as servers, networks and telephony.
Using Maximo for Transportation, organizations are better able to track and manage assets and their performance levels critical to the overall performance of the organization. This includes:
- Moving assets, such as cars, trucks, buses, trains, vessels and aircraft.
- Fixed assets, including buildings, maintenance facilities and stations.
- Linear assets, such as railways and roadways.
- IT assets, ranging from mobile devices to servers.
Maximo for Transportation offers rich functionality to help optimize your core transportation assets. Key features include:
- Automated alerts, to notify technicians that outstanding work is due on an asset, a preventive maintenance work order is due or a vehicle’s warranty period is about to expire.
- Campaign management, which helps you manage recall notices, engineering changes or service bulletins for a group of assets.
- Driver logs, to record problems identified by drivers and provide follow-up.
- Fuel records and tank monitoring, to record fuel consumption, track consumption versus meter readings and provide statistical data.
- Industry code support, which helps you more consistently report information such as failures and repairs, and provides details to help you make industry comparisons.
- Labor certifications, to assign appropriately certified technicians to complete work orders and to help manage the recertification process.
- Meter history and adjustments, to record out-of-sequence meter readings, make meter adjustments to previous readings and track a component’s meter history � even when it is moved from one parent asset to another.
- Position codes, to uniquely identify and track position-based parts for usage and warranty � such as tires, brakes or headlights � without a serial number.
- Transportation reports and key performance indicators (KPIs), which can help you analyze trends and optimize productivity.
- Vehicle data and specifications, to provide key asset information that is configurable by asset type, such as repair location, meter input on work order or fuel type.
- Warranty management and recovery, which can make it simpler for you to track and manage individual warranty periods so that you can manage credit, replacement parts and discounts for appropriate items.
There are four types of Maintenance Reactive, Preventive, Predictive and Prevention.
Reactive Maintenance
System: response to equipment malfunctions
Characteristics:
- inefficient maintenance department
- unpredictable equipment operation
- all maintenance work unplanned
Example: light bulb replacement
Results: steady degradation of equipment performance
Maintenance department responsibility:
- respond to emergencies
- get production back on line
Preventive Maintenance
System:
- periodic adjustments & checks
- periodic replacement of worn parts
- periodic overhaul
Characteristics:
- more predictable
- more efficient
Example: changing oil & filters
Results: maintain level of equipment
Maintenance department responsibility:
- checking, replacing & overhauling
- perform checks during maintenance
Predictive Maintenance
System: periodic measurement & trending of equipment process
Characteristics:
- predictable maintenance requirements
- planned & scheduled equipment repairs
Example: vibration analysis
Results: maintain equipment performance with minimal disruption to production
Maintenance department responsibility:
- log equipment repairs
- trend data
- predict equipment repair cycles
Prevention Maintenance
System: equipment design is based on minimal maintenance requirements
Characteristics:
- close relationship with equipment suppliers
Example: sealed bearings in small electronic motors
Results: continually improving equipment
Maintenance department responsibility:
- input to equipment design
- minimize & eliminate maintenance requirements
Maintenance Frequency
Preventive Maintenance frequency can be of two types:
- Time Based Frequency. Used to define the Frequency Units (days, weeks, months, and years) and Frequency that should be used when generating time based PM work orders.
- Meter Based Frequency. Used to define one or more Meters and the criteria that determines when PM work orders should be generated based on meter readings.
Work Permits
The following are the different work permits needed when doing maintenance works.
- Hot Work Permit
- Cold Work Permit
- Confined Space Permit
- Electrical Isolation
- Mechanical Isolation
Condition based maintenance(CBM)
- Performing maintenance based on the actual operating condition of the equipment
- CBM always uses Condition Monitoring
CBM is Feasible when:
- Degradation can be detected
- A repeatable failure signature can be recognized
- Failure can be identified with sufficient time to react
Facilities
Many healthcare organizations already use Maximo Asset Management to manage diverse physical facilities at different locations, including the clinic campus, office buildings and laboratories. Maximo Asset Management can help organizations more efficiently manage and maintain the specific operational use of these facilities. Management can be extended down to the department level�emergency rooms, patient rooms and other high-traffic locations�where there is a critical need to monitor specific functions within these locations to help fulfill overall workflow and patient care requirements.
Give the need to understand the concept of preventive Maintenance, define the business benefit associated with the preventive maintenance and the understanding of maintenance plans performed on work assets and locations in an enterprise, so that a clear understanding of Preventive Maintenance and the ability to apply it in Enterprise has been defined.
for assets and locations based on time and meter readings.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
Preventive maintenance is a schedule of planned maintenance actions aimed at the prevention of breakdowns and failures. The primary goal of preventive maintenance is to prevent the failure of equipment before it actually occurs. It is designed to preserve and enhance equipment reliability by replacing worn components before they actually fail. Preventive maintenance activities include equipment checks, partial or complete overhauls at specified periods, oil changes, lubrication and so on. In addition, workers can record equipment deterioration so they know to replace or repair worn parts before they cause system failure. Recent technological advances in tools for inspection and diagnosis have enabled even more accurate and effective equipment maintenance. The ideal preventive maintenance program would prevent all equipment failure before it occurs.
Value of Preventive Maintenance : There are multiple misconceptions about preventive maintenance. One such misconception is that PM is unduly costly. This logic dictates that it would cost more for regularly scheduled downtime and maintenance than it would normally cost to operate equipment until repair is absolutely necessary. This may be true for some components; however, one should compare not only the costs but the long-term benefits and savings associated with preventive maintenance. Without preventive maintenance, for example, costs for lost production time from unscheduled equipment breakdown will be incurred. Also, preventive maintenance will result in savings due to an increase of effective system service life.
Long-term benefits of preventive maintenance include:
– Improved system reliability.
- Decreased cost of replacement.
- Decreased system downtime.
- Better spares inventory management.
Long-term effects and cost comparisons usually favor preventive maintenance over performing maintenance actions only when the system fails.
Preventive maintenance (PM) work is maintenance work performed on a regular schedule in order to keep assets running efficiently. The applications in the Preventive Maintenance module can help you to plan and budget for regular maintenance work by planning the labor, material, service, and tool needs of your regularly scheduled maintenance and inspection work orders.
The Master PM application used to create generic maintenance templates. These can be for preventive maintenance, inspections, or any other type of periodic work. You can specify the frequency that the work should be performed, seasonal dates that apply to the PM, and one or more job plans that apply to the PM. Job plans are created in the Job Plans application. Job plans list tasks, labor, materials, service, and tool requirements needed to complete preventive maintenance, inspection, or other work that can be planned in advance.
Once you have created a Master PM you can use it to create associated PMs. Associated PMs are non-master PMs that are created and managed in the Preventive Maintenance application and are for a specific asset or location. Non-master PMs are used to generate preventive maintenance work orders for assets and locations.
A Master PM record is not used to generate work orders, it is used to create associated PM records, which are managed in the Preventive Maintenance application. Associated PM records contain Site specific information and are used to generate work orders for assets and locations. You can also use Master PMs to automatically update information on associated PMs.
Have an understanding of the importance of job Plans and the sequence that needs to be followed in a Preventive Maintenance work: A job plan is a template, with detailed description of work to be performed on an asset, item, or location. If you use job plans you do not have to enter the same information every time you create a work order for similar work. A job plan can be applied to an unlimited number of work orders. After you apply a job plan to a work order, its resource estimates and tasks are copied into a work plan for the work order. You then can modify the work plan so that the procedures, labor, materials, services, and tools are more specific to the work order, without affecting the original job plan template.
The Job Plans application is used to create, view, modify, or delete job plan records. A job plan typically includes procedural descriptions and lists of estimated labor, items and materials, services, and tools to be used on the job. To ensure that a job plan is performed in a safe manner, you can add safety plan information to the job plan via the assets that use the safety plan.
A job plan can be assigned to an unlimited number of preventive maintenance (PM) or master PM records.
Use the Job Plan Sequence tab to specify the order that job plans should be applied to PM work orders. The value in the Sequence field indicates that Maximo should use the job plan every Nth time that work orders are generated, where n = the sequence number. For example, if you have a job plan for monthly maintenance and a different job plan to be used once a quarter, the sequence for the monthly job plan would be “1″ (every month) and the sequence for the quarterly job plan would be “3″ (every three months).
Have an understanding of the differences between Master PM (Preventive Maintenance) and Associated or non-master PM:
Preventive maintenance (PM) work is maintenance work performed on a regular schedule in order to keep assets running efficiently. The applications in the Preventive Maintenance module can help you to plan and budget for regular maintenance work by planning the labor, material, service, and tool needs of your regularly scheduled maintenance and inspection work orders.
The Master PM application used to create generic maintenance templates. These can be for preventive maintenance, inspections, or any other type of periodic work. You can specify the frequency that the work should be performed, seasonal dates that apply to the PM, and one or more job plans that apply to the PM. Job plans are created in the Job Plans application. Job plans list tasks, labor, materials, service, and tool requirements needed to complete preventive maintenance, inspection, or other work that can be planned in advance.
Once a Master PM has been created, it can be used to create associated PMs. Associated PMs are non-master PMs that are created and managed in the Preventive Maintenance application and are for a specific asset or location. Non-master PMs are used to generate preventive maintenance work orders for assets and locations.
A Master PM record is not used to generate work orders, it is used to create associated PM records, which are managed in the Preventive Maintenance application. Associated PM records contain Site specific information and are used to generate work orders for assets and locations. You can also use Master PMs to automatically update information on associated PMs.
Have an understanding of the Importance of Routes associated with PM: A route is a list of related work assets, which can be considered ’stops’ along the route. These route stops can be assets or locations, or a combination of the two. A route can be a simple asset list. You can also create a route that lists assets that are related by location, for example all of the servers in a computer lab, or by type of asset, such as all fire extinguishers located throughout the site. Routes simplify building hierarchies of work orders for inspections.
A route can be used in the following ways:
- Apply the route to a preventive maintenance record to generate inspection-type work orders for all work assets listed as stops on the route.
- Apply the route to a work order and generate child work orders for each work asset listed as a stop on the route
Have an understanding of how Seasonal Preventive Maintenance work is planned and performed: Seasonal Dates tab is used to specify the active days, dates, or seasons for a PM. For example, your plant runs a five day week, and does not run on Saturday or Sunday. If you do not want Maximo to generate PM work orders that are due on the weekend you would clear the Saturday? and Sunday? check boxes.
If the PM is for seasonal work such as air conditioning maintenance, or servicing snow removal equipment, you can use the Active Dates table window to indicate the start and end dates for the period of time that the PM should be active. Multiple active periods can be listed. When Maximo generates PM work orders, it checks the active dates listed on the Seasonal Dates tab.
Have an understanding of PM hierarchies and the understanding of the process for generating hierarchies of scheduled work orders: A PM hierarchy is a group of PMs arranged in parent-child relationships. At the highest level of a PM hierarchy, one PM that is the parent. This top-level PM can have one or more child PMs. Each child PM can have one or more children, and so on. A child PM can have only one parent PM. You can create PM hierarchies that mirror your asset and location hierarchies. You use PM hierarchies to generate hierarchies of scheduled work orders. When one PM in the hierarchy is due to be generated, Maximo generates PM work orders for every PM in the hierarchy. You can add a sequence number to each PM in a PM hierarchy; the sequence number is copied to work orders you generate from the PM. A PM record that is part of a hierarchy can not be deleted. PM records that have a parent or child PMs must be removed from their hierarchies before they can be deleted.
Have an understanding of the importance and benefits of automatic Preventive Maintenance: Automated Preventive Maintenance is done without any manual intervention based on either time schedules or upon a meter reading. With automatic Preventive maintenance, work order is automatically generated and goes to the concerned maintenance incharge’s inbox so that he/she can have the latest assignments through work flow. This helps in better maintenance of an asset.
Have an understanding of different types of PM statuses: A PM record can have one of the following statuses:
DRAFT: Default status for new records. PM is still being created and has not yet been approved for use. PM records with a status of DRAFT cannot be used to generate work order records.
ACTIVE: A PM record must be active before it can be used to generate work orders. When you change a PM’s status to ACTIVE, Maximo automatically checks to make sure that the asset or location listed on the PM is in a status of either NOT READY or ACTIVE. You cannot change a PM status to ACTIVE if the asset or location listed on the PM is DECOMMISSIONED.
INACTIVE: PM records with a status of INACTIVE cannot be used to generate work orders.
Section 5 - Create, Justify, and Deliver Solution Design/Recommendation
Given the need to summarize the value of the entire Tivoli portfolio, deliver a presentation that focuses on the 3 areas of Visibility, Control, and Automation, so the customer understands IBM’s approach to service management.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
What is IBM Service Management and what does it address?
IBM Service Management provides the integrated visibility, control, and automation across business and technology assets needed to achieve business objectives.
It will help bring IT and business together, to meet business priorities, improve efficiency and effectiveness, clarify prioritizations, enable better governance, and mitigate risk.
Why should companies adopt a service management strategy?
Gain increased insight to help minimize risk and deliver more predictable business results, for example:
- I need insight to know if my IT projects are aligned with business objectives (both dev and operational projects).
- I need insight into my development projects to know if they are behind or ahead of schedule.
- I need insight into my business services to know if they are exceeding thresholds or if I am meeting my SLAs.
Improve productivity leveraging best practices for software and service delivery, including understanding
- How effective are my processes today?
- Where do I need to make improvements?
Manage with confidence across new generation architectures, some examples include:
- How can I bring in new generation technologies quickly as well as cost effectively?
- Optimize service development on new generation architectures, like SOA?
- How can I best leverage virtualization to help optimize workloads across the infrastructure?
Deliver capabilities rapidly and reliably while managing change, some concerns here include:
- How can I accelerate the software build process to speed service delivery?
- Can I assess the potential impact of new changes?
- How can I quickly assess problems caused by changes to my service
Improve and better manage quality, including:
- How can I deliver high-quality software to meet business requirements?
- How can I avert service quality problems? Can I leverage automation as a part of this process?
- How can I quickly get to the root cause of problems?
Delivering high-quality, cost-effective services is challenging. Reasons include:
- Growing complexity; inflexible and silo’d enterprises.
- Rapid, constant change.
- Rising costs.
- Tougher compliance.
- Widening gaps between operational and development spend.
- Insufficient and untimely access to accurate and critical data.
What is Visibility and what does it address?
Challenge: Business and operational audiences lack the visibility needed to directly support and deliver against business objectives. What is happening in your business and supporting infrastructure?
Solution: Targeted real-time dashboards - Business, Compliance, and Operational dashboards leverage existing assets and provide the real-time visibility needed to manage against business objectives.
Examples of Tivoli products: Tivoli Business Systems Manager
What is Control and what does it address?
Challenge: Poor control increases capital expenditures, operational expenditures, & risk impacting growth and innovation.
Solution: Integrated Asset Control - Helps recover assets and implement effective access control and change management processes across business and technology investments�maximizing ROI, minimizing service problems and improving security.
Example of Tivoli products: Tivoli Asset Manager for IT, Maximo Asset Manager, Tivoli Identity Manager, Change and Configuration Management Database.
What is Automation and what does it address?
Challenge: The operational processes that directly support delivery of revenue generating business services and processes are not automated or integrated.
- How do you build agility and resilience into your operations?
Solution: ‘Operational’ Automation - Automates and integrates the operational processes and tools that directly support the delivery of critical business services and processes -to help maximize productivity and reduce new labor expense, while improving service assurance.
Example of Tivoli products: IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Tivoli Process Managers
Give the need to identify the Tivoli Solution that will meet customer requirements, define the software solutions provided by IBM Tivoli suite and the ability to map the solution to the customer’s requirement, so that a proper solution can be identified for the customer.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
Have an understanding of the major business processes that Tivoli Software Solutions focus upon. Following are the Business areas IBM Tivoli Software is focusing on:
- Asset Management
- Service Management
- Business Application Management (BAM)
- IT Mainframe Management
- IT Operational Management
- Orchestration and Provisioning Management
- Process Management Products
- Security Management
- Server, Network and Device Management
- Service Management Platform
- Service Management for Service Providers
- Data Storage Management Solutions
- Management Solutions for Growing Mid-Market Businesses
Have an understanding of IT service management areas namely what exactly ITSM implies and how such processes can be automated through software solutions. Ability to explain following processes that are part of IT service Management:
- Incident Management
- Problem Management
- Release Management
- Change Management
- Configuration Management
Have an understanding of various important products (such as TADDM, TAMIT, TSRM, TPM, TBSM, TPM, Maximo etc) available in Tivoli Suite that address the above mentioned business processes and to have an understanding of Key features and functionalities of each such product.
Have an understanding of the client’s requirement related to above mentioned business processes and the ability to map it with product family.
Have an understanding of the SWOT analysis of the products in the Tivoli Suite. The ability to understand the key features and limitations of various products and certain examples of successful or failed implementation scenarios of the above mentioned products.
Give the need to explain the licensing model to the client, compute the proper number of licenses of each product presented in the solution design, so the client can be provided with an approximate cost.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
Licensing Model - IBM Tivoli Service Request Manger V6.2.1 and V7.1
Licensed based on number of Concurrent and Registered Users.
Registered User: A licensed user to use SRM product. Multiple log-ins under the same or a single user name is prohibited.
Concurrent User: A Licensed User who is licensed only to use SRM product with multiple log-ins being permitted under the same or a single user name, but provided that the total number of Concurrent Users logged into or using the Program at the same time shall not exceed the total number of Concurrent Users licensed.
Self-service Requestor: Someone who only accesses SRM product to enter a service request and view the status of his or her service requests. This license is limited to Self-Service Requestors ONLY. It does not license a user to post actual to work orders, to access the Actuate Report Writer, to run or view a report, etc. It is limited only to service request data input and read access of service request status. Unlimited Self-Service users is provided at no charge.
Licensing model - IBM Tivoli Application Dependency and Discovery Manager V7. 1 (TADDM) and IBM Tivoli Change and Compliance Management Database V7.1 (CCMDB)
TADDM is available for a VU charge for the objects of these functions, plus an Install charge - this is unchanged from current methodology
Workflow and process automation solutions are priced per user to align with industry models and consistent with Maximo pricing - this is new (SRM, TAMIT, Change & Configuration Management, Release Process Manager)
CCMDB is available as a priced combination of both the Application Mapping and Discovery VU charges and the workflow and process automation user charges - this is new.
Give the need to integrate IBM Service Management tools with existing 3rd party applications, describe the various adapters that enable the integration, so the client benefits from the value derived from having these applications working in conjunction with each other.
With emphasis on performing the following tasks:
IBM Tivoli Integration Composer (ITIC, formerly known as ‘Fusion’) - ITIC takes data collected by disparate systems and “fuses” it together into a single, actionable repository. ITIC provides out-of-the-box “cartridges” for the most common IT system management tools in the market. ITIC provides an intuitive Java-based app for set up of these pre-defined cartridges, as well as for the creation of custom cartridges for specific integration requirements.
What are some basic technical concepts?
- ITIC is a data migration tool with a separate installation program. It is not part of middleware or CCMDB installation. It is a Java-based application that runs in its own Java Virtual Machine; no Websphere environment is required.
- The ITIC data migration component needs instructions for the source and target databases that it needs to connect to, it requires information on the schema of
the source and target data sources and usually it requires some mapping instruction on how it needs to map data from the source into the target representation of data inside the process layer database. A mapping is a set of expressions that tells ITIC how to transform data on its way from the source to the target.
- ITIC provides an intuitive Java-based app for set up of these pre-defined cartridges, as well as for the creation of custom cartridges for specific integration requirements.
- The ITIC interface allows “drag-and-drop” operations to quickly and easily move inventory data from any systems management tools to Maximo Asset Management for IT. No programming is required.
Example integrations
- IBM Tivoli Application Dependancy Discovery Manager and IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager
- IBM Tivoli Application Dependancy Discovery Manager and Altiris Inventory
Maximo Enterprise Adapter (MEA) what is it? Adapter that integrates the process environment of the IBM Service Management platform with external applications (such as SAP), with transaction messages handled through
Maximo JMS queues.
Example integrations
- IBM Maximo Asset Manager to SAP.
- IBM Tivoli Asset Manager for IT to BMC Remedy.
Discovery Library Adapter what is it? Adapters that are available for download from the OPAL website that provides a way to share information between external systems and the CCMDB in an asychronous manner.
If a client has data in an external system that needs to be reconciled with existing data in the CCMDB, then consider importing your external data using the Discovery Library Adapter.
The Discovery Library facility is one of the primary ways to exchange data between various IBM Tivoli Systems Management products and the CCMDB. There are also various DLAs from business partners available. Examples of available DLAs for IBM Tivoli Systems Management products are IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Tivoli Configuration Manager, Tivoli Provisioning Manager, Tivoli Storage Manager, Tivoli Storage Productivity Center or Tivoli Composite Application Manager for RTT.
Example integrations
- An example is the interaction between the CCMDB and the Tivoli Business Service Manager 4.1 (TBSM 4.1). TBSM provides a Discovery Library Reader to import discovered data into its own data stores to support the creation of service models.
Discovery sensors (in Tivoli Application Dependancy Discovery Manager): Discovery sensors reside on the TADDM server and collect configuration attributes and dependencies. TADDM offers a wide variety of Discovery sensors to enable out-of-the-box discovery of virtually all components found in the typical data center, across the application software, host and network tiers. Custom sensors for unique components can be rapidly developed.