Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

March 2021

ITOM vs ITSM

Is it important to your customer to understand the distinction between IT Operations Management (ITOM) and IT Service Management (ITSM)? Most likely not. Your customers are only concerned with how quickly you solve their problems. It makes no difference to them which application or infrastructure you use. So why should you, as an organization, be concerned about the meaning of these concepts, how they align, how they differ, and why they matter?

Not knowing real time asset intelligence is a non starter

Complexity breaks correlation. Intelligence brings cohesion. This simple principle is what makes real-time asset intelligence a must-have for AIOps that is meant to diffuse complexity. To further create a context for the user, it is critical to understand service dependencies and correlate alerts across the stack to resolve incidents. CMDB systems have been useful to break down configuration items into logical layers. But, that’s not enough because they can become outdated very soon.

How to prepare for changes in the workplace

Transitioning back to the office is becoming more of a possibility with each coming day. But managing the transition can leave you feeling overwhelmed. Where do you start? How will work be different after a year of working remotely? And how will you balance management of a remote and in-person workforce? The ServiceNow on-demand Back to Work webinar series can help you prepare for changes in the workplace post-COVID-19 in four key ways.

On-boarding Remote Workers with Service Watch

It’s been more than half a year since I joined Exoprise. When Covid-19 struck last year, it became clear that companies would expand their hiring requirements beyond local regions and find suitable candidates (just like me!). Remote work and the requirement for on-boarding remote workers no longer became a luxury. This is reflected in job portals and HR sites such as Indeed and Glassdoor where they began to insert a new tag “Remote WFH Option Available”.

Digital transformation is all about people

The power of technology can transform organizations. Technology can create new workplaces and new ways of working—and bring new services and exciting opportunities to businesses and consumers alike. Delivering a major technology program is always a complex journey, full of challenges and, inevitably, a mix of triumphs and setbacks.

How ITOM visibility delivers peace of mind

The check engine light on a vehicle warns the driver when something under the hood needs attention. Wouldn’t it be nice if every organization had a similar flashing indicator to let them know when their Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate is about to expire? Unfortunately, reality isn’t that simple. We tend to deal with the day-to-day maintenance of our vehicle in different ways.

Featured Post

The End of Automation Anxiety

If there's one thing 2020 has highlighted, it's that the world is constantly changing. For most industries-IT included-one constant spans the ages: a lingering concern about automation. The very thing that helped pave the foundations for the industrial revolution and the world we know today has been a concern ever since, with the worry machines will take our jobs in one way or another. In 2021, we're likely to see the IT industry address this anxiety, embracing automation software solutions in a smarter way and freeing up tech professionals to prioritize the most important jobs.

What is ITOM and why is it important to ITSM?

Businesses of today are faced with an extensive list of technical solutions, both on-prem and in the cloud, with which to manage their business services and systems. As the complexity of IT infrastructures increases so does a business’s ability to maintain service levels. If new systems and processes are not aligned and synchronized across a business, it can result in a lack of visibility, which can negatively impact critical services.

Automated Patch Management and Team Swarming are Key Security Practices

In the blink of an eye, you can miss a new business disrupting security incident. We all recognize that cybersecurity breaches are increasing in volume and sophistication. How we respond to them is critical. Security vulnerabilities force organizations to go outside of their daily activities to execute out-of-band responses. We face numerous challenges in managing security risk.

Acquisition with Intent and The Rise of The Everywhere Workplace: Why Ivanti Is Moving Faster Than Ever During a Global Pandemic

It's easy for businesses to drop into reactive survival mode during a crisis like COVID-19. Navigating rapidly changing conditions can make it difficult to think beyond immediate challenges. And yet, even – or perhaps especially – in a crisis, it’s imperative that companies execute strategies that will make them stronger in the long term. In the case of COVID-19, those strategies should support clients as they transition to new working conditions.

Stop Onboarding Like It's 2019

First impressions matter. The first day of a new job can be daunting, especially in a post-2020 world. Back in 2019, you might have asked yourself questions like: is this office going to be open-concept or a bunch of cubicles? Will I get to sit near a window with some natural light or are they going to stick me next to the bathroom? Now new hires ponder questions like: what will my digital work environment look like? Will IT send me a new laptop, camera, and speakers?

IT Support Fatigue is Real (Here's How to Solve It)

Have you ever seen one of those old war movies where some grizzled veteran is whispered to have the fabled ‘1,000-yard stare’? Well, you need to keep an eye for it among IT teams too. IT Support Fatigue was already a very real problem before the pandemic, and has only become more severe in the months since. It’s an issue we explored in the Nexthink Pulse Report.

DIY Guide to Building a SCOM Connector Webinar

Find out how to use PowerShell and REST APIs to integrate SCOM alerts into ServiceNow. In this webinar, we'll take you through building your own SCOM connector for ServiceNow using Powershell to send SCOM alerts to the Incident table. This DIY guide illustrates how to get alerts out of SCOM to your cloud platforms, therefore you can apply these principles to any similar system.

Human-centered IT service management: The next great differentiator

Positive employee and customer experiences are critical to business growth and digital transformation success. But, such experiences require revamping how organizations structure, deliver, and measure IT services. That’s why human-centered IT service management is growing in popularity for companies that want to innovate IT and gain a competitive advantage. Here are some insights for IT leaders who may be hesitant to take the leap into human-centered ITSM.

Ask these 8 questions when choosing your IT project management software

IT teams across the digital world are currently facing their biggest test yet. Ensuring that things are running smoothly when employees are working from home. And they’re doing a very good job at it. But, there’s always room for improvement right? If you’ve ever been a part of an IT team, you know the pain of jumping between multiple software tools, the effects of a broken down collaboration system and the struggle for visibility amongst team members.

Enterprise IT Cost Containment-A Series

H.L. Mencken once famously wrote, “…there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” More than just a pithy way to frame the entire concept of “cost containment” (whether network-specific cost, the broader category of IT, or the cost of anything else, to be quite honest), it’s an integral aspect of what I’ll be proposing in this and subsequent articles in this series.

Brand New Desktop and Server Management Remote Control Capability

We are very excited to announce the official release of Ivanti Desktop and Server Manager Remote Control - A new Remote Control solution based on Ivanti technology! Ivanti continues to provide useful tools to support our customers in the Everywhere Workplace – especially in times where remote work is more often the norm rather than the exception.

Intellibot acquisition to boost ServiceNow automation capabilities with RPA

Modern organizations need to move fast. Toggling between legacy and modern systems is frustrating. Often there are disconnects between legacy and modern platforms, requiring manual work to bridge the gap. Many of the ServiceNow customers I speak with every day tell me they’re trying to drive automation across a mix of legacy and modern applications.

Building Service Strength in a Unified ITSM Platform

Heading to the gym, you have access to so many amenities in one place: cardio equipment, private studios, a pool, free-weight area, a basketball court. Imagine if those conveniences were located at separate facilities, forcing you to have separate memberships and make different trips to achieve a well-rounded workout – it doesn't bode for the best experience. In a different context, think about your employees' experience as they search for answers across multiple platforms for service providers.

What's New with Ivanti Workspace Control 2021.1?

The past 12 months have seen significant changes and upheaval in the way we live our lives and also in terms of our work environment. Many organizations moved to remote working almost overnight, leaving IT with significant challenges in terms of ensuring users continue to remain productive and secure. Organizations have been increasingly looking to cloud technologies to provide solutions to these challenges.

Shared Services Model - How Does It Work?

The shared services model can transform business processes and smooth out the rough edges in your operational model. Have you been looking for ways to centralize your operations? We recommend that you consider the shared services model. Through the use of standardized technology, various units in an organization can access the same services. In this article, we are going to be providing everything you need to know about the shared services model.

Better Customer Operations Equals Increased Company Revenue

Customer operations refer to customer-centric business functions like sales and service which extend support to the customer. These were earlier perceived to be a cost center, but that notion has changed over the past decade. Customer operations are now regarded as the Swiss army knife of business operations. This is largely due to the fact that it supports several core business functions such as Sales, Marketing, Branding, and Product Development.

Optimizing SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) with Better User Experience (UX) on the Edge

Optimizing SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) with Better User Experience (UX) on the Edge While technology plays a large part in the efficiency of warehouse operations, employees are the foundation. Prioritizing User Experience (UX) on employees’ mobile data entry devices, from handheld devices to fork truck-mounted barcode scanners, is crucial to maximizing productivity.

4 lessons from the telecom industry

The pandemic has accelerated innovation as more companies scramble to be future-ready, flexible, and adaptable. Having quickly responded to a crisis and executed a planned digital transformation at UK telecommunications giant BT, I want to share lessons we learned to help other companies transition smoothly to a more digital future. Customers at the core The telecom industry has been changing rapidly over the past few years. The lines between work and play are becoming increasingly blurred.

Is Your Home Built to Last? Investing in Cloud-Based ITSM for a More Secure Tomorrow

Buying a home requires thoughtful planning and takes a significant amount of time and resources. Beyond your list of must-haves, you’ve likely kept tabs on houses of interest to you, the state of the market, how safe the neighborhood is, and more. Another factor in your decision is how the house is equipped to grow with you—will it continue to meet your needs in the next five years? It’s critical to establish a sound foundation that works for you today and in the future.

Back to Work: COVID Management in the Workplace

Returning to the workplace post-COVID-19 will require a careful balance of coordination, sensitivity, and logistics. You may be grappling with questions such as: Our Back to Work webinar series can help you think through these questions and more to ensure proper COVID management once you’re back in the workplace.

Five Key Identity Governance Features That Your Identity and Access Management Solution Does NOT Support

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, identity management has taken center stage as the key enterprise security practice for enabling remote workforces while protecting company data and IT services.

ServiceNow simplifies vaccine management with new capabilities

COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have collectively agreed to release 12 billion vaccine doses globally in 2021, according to McKinsey & Company research, provided they all pass clinical trials. However, turning those vaccines into vaccinations is a colossal undertaking that requires significant coordination. In January, we announced our Vaccine Administration Management (VAM) solution to simplify that effort.

PagerDuty: Helping Every Business Move to Digital

Last year, businesses started focusing more on accelerating digital transformation initiatives to meet growing customer expectations and deliver consistent digital experiences from anywhere—no matter the product, service, or industry. PagerDuty partners with thousands of organizations to help reimagine digital operations and deliver real-time, digital experiences to their customers when it matters most.

From ITSM to enterprise service management

More and more organizations are embracing digital evolution to improve processes and increase productivity. The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria, a state government agency in Australia, is one such organization. EPA Victoria embarked on a large-scale digital transformation journey three years ago to reinvent its operations, its interactions with the public, and its approach to environmental protection in the state of Victoria.

What Are Shared Services? (Your Guide For 2021)

What are shared services? How does a shared service business model work? In this article, we will be breaking down everything you need to know about shared services. Are you trying to build a request-centric operations model that places an emphasis on simplified customer experience? We will be exploring the key benefits of adopting a shared services model. There has never been a better time to start exploring the consolidation of business operations.

Enabling Secure Access for the Federal Government - Meeting Comply to Connect Mandates

Government IT organizations must demonstrate and maintain compliance with a large and growing number of regulations and standards around network access control (NAC), ensuring that all connected devices to their environment are not vulnerable is a key requirement. Comply to connect (C2C) simplifies this by enforcing that patches and hardened configurations are applied to devices before they connect and updated continually.

What's New with Ivanti Device and Application Control 5.3

What’s New in Ivanti Device & Application Control 5.3 Nearly every company in the world incorporates a Mac endpoint into the organization. Without a device control solution to manage these stations we see a real possibility for data leakage risk. This loss happens mainly because of insider threats. Ivanti Device and Application Control has historically performed well protecting our customers against these types of threats, but the Mac endpoints can still represent a risk.

Now Platform Quebec release boosts employee experiences for the new era of work

The world of work looks vastly different than it did one year ago. Where we work and how we work have been decoupled and many of these changes are here to stay. Creating a great employee experience has become a key competitive differentiator and extends beyond HR into legal, workplace services, and more.

New ServiceNow industry solutions strengthen operations and drive growth

This week marks one year since ServiceNow sent employees home to shelter in place. During that year, the world changed and the demands and expectations of our customers forever changed with it. I’m proud that ServiceNow was there to help our customers survive and thrive.

Top ITSM Trends of 2021

ITSM is a hot topic for people who manage IT infrastructure. And due to the immense changes, we have experienced this past year, there are new developments that show where the industry is headed. ‘Automation’ has been all the craze for the past few years, but it is now more relevant than ever. Then there is ‘digital transformation’, the buzzword of 2021, which is a result of the rapid levels of digitization that all organizations are experiencing.

Alloy Software Earns Prestigious Stevie Award for Outstanding Customer Success

BLOOMFIELD, N.J., March 11, 2021 (Newswire.com) – Alloy Software, Inc., a leading IT Service Management and IT Asset Management solution provider, announced today that it had been named a Silver Award winner in the 15th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. This award, which the company has received for the second consecutive year, is an undeniable proof of its focus on customer success and uncompromising commitment to the highest customer service standards.

How AI Will Give IT Professionals Their Time Back

The whole world has been dreaming about the possibilities of artificial intelligence for decades. Whether it's cars capable of making critical decisions and driving themselves, or robots capable of lending a hand around the house, the potential is almost limitless. The benefits of AI aren't limited to the everyday life of the consumer, however, and IT is just one sector set to reap the rewards as software becomes ever smarter.

How to Reduce Bandwidth Consumption for Your Network?

Do you know who interacts with whom, when, and for how long and how frequently in your network? Network administrators must have clear visibility of bandwidth utilization using a robust bandwidth monitoring tool, to find out slow loading yet crucial connections, to plan out the capacity of network properly or to control the Quality of Service.

Simplify the management of third-party updates for Intune with Patch Connect Plus

Enterprise IT administrators and technicians worldwide who are looking to take third-party patch management to the cloud or even expand their endpoint management capabilities can now rejoice, as Patch Connect Plus has introduced Intune Update Management to its patch management toolbox!

4 Ways to Simplify IT Knowledge Management

The saying “knowledge is power” may be a cliché, but the truth of it holds strong, especially as it relates to IT systems and processes. With all the many moving parts in IT and the overall business, employees can often feel either bombarded with information overload or uncertain without enough. For this reason, many organizations have turned to knowledge management to provide structured processes for collecting, storing, and disseminating knowledge throughout the organization.

From Virtual Reality to Improved Work Life Balance, Here's Why UEM Cloud R76 and UEM Core 11.1 are so Cool

We are excited to announce the availability of the new MobileIron UEM Cloud R76 and UEM Core 11.1, our on-premises offering. As with past releases of MobileIron UEM, our product team continues to focus their efforts on use cases that help our customers to enhance security, improve the admin/user experience and support new use cases driven by OS updates.

How to build a ServiceNow Incident Connector for SCOM

Connecting Microsoft SCOM and ServiceNow is a no-brainer! If you want to synchronize your alerts with your incidents, view issues in real-time, and generally make your life easier then why wouldn’t you! But, we know not everyone is tech-savvy enough to develop these solutions themselves, so we’ve written this blog to give you a helping hand. So, if you want to give it a go and build your own integration tool, then here’s how to get started.

Sales Engineering - The Key to Customer Service

Sales engineering is becoming increasingly more important for service-based businesses. It’s time to start paying attention to the role of technical sales in your business. The truth is, without technical sales, you cannot sell. If you want to deliver solutions that meet your target market’s needs, you must bridge the gap between internal teams and customers.

How a chatbot taught us never to settle for complex technology

Picture the scene – you’re a mobile mechanic helping a customer and you can’t log into your tablet. You’re on the side of the road at 11pm, and you just want to reset your password so you can finish up and send them home in the car you just fixed. The service desk is closed, so you go for the chatbot option.

4 Reasons Why Sales Engineering Resources are Essential for Growth?

Sales engineers play a significant role in bridging the gap between internal teams and customers. This shared services team has product experts who possess a sound technical background and a deep understanding of customer expectations. With that, they support several business functions like Sales, Customer Service, Research and Development, and so on. Sales engineering professionals can wear many hats because of their in-depth understanding of the products and the business itself.

ITSM For All: Bringing Human Resources into the Service Desk

For those who have been keeping up with our series on IT Service Management (ITSM) beyond IT, welcome back! If you’re new to this conversation, it isn’t like a podcast where I’ll send you back to part one, but you may find it helpful to visit the previous recommendations for other internal service providers. Reflecting on 2020, we saw how powerful collaboration in the service desk could be in maintaining users’ productivity and achieving broader business goals.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff but Consider This with Sweating IT Assets

Sweating IT assets, ever heard of them? It might seem nonsensical to imagine an IT asset perspiring from being overworked, but it’s actually not a far-off analogy. When a business delays the purchasing of new technology as long as possible, it’s called ‘sweating assets.” Companies have their reasons for this strategy, but it usually comes down to one thing: an attempt at cost-savings. Do sweating assets actually help to achieve this and where do they miss the mark?

Do You Work In A Shared Services Team? Here's How You Make Work Easier

Shared services teams are often challenged with supporting many individuals within a company. Less resources, e-mail, shared inboxes, and disconnected systems are all issues these teams face. How can this be solved to make work more efficient, save time, and save money? StartingPoint is a simple SaaS customer operations and experience platform that helps organizations manage on-boarding, project management, service and helpdesk support, and task and team management in one unified solution. StartingPoint can be deployed and customized within one hour and no actions take more than 5 clicks.

Ivanti Insights Episode 3: In the World of Privacy, Nothing is Free - Including Social Media Apps

Did you know there are currently 4.20B social media users globally? That’s 53% of the total global population! From the most popular social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, to the hottest up and coming platforms like TikTok and Clubhouse, there is one thing they all have in common: privacy regulations and considerations should be and need to be top priority. Ivanti’s Sr.