Service Manager

System Center Service Manager

What Does Business Want from IT?

The ultimate business goal of information technology (IT) operations is to provide efficient and effective services while increasing IT’s value to the organization. IT compliance standards require even more of the IT organization because they increase the need for consistent and accurate processes. Microsoft System Center Service Manager, scheduled for release in 2010, extends the System Center value by integrating information, knowledge, processes, activities, and workflows across the suite of the System Center products.
Download System Center Service Manager Beta 2

What is System Center Service Manager?

Microsoft System Center Service Manager is an integrated platform for automating and adapting your organization’s IT service management best practices, such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). It provides built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, change control, and asset lifecycle management. Through its configuration management database (CMDB) and process integration, Service Manager automatically connects knowledge and information from System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager and Active Directory. Service Manager delivers integration, efficiency, and business alignment of the datacenter IT services by:

Optimizing processes and ensuring their use through templates that effectively guide IT analysts through best practices for change and incident management.
Reducing resolution times by cutting across organizational silos, ensuring that the right information from incident, problem, change, or asset records is accessible through a single pane.
Extending the value of the Microsoft platform through automated generation of incidents from alerts and the coordination of activities among System Center products.
Enabling informed and cost-effective decision making through its data warehouse, which integrates knowledge from disparate IT management systems, delivering out-of-the-box reporting and flexible data analysis through SQL reporting services.

Key Technologies

A workflow engine for automating all or portions of IT processes and for integrating System Center solutions
A common data warehouse and reporting platform for integrating business intelligence information across System Center
A connector framework to support technology integration across System Center, other Microsoft products, and common industry management tools
A CMDB to support the management of information about IT service components and how they relate to one another
A self-service portal to provide end users access to IT resources, reducing help desk call volume
A knowledge base to capture and share practical knowledge for IT professionals and end users