System Center Service Manager 2010 Unleashed

Description

System Center Service Manager 2010 offers enterprises a complete, integrated platform for adopting and automating service management best practices, such as those found in ITIL and Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). Now, there's a comprehensive, independent reference and technical guide to this powerful product.

A team of expert authors offers step-by-step coverage of related topics in every feature area, organized to help IT professionals quickly plan, design, implement, and use Service Manager 2010. After introducing the product and its relationship with the rest of Microsoft's System Center suite, the authors present authoritative coverage of Service Manager's capabilities for incident and problem resolution, change control, configuration management, and compliance. Readers will also find expert guidance for integrating Service Manager with related Microsoft technologies.

This book is an indispensable resource for every IT professional planning, installing, deploying, and/or administering Service Manager, including ITIL, MOF, and other IT consultants; system administrators; and developers creating customized solutions.

* Understand Service Manager's architecture and components

* Discover how Service Manager supports ITIL and MOF processes

* Accurately scope and specify your implementation to reflect organizational needs

* Plan to provide redundancy, ensure scalability, and support virtualization

* Design, deploy, and maintain Service Manager with security in mind

* Use Service Manager's consoles and portals to provide the right resources to each user

* Create complete service maps with Service Manager's business services

* Fully automate incident management and ticketing

* Implement best processes for identifying and addressing root causes of problems

* Systematically manage the life cycle of changes

* Use Service Manager to strengthen governance, risk management, and compliance

* Customize Service Manager's data layer, workflows, and presentation layer

* Use management packs to simplify service desk customization

* Make the most of Service Manager's reporting and dashboards

CONTENTS:

Foreword xiv

Introduction 1

PART I: SERVICE MANAGER OVERVIEW AND CONCEPTS

Chapter 1 Service Management Basics 5

Ten Reasons to Use Service Manager 6

The Problem with Today's Systems 7

Service Management Defined 13

Evolution of the CMDB 14

Strategies for Service Management 15

Overview of Microsoft System Center 30

The Value Proposition of Service Manager 2010 35

Summary 36

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Chapter 2 Service Manager 2010 Overview 37

The History of Service Manager 38

Introducing Service Manager 2010 39

Technology and Terminology 40

Tools and Utilities 47

Overview of SP 1 52

Summary 53

Chapter 3 MOF, ITIL, and Service Manager 55

Introduction to MOF and ITIL 56

Incident Management 67

Problem Management 72

Change Management 77

Configuration Management 83

Summary 87

Chapter 4 Looking Inside Service Manager 89

Architectural Overview 90

Management Group Defined 92

Server Components 93

Windows Services 99

Connectors 101

Modeling and Management Pack Schema 102

Workflow 106

Service Manager Console 108

PowerShell 110

Communications 118

Summary 120

PART II: PLANNING AND INSTALLATION

Chapter 5 Designing Service Manager 123

Envisioning Service Manager 124

Planning Service Manager 131

Summary 158

Chapter 6 Planning Complex Configurations 159

Planning for High Availability 159

Service Manager and Virtualization 169

Performance and Capacity Planning 173

SQL Server Complex Planning 180

Summary 184

Chapter 7 Installing Service Manager 185

Planning Your Installation 185

Installation Prerequisites 186

Order of Installation 188

Single Service Manager Server Deployment 192

Multiple Service Manager Server Deployments 192

Installing Service Manager from the Command Prompt 222

Removing a Service Manager Installation 223

Troubleshooting Tips 224

Post-Deployment Steps 225

Summary 234

PART III: SERVICE MANAGER OPERATIONS

Chapter 8 Using Service Manager 237

The Service Manager Console 238

Managing Service Manager with the Service Manager Console 241

About the Service Manager PowerShell Console 271

Using the Self-Service Portal 271

About the Analyst Portal 275

About the Authoring Tool 276

Summary 276

Chapter 9 Business Services 277

Introducing Service Manager Business Services 278

Using Operations Manager with Business Services 282

Creating a Business Service 287

Non-Operations Manager Components 295

Updating a Business Service 298

Mapping Operations Manager Incidents to a Business Service Automatically 301

Summary 304

Chapter 10 Incident Management 305

Understanding the Incident Process 305

Incident Management in Service Manager 307

Incident Management Process Activities 311

Configuring Incident Management 319

Incident Management Automation 342

Summary 354

Chapter 11 Problem Management 355

Understanding the Problem Process 356

Problem Management in Service Manager 358

Problem Management Process Activities 361

Configuring Problem Management 371

Problem Management Automation 379

Summary 379

Chapter 12 Change Management 381

Understanding the Change Management Process 382

Change Management in Service Manager 384

Change Management Process Activities 388

Configuring Change Management 402

Change Management Automation 411

Summary 424

Chapter 13 IT Management: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance 425

Understanding Governance, Risk, and the Compliance Process 425

MOF 4.0 and the GRC Process 428

Service Manager 2010 SP 1 and the GRC Process 429

Installing the IT GRC Process MP 432

Configuring the IT GRC Process MP 436

Using the IT GRC Process MP 443

Summary 446

PART IV: ADMINISTERING SERVICE MANAGER

Chapter 14 Notification 451

Notification Overview 451

Notification Setup 452

Workflows with Notification 465

Notification for Review Activities 470

Summary 473

Chapter 15 Service Manager Security 475

Role-Based Security 476

Data Warehouse and Reporting Security 504

Advanced User Role Scenarios 506

Run As Accounts 508

Security Best Practices 513

Summary 515

PART V: BEYOND SERVICE MANAGER

Chapter 16 Planning Your Customization 519

What You Can Customize 520

Management Packs 523

Data Modeling 525

Presenting Data 532

Workflows 541

Scoping 544

General Considerations 548

Summarizing Required Knowledge 548

Summary 550

Chapter 17 Management Packs 551

Purpose of Management Packs 551

Sealed and Unsealed MPs 553

Differences Between Management Pack Schema Version 1.0 and 1.1 555

Management Pack Schema 557

MP Bundles 563

MP Deployment 563

Summary 565

Chapter 18 Customizing Service Manager 567

Customizing the Console 567

Creating Data Models 580

Creating Workflows 596

Customizing Forms 604

Sealing Using the Service Manager Authoring Tool 611

Web Portals 612

Summary 612

Chapter 19 Advanced Customization Scenarios 613

Custom Data Models 613

Customizing Column Display Names 620

Custom Views 624

Console Tasks Using PowerShell 628

Automating an IT Process 631

Creating Console Forms Using Visual Studio 637

Other Scenarios 641

Summary 642

Chapter 20 Reports, Dashboards, and Data Analysis 643

Reporting 643

Dashboards 654

Business Intelligence 656

Customizing the Data Warehouse and Reporting 661

Summary 663

PART VI: APPENDIXES

Appendix A Reference URLs 667

Appendix B Available Online 679

Index 681