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Foundation Data – critical to the success of your implementation

RightStar TeamFebruary 18, 2013
This series of articles by Nancy Donnelly focuses on the steps to successfully implement the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite.  So you’ve purchased BMC’s Remedy ITSM Suite and the goal is to install it and begin using the applications as soon as possible. Metrics have been defined, and audit requirements are captured. This application toolset is critical to the success of your organization. You’ve negotiated a contract for implementation services and everyone in IT Support has taken ITIL foundation training. You’re ready to go. Now what? A good starting point is to become familiar with the HR structure within your organization. Is the organization set up geographically with Regions and Organizations within each Region? Are there Departments? Identify your physical locations with multiple addresses within each location. This information becomes the data related to customers and users of the Remedy applications. The data is also used in selecting the location of your configuration items. Once the organization structure has been confirmed, take a look at your customer base.  Identify those in your organization that have access to the Service or Help Desk.  Next, identify those in the organization who provide support to your company.   Support may be in the form of IT Support, Facilities Management, or Human Resources Application Support.  If there is a Service Desk in place, then this may be a relatively quick exercise. Does your company have a Service Catalog?  A Service Catalog is a published catalog of business services provided for your customer base.  Each business service has an owner, description, hours of service, what to expect and what is expected of someone partaking in that service as well as additional information regarding that service.   Have the IT Services that support these business services been defined?  If so, a more meaningful impact analysis can be performed against a configuration item, by providing not only the relationship of the device or application to a server but also the impact of that configuration item on the business service provided to your customers.  Powerful stuff! Next, take a look at the infrastructure for your new environment.  Is the architecture such that it will provide a quick solution for your users?