IBM Service Management

Tools to Help You Get Started

IBM has developed several powerful tools and resources to help get your IBM Service Management initiative on track and improve its success and effectiveness.

IBM Service Management Self-Assessment Tool
One of the toughest challenges in IBM Service Management is determining where to start and focus your organization's efforts. This free online tool guides you through the process of identifying priority areas for improvement. The quick, easy-to-use assessment provides you with useful reports and insights based on best practices in the areas of process importance, capability, automation, and governance.

IBM Tivoli Unified Process (ITUP)
While best-practice frameworks like the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) are excellent resources for describing what an IT organization should do to improve efficiency and effectiveness, they are less clear on how to do it. ITUP is a free, downloadable IBM Service Management reference model that adds prescriptive and descriptive process content to make best practices more actionable.

ITUP is aligned with ITIL and CoBIT, and adds the depth of knowledge gained from IBM's experience with thousands of successful ITSM implementations.

In addition, ITUP is an excellent starting point for understanding how IBM products and services can help you implement and automate processes and activities based on best practices.

ITUP provides descriptions and relationships between the following components:

• Processes based on industry best practices
• Roles – the detailed responsibilities of staff assigned to execute processes
• Work products – information consumed and produced by process steps
• Tools – proper use of technology to automate and execute processes
• Scenarios – descriptions of best practice solutions to common problems and tasks

IBM Rational Unified Process Tool (RUP)
RUP®, is process-guidance content included in the Rational Method Composer framework that delivers proven best practices in a configurable architecture.

IBM Tivoli Unified Process Composer (ITUP Composer)
ITUP Composer is the product version of the IBM Tivoli Unified Process. It is an ideal, cost-effective starting point for organizations looking to implement IBM Service Management best practices and document their operational model. Unlike ITUP, ITUP Composer contains a content library that can be customized, extended, and then published with the tools included in the product.