In my opinion, there is a strong need for an objective as well as subjective and comprehensive evaluation of BMC Remedy ITSM versus some of the open source ITSM applications.
e.g. - How does iTOP ITSM stack up against BMC Remedy ITSM?
Obviously it is not easy to answer. On one hand you have a very small and probably not so scalable but free to download solution and on other hand we have a proven technology used in many fortune 500 companies. So ideally nobody should even ask such questions! But customers are indeed asking such questions. Purely because they are swayed by the fact that one is a free solution while other is heavily paid solution that binds you in fairly costly annual support contracts apart from initial costs.
But how free is the so called free solution? Does it ultimately work costlier than the so called multi-million dollar costly solution? So far, I have not seen any honest and comprehensive NEUTRAL answer to this question.
Any proprietary software vendor will indeed say their solution is better. What is on the ground IT staff who actually implements and uses these solutions saying?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Hello Jeevan,
I have worked with the BMC Remedy personally and I believe I could give some insights to your question.
ITSM is solution is directly proportional to complexity and Implementation with respect to Requirements.
So if I look for big terms like Asset Discovery & Management ,Analytics ,Strong CMDB,Monitoring.. then yes the solutions like BMC Remedy,Service Now servers this purpose.And this would come in pretty high cost.And the implementation and Customization on these tools to bring in to production state would take from 6 months to 1 year.Even more.
Eventually this would result in a large maintenance phase and definitely not a care-free.
So again in boils down to what is the current Enterprise Requirement and the Problems which you are likely to fix with solution.
So If I go with your requirements which key drivers for the solution approach thought process,
a) Let us consider most common processes only - Incident/Problem/Change/Service Request along with CMDB
c) Let us assume 300 concurrent and 800 overall number of users with about 10% increase y-o-y for next 3-4 years for the ticketing system
d) Let us assume at least 10 integration with other systems (to allow third party ticketing system as well as integration with ecosystem of own organization)
Basic ITSM Solution,The concurrent users are seems to be fairly high number...but I presume this could be Medium environment.
I would recommend to go with the Ondemand solution like BMC Remedy,Service Now,ZenDesk..
This will reduce your effort in building the Custom forms and workflows for your enterprise.
The cost would should up depending on the users so the concurrent users is something which your need to look in to it.
If that doesn't work it,then you have to fall back to the OpenSource solution.But you should remember few things like would be from the Scratch and Green Field Implementation,which would require lot of Information Gathering & Consulting in building the solution.
I hope this throws some light :)
Regards,
Ranjith
Depends on what processes you want to setup and use. Incident Management, Change Management, Service Request/Service Catalogue, CMDB? What maturity level are you in the ITSM process?
Match need to the ITSM Application. Also look at Cherwell and EasyVista. Remedy OnDemand is better and cheaper than managing the app in house.
Laura J Young
Enterprise Change Manager
ITIL v2, ITIL v3, 2011 Service Transition,6 Sigma Green belt,Project Management for IT
Innovation & Technology | City of Charlotte
545 Spratt St. | Charlotte, NC 28206
Email: lyoung@charlottenc.gov
Office: 704-336-8071
Cell: 704-302-6108
@ Ranjith,
Thanks a lot for your response. What I am looking for is not a recommendation for a set of conditions - I am looking for real on the ground comparison of multiple tools against same standard set of requirements. You have suggested BMC R-O-D - so what will happen if one decides to go for open source ITSM and puts that on cloud and we put developers to fill the functional gap such free or cheap software has w.r.t. costly products that have been built by experts over a number of years..Will that turn out cheaper or costlier? To what extent? My point is, there is no clear case study illustrating this. Even I as a consultant am giving suggestions based on my experience to customers - but do I have benchmark data or study to prove my point? Not really if I must answer that honestly! That is my point.
@ Stephan
Hey, I am well aware that nothing comes for free and that is exactly why I feel it is a valid question! Every consultant - that includes me as well - gives very vague answers for this kind of question and you as well as Laura above have given similar answers - and I am not too surprised with the response either!
Please understand that several decision makers who take a call on spending money are very often non-technical people. They only understand data and comparison. People who live by quarterly results and statistics about how many $/EUR/INR are saved due to their decisions take such calls.
So, anything that looks like it is rather cheap attracts them and they veto technical decision despite numerous presentations and great convincing attempts by the technical team - and mind you, it is not down to lack of presentation skill from the technical folks!
(Note - I am not criticizing people taking calls based on finance - they are only doing their job - but many times a decision that looks beneficial in short term turns out painful in long term and by that time original person taking that decision probably earned his/her bonus and moved on to bigger position!)
So let me rephrase my question - think of this as a research study...
Take a standard set of conditions for a project:
E.g.
a) Let us consider most common processes only - Incident/Problem/Change/Service Request along with CMDB
b) Let us assume a fairly large enterprise which has been facing some cash crunch (say Tier 2 or 3 telecom company - because Tier 1 most probably would choose top products only)
c) Let us assume 300 concurrent and 800 overall number of users with about 10% increase y-o-y for next 3-4 years for the ticketing system
d) Let us assume at least 10 integrations with other systems (to allow third party ticketing system as well as integrations with ecosystem of own organization)
e) Assume some amount of customization required in each process as every company will have something unique and it won't be served by OOTB features
f) Assume future scope for adding a new instance at another location - mostly in another country and possibility of data exchange between these two instances (current and future)
g) Assume implementation can be on-premise as well as cloud based
h) Assume currently people are using home grown system that is not similar to any of the products that we are evaluating
Now, how can I achieve something like above with products like BMC Remedy, Service Now, iTOP, HPSM, OTRS etc and which will be really better?
Which one was easiest to implement?
Which one involved less training to end user?
Which one has lower initial cost?
Which one has lower running cost over 3-4 year period?
Which one is easy to further enhance and which is harder to enhance?
Which is really resulting in best day-to-day end user or agent productivity?
There is no such case study existing right now - that is my point. I totally understand that each organization will be unique - but customers are asking this kind of comparison and the fact is I don't see it being available.
Theoretically every product says they have all necessary features but in reality certain things are easier in certain products.
So, do let me know if you have any such study that can demonstrate differentiation among these products to any customer who is in such a dilemma.
The question is a valid one and often raised, also in comparison with other ITSM products. However the question doesn't make sense and Laura Young is showing the way. Nothing comes for free and it is all about the current setup, requirements, budget, training, amount of releases, security, staffing, etc. So my question is, why do you raise this question?