Play Podcast  (Right click to download)

It's been noted, among other things, that BMC Software's Tom Bishop plays a mean game of pool, can pilot a private plane, and has a brain "the size of a planet" (hmmm). Add to this, extensive industry experience and technical expertise (from IBM to Vieo, and more), and you're describing someone who knows what they want to say, why they want to say it, and yes, just exactly what it is they are talking about.

And these days, this plain-spoken CTO is talking about BMC Software's CMDB, called "Atrium," arguably the crown jewel in the company's highly successful Business Service Management (BSM) strategy for IT. Are you seriously considering using ITIL to bring discipline and best practices to your IT organization? You probably already know that the CMDB is a critical component for ITIL to work. But do you have an eye for the elegantly simple BSM strategy that says, get a clear picture of what you want to achieve for your business first, then implement the applications and systems you need to get that result? The CMDB is a key component of this as well.

To hear Bishop tell the story, it's really rather straightforward: There are lots of different companies that want to achieve BSM, and each one has its own unique circumstances, concerns, strengths, and so on. So it makes sense that each company needs to take its own path toward BSM, its own Route to Value (RTV), in BSM terms. Each of these RTVs are comprised of different components -- applications, systems, and the like -- and with the CMDB, you can manage these components in a coherent and consistent manner.

"Atrium technology," says Bishop, "is actually a collection of technologies intended to drive integration across the various RTVs and across BMC products implemented within the RTVs to provide a common infrastructure. This allows you to start with any of the RTVs," he adds, "then evolve and build in whatever direction makes sense for you, without losing integration and consistency."

For an organization using distributed computing, mainframe technologies, or both, to begin creating its own, unique story of going from where it is, to where it wants to be in terms of efficiency, return on investment, and customer satisfaction, the CMDB is a critical prerequisite. BMC Software recognized this first, affirms Bishop, and rolled out an industrial-strength CMDB that can deliver on the promise of BSM.

Resources

Why You Need a Configuration Management Database - Where ITIL Fits In (PPT:   809 KB)

Bio

Tom Bishop was named one of the top 25 CTOs by InfoWorld Magazine in 2004 and is a well-known industry innovator who holds nine patents in fault tolerant computing and in leading the development of industry standards such as the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and POSIX.

Play Podcast  (Right click to download)

What if you were part of an organization that has already successfully implemented a configuration management database (CMDB), the heart of ITIL - what happens next? Ken Turbitt, Global Best Practices director at BMC Software, answers that question by using the Gartner Hype Cycle for IT Operations Management, published this year. He discusses the technologies you need to understand now and the key market drivers like IT maturity, infrastructure stability, and organizational agility.

Did you know that Business Service Management (BSM) is ahead of the CMDB on the Gartner Hype Cycle? That's not unexpected, explains Ken. But, he doesn't agree with Gartner's assessment of the number of years to mainstream adoption: BSM is already mainstream, says Ken. IT controls, governance, and the ability to follow regulatory compliance mandates is a challenge, and the technology is there to overcome it. So, what's next? Ken is paying attention to IT asset management, data mining and analytics, business process consoles (like dashboards), CobIT, and service portfolio management tools (and so, he advises, should you).

Resources

Ken Turbitt's Blog on TalkBMC: IT Best Practices

Gartner Hype Cycle for IT Operations Management ($$)

Screen shot of BMC Dashboard for BSM

Bio

Ken Turbitt is a qualified ISEB ITIL manager and Gartner-qualified TCO consultant. He was a founding member of the Institute for the Management of Information Systems (member since 1985) "outsourcing special interest" group, founded a successful independent consultancy, and was an enterprise architect/analyst for Peregrine Systems, assisting sales and business development across EMEA. Ken also managed the Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) consultancy practice within Fujitsu/ICL on a worldwide basis, where he was recognized as the ICL worldwide authority on Asset Management and related services. Before ICL, Ken was a management consultant with Price Waterhouse Coopers (then Coopers & Lybrand), where he managed their Network Management Center. Currently, Ken is employed by BMC Software working as Best Practice director, assisting BMC in aligning with the Best Practices for IT services (e.g., ITIL, CobIT, ETom), presenting to clients, partners, and analysts.

Play Podcast  (Right click to download)

There is a tribe of people in the world today who are, well, a different breed of cat, shall we say. They commit passages of Stranger in a Strange Land to memory. They carry on a love affair with coffee, not only for its rich flavor, but for the opportunity to experience nearly infinite durations of caffeine-generated consciousness. They are not particularly WOWed when inventions like cellphones emerge, because chances are, they've already thought of them ... or envisioned them. They are the techies who work all day in front of a computer, then go home at night and, well, turn on a computer. And always, always, they are thinking, dreaming, about what will be The Next Cool Thing.

Recently, BMC Communities had the opportunity to sit down with BMC Software's chief techie, CTO Tom Bishop, and to ask him a range of questions all about The Next Cool Thing. From what will Oracle CEO Larry Ellison do next, to how will the video iPod change the world, to what he thinks about the latest GOOGLE/Sun Microsystems announcement (and what he'd hoped they'd say), Tom is not without opinions, visions, and creative thinking about some of the hottest topics in tech today. This visionary CTO even wonders aloud about the Disneyworld, or Brave New World, that the present Internet infrastructure will usher in ... and he invites the listener to think, and to dream, along with him.

Oh yes ... and he relates a pretty interesting coffee story, too. (Maybe there are some things that never do change, after all ...)

Bio

Tom Bishop was named one of the top 25 CTOs by InfoWorld Magazine in 2004 and is a well-known industry innovator who holds nine patents in fault tolerant computing and in leading the development of industry standards such as the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and POSIX.