-by Matthieu Laurenceau, Technical Marketing, ESM R&D

My biggest frustration: Applications not allowing easy access with my favorite browser.

Some applications (or features) do not support usual browsers or require some heavy download, making the experience unpleasant or painful.

Supporting your preferred Browser

A lot of my friends are Firefox fans, but they sometimes are forced to use IE since some applications (or web sites) only support this browser from Microsoft. I spend most of my time using Chrome, but also have to use IE from time to time for some specific capabilities where vendors locked me down.

Changing browser creates various issues for the user: Unfamiliar with the capabilities Need to maintain security settings (certificates, etc.) twice Cookies become useless Credentials (login and/or passwords) have to be saved again Several Places to maintain Favorites   Most companies use Internet Explorer, so why is this an issue ? Well, IE cannot fit for all: What should Unix/Linux/MacOS users do ? There are always some individuals (like me or my friends) who prefer non-IE browsers for various (good or bad) reasons (personal choices, not required by Management) Some government organizations have made opensource browsers choices   From a branding point of view, not pleasing users of non-IE browsers can be very dangerous: most of the Linux/MacOS users (for example) are very active on Twitter and other Social Media sites, so they will have nasty words about the Vendor brand, and the market will know about it.

Full-web or not ?

• A JRE has to be used, quite often creating conflicts on the client (the JRE version for one feature not being compatible with the JRE version required by another app/feature)
• A Java Applet performs really poorly over the WAN or a 3G network, making it eventually useless (and customers have to deploy Citrix or other costly solutions)

These issues often appear on key features, like CMDB, and have to be watched really carefully by customers.

The question that customers should ask is not "Are you full-web ?" (all vendors will say Yes) but "What features require a local client or a Java Applet or any other plug-in download ?"

BMC Cares about End-User Experience

The BMC Atrium platform technology (AR System) supports a lot of browsers (and versions), for example IE6+, FF 2.0+, or Safari 3.0+, and never requires a Java Applet on the browser. It only uses lightweight web technologies, like on most Web 2.0 sites (we sometimes use Flash, like YouTube does )

• Self-Service for all employees (SRM)
• Service Desk, Change & Release Management, Asset Management
• Atrium CMDB, Atrium Integration Engine, SLM
• And more!

By sharing the platform, we make End-User and Administrator experience far more seamless. It also helps our applications to evolve faster than competition since each application focuses on its specific processes/features, not on web technology or database or user management details (read more on Low M&O Costs).

Take-aways

Using a browser is a no-brainer in a Web 2.0 World.

Having several browsers (and versions) supported is key to make all User Communities happy.

Always using lightweight technologies is the best way to achieve great and consistent end-user experience.

Customers need to ask the rights questions to avoid hazardous choices.

Matt

-by Matthieu Laurenceau, Technical Marketing, ESM R&D

One of the most fundamental components of BMC Atrium is BMC Remedy AR System.

It's the Workflow Engine, initially used by all Remedy Products (ITSM or CSS for example), and now leveraged by more and more Products in various BSM disciplines.

Fundamental Issues fixed

Let's think about the value for a customer.

For each BSM Product you implement (CMDB, SLM, Change, Service Desk, Asset Management, Self-Service, etc.), you have to think about lot's of details (that's what I can read in each RFP).

The first part is quite technical:

• What Operating System is supported? Can it run on virtual machines?
  
• What are the databases supported? (pls confirm that I only need one database, and I can use my preferred vendor)
• Which vendor/version of Web/JSP Server should I use?
• Is my current browser version supported? (pls confirm that no Java applet will be used)
• Can it work in multi-lingual? does it support Unicode? How can I add another locale that is important for my business?
• How to achieve High Availability? Is it transparent to load-balancing?
• How to achieve scalability across the WAN?
• Can it work in a fully distributed fashion, allowing a real follow-the-sun approach?

Even more important, you need to understand how it will integrate with the rest of the IT:

• Can I use External Authentication? How to integrate with Kerberos and LDAP/AD?
• How can I implement Single Sign On?
• Can screens be displayed in my Enterprise Portal, using JSR-168?
• What APIs are provided? C++, Java, web-services?
• Does it allow both real-time reporting and multi-dimensional reporting?
• How to integrate with my current CMDB, or my Business Repositories?
• How can I maintain People and Group information?
• Do I have to maintain specific User Preferences (like user_locale or permission - including multi-tenancy) for this technology?

Since these questions are just technical questions, the answer should be the same for all products: CMDB, Service Desk, Asset Management, Change, SLM, etc.

That's what AR System delivers, a unified platform to support these applications. It solves these issues once for all.

Here are some pragmatic take-aways that the Business will love:

• Applications share a unified database (and OS, and Web/JSP Server), enabeling low Maintenance & Operation costs (no need to maintain several databases and sync them)
  
• Applications share the same User Interface, making users far more efficient without costly training (no disruption when using several products)
  
• Cross-workflow make sure that the processes are integrated between all these Products, allowing cross-team efficiency

Shared Components

Let's finish with the most impressive area, some rule-based Engines are shared between Products, for example

• Approval Engine
  
• Assignment Engine
  

Indeed, the process to Approve looks the same between a Change, a Purchase request, or Self-Service Move Request (for example).

Depending on the context, the Manager may be involved, or the Business Process Owner, or the LOB-Manager.

So the Engine is that same, and is used by each Product in their respective context.

The same applies for Assignments: whatever the context (new Service Catalog entry, Infrastructure Change, Incident, Problem, Purchase Request, etc.), we'll have to find groups (or individuals) based on a couple of criteria: time-of-day, location, technical context, operational context, etc.

Why is this important ? Since Engines are shared,

• They are maintained (by you, and us also) once (no duplicate work)
  
• They are far more robust than an individual feature of a given product
  
• There is no learning curve for your teams to get familiar with another similar feature of another product, they are ready (and trained) on day 1
  

Again, this means big money for the business.

Where to go from here?

AR System doesn't require technical knowledge for the platforms it leverages (Operating System, Web/SJP Server, database Server), it solves (once for all) fundamental technical issues (including integrations) for customers.

It allows Businesses to centralize and standardize processes, generating huge savings and efficiency improvements.

You can read more on AR System on David's great blog.

Last week, we introduced platform concepts.

Today, let's go deeper in defining the scope of a platform, and the value it brings to the Business.

Definition and Examples

According to webopedia, a platform "defines a standard around which a system can be developed".

This definition is quite technical, and makes a lot of sense for all of us when talking about Databases or Operating Systems for example:

• lots of applications can leverage a given database, they will all use identical grammar structures for SQL statements (that enable data storage and manipulation)
  
• on a given OS, lots of applications can be created, they will share some libraries
  

"Standard" is really meaningful also, because that's why it creates value.

Companies define standards for their IT, typical examples include:

• for Sales employees, Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7, on Dell Latitude laptops,
  
• for Servers, Windows Server 2003 or Linux Red Hat EL 4
  
• for databases, Oracle 9i/10g
  

For such companies, taking decision for these platforms means that it will be far easier (thus cheaper and more effective) to support them, and to deliver enhanced Business value.

Internal teams will be more focused, and acquire skills that they will be able to leverage (never re-inventing the wheel).

Not making platform choice means that they would have to duplicate a lot of work (which does not bring value to the Business):

• maintaining various hardware (so having each of them in inventory)
  
• learning patch management on plenty of OSes
  
• getting skills on configuration/scalability for multiple databases
  
• testing each software on all possible combination that they may run into (hardware, OS, database)
  

Now that we're clearer on definition and value, let's be a bit more specific and see how it applies to BMC Atrium.

BMC Atrium is a platform

As we saw in the previous examples, platforms need to "enable", they need to be "easily leveraged".

More important, for companies to choose a platform, it needs to never limit them.

For example, picking Oracle is a safe database choice: most applications that use a database actually support Oracle.

It doesn't mean that they will have to buy everything from Oracle, like their ERP (Oracle E-Business Suite) or their Reporting/Business Intelligence (Hyperion). They can continue to run SAP and Business Objects for example. Again, platforms are open and do not limit.

BMC Atrium, our comprehensive approach to discover, model, visualize and assign priorities to Business Services, fully respects these criteria:

• 100+ Applications leverage it to provide a Business-focused view of Service Management (BMC Products, but also partner products, opensource, and even competition)
  
• it's in production already at thousands of customer sites
  
• also, hundreds of partners around the world have skilled teams on BMC Atrium (it's supported by a very active Community)
  

In the next weeks, we'll touch on each BMC Atrium component and see other interesting aspects of a BSM platform.