BMC Software announced enhancements to BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) Suite and the BMC Atrium technology platform, two key components of its Business Service Management platform. Tighter integration among the primary technologies of BMC's BSM platform makes it easier for organizations to discover, visualize, prioritize and orchestrate IT services, the vendor says.
A key goal for the releases was to help customers contain or reduce costs in a turbulent economy. "Everybody is looking at how they can at least not spend more, but try to spend less," Gerry Roy, director of solutions management for services support for BMC, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The new releases also emphasize optimization and improving efficiency and productivity of users, while also helping them gain control over areas where that was not possible before.
"One of the most difficult things to control is the proliferation of software throughout your environment," notes Roy. BMC Remedy IT Service Management version 7.5 offers advanced software license management capabilities and tighter configuration management database integration to provide a holistic and detailed view of software assets. Another component, BMC Remedy Asset Management, ensures license compliance, and can lead to at least a 10% reduction in current software costs, according to the vendor.
It's important to understand not only what has been purchased and what has been deployed within an IT environment, but also what is being actively used, Roy explains. Whether underutilizing or over-utilizing software, "both of them are bad," he says. "If you are over-utilizing, obviously you are out of compliance. But if you are underutilizing, it means you are paying a lot more money for maintenance and other things" when a significant portion of your license may not be used at all.
BMC Remedy IT Service Management version 7.5 also offers a release management solution that enables IT to control release activities from concept to completion. By automating the process of planning, testing and rolling out software and hardware changes, BMC Remedy Change Management can increase consistency, minimize errors, and result in 20-40% efficiency gains in change and release management activities, BMC says.
The latest release of the BMC Atrium platform helps customers maintain a "single source of truth" in dynamic virtual environments, BMC says. The solution automatically updates business service definitions, even when virtualization comes into the mix. The solution is designed to provide a unified view of both physical and virtual IT resources.
For more information about specific solutions, upcoming web tutorials, and new education classes, visit the BMC website.