ITSM - Hardware Asset Management and CSDM

[Ed Laar1]

Hi CSDM enthousiasts,

Has anyone implemented HW Asset Management in conjunction with CSDM and how has this been done?

Practical: HW Asset Management takes care during the end2end life cycle of hardware assets about the status, location, version, financials and so on. HW Asset Management also takes care about support contract for hardware assets like Vendor warranty contracts, Vendor HW support contracts and so on.

What is the best way to register those contracts taking CSDM into consideration? First what comes up in my mind: Nothing changes: Register these things as featured by the HW Asset Management module.

My confusions come in my mind when I look into CSDM and see the famous Technical Services..... They are not the services like Vendor Warranties aren't they??

Looking forward to any reactions and comments,

Ed

[Stig Brandt1]

I'm about to implement it for a customer and will implement it as I described in the other post:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=45faa23bdbc98c10feb1a851ca961949

Reason:

- much easier to assign and re-assign tickets

- I see technical services as internal to IT, so a warranty claim, should be a business service for end - users, but I can of course be wrong.

My biggest concern it that these technical services have another parent "service" - which really doesn't make sense in your example about HW Asset, it could make sense in other scenarios, ex. "Infrastructure Service" support for applications run on IaaS or PaaS infrastructure.

[Alex_Dundon1]

Hi Ed,

I would not see those vendor warranties as Technical Services. I see a Technical Service as something like "End User Desktop Support", or "Service Desk" that internal clients can then consume. An aspect of that service, might include warranty management that the internal service provider coordinates with the external warranty provider.

Hope that helps!

[Ed Laar1]

Hi Alex,

I almost agree with you but I want to cover the complete picture/situation regarding services. What I mean with this is that of course the Service consumed by the user is covered but also the services applicable on the underpinning infrastructure are covered.

More clarified with a simple example: The end-user (a secretary) consumes a service called Secretary Lap Top support. On this service a response and down SLA towards the secretary is applicable. Also a financial recharge to the secretaries department is applicable.

On the Lap Top itself there is a bundle of Services applicable like ServiceDesk support, Upgrade Support and Warrenty. On these services OLA's (towards internal support groups) and UC's (towards vendors) are applicable.

In this case tickets will be raised using the Lap Top CI using the SLA's and solver-group info from the Secretary Lap Top Support service.

The solver-group in charge has the complete picture of all the underpinning services including the services to be applied by themselves. With this info they can determine which solver-group is in charge (after examining the ticket) and which agreements are in place.

In case of a hardware failure the can direct determine if warrenty is applicable and the Vendor in charge (in fact the procedure in charge to replace the laptop asap and repair or exchange under warrenty the defective machine by the vendor).

Hoping this helps and open for any suggestions,

Ed

[Alex_Dundon1]

Ed,

I think it might help to see what the ITIL framework says in this case with a persona. From an ITIL perspective there are, Services, a Service Catalog, SLA's, and Contracts that underpin agreements in Supplier Management, among many other concepts, but I think these are the important terms for this discussion.

Your Endpoint Computing team may have multiple services that they offer, such as Software Install, Endpoint Patching, and Endpoint Support. These are all defined in a Service Catalog We have your service, "Endpoint Support" in your example that that the secretary decides to consume because their laptop is not working (this can be engaged either through the service catalog, or through an incident ticket). The endpoint team has an SLA that they will resolve the issue in 5 business days. As part of the work to resolve this specific issue, the Endpoint Computing team realize the laptop is fried, and it is still under warranty. Per the Vendor Contract (this would be maintained in the contracts table), the vendor will replace the defective laptop free of charge.

In essence, the Endpoint Services team has a contract with the Supplier that will result in a new, working laptop to fix the broken one that died while still under warranty. You can think of a warranty as a contract, not a service per ITIL: ITIL describes warranty as "[a] promise or guarantee that a product or service will meet its agreed requirements" and as "derived from the positive effect of being available when needed, in sufficient capacity, and dependably in terms of continuity and security." http://www.itsmwatch.com/itil/article.php/3863596/How-to-Measure-ITIL-Service-Utility-and-Warranty.h...

At a more micro level and relevant to ServiceNow, you can certainly define multiple technical services and have them all support or consume each other, similar to a Business Service if that is the more practical answer for your question.

Hope that helps!