When applying the CSDM, how should incidents be recorded against specific desktop software?

[Robin Chytil]

A customer of mine is migrating to the CSDM and started to create Application services in addition to Business and Technical services they have been using for 10+ years. The plan is to have Application services and Technical services with a Relationship to Business services (Service offerings will come later). For example:

• Business service: Library management (for managing borrowing of books)
• Applications services: Liberty - US, Liberty - Europe, Liberty [TEST]

The plan is going well for software installed on servers. But for software installed on PC, we are stuck on how to apply the CSDM, and more specifically how to record incidents.

The customer is not using ITOM neither Service mapping, but they create software models based on SCCM inventory. they currently have 1000+ software models.

Today, they log all incidents related to desktop software under the same Business service, called "Desktop software". They would like to create 4 Business services for R&D software portfolios, 1 for Finance software portfolio, 1 for HR software, etc. We plan to have 22 software portfolios, i.e. 22 Business services.

What solution can I propose them to be able to record an incident on a specific desktop software?

When using APM, a table exists to link Application services to software models (sn_apm_tpm_service_software_model). This requires APM, for which the customer has a few licenses. That could be a lead to propose a solution.

I considered therefore 3 solutions:

1. create one "Application service" per software model (the software model includes the version number, while the application service would not). This would however mean the creation and maintenance of 1000+ Application services. ==> Application service can be then easily referenced in an incident.
2. Create one "Application service" per "Business service", for all software used in a portfolio, and link this Application service to all software models (using the APM module). ==> But when logging an incident , I won't be able to use the sn_apm_tpm_service_software_model table to select on which specific software the incident occurred, as Software models are not CIs...
3. Use the same table (sn_apm_tpm_service_software_model) to link Business services and Software models? Seems not aligned with CSDM...

Any other solution to propose? 

Thanks

Robin

[Robin Chytil]

Hi Manuel, Ed and others,

Actually with the customer we agreed that "all instance of a specific software, installed on all PCs (or mobile devices), in any version", would be a kind of Application service.

But in order to not mix the required additional 1000+ PC software with the existing application services, we decided to create a child table of the Application services, called Application software (I am not a fan of this wording, ut it works). Each of these is linked to 1 or several software models, and to all related installations on PCs (cmdb_sam_sw_install).

Note that this customer had their instances installed before Aspen version (2010), and has inherited an old "out-of-the-box" setup.

Note as well that this customer doesn't use (yet) service offering and links Business services and Application services (and Application software), directly.

Therefore, we have for example:

Business service	Application services/software
Global Labeling Management	SAP - Global Label Management (EH&S - GLM) [Prod]
	Loftware [Prod]
	Zebra Designer (App SW) LabelMark (App SW) BarTender Professional (App SW)

Using Service offerings, I would create 1 SO for all Labeling software on PC, or one for each, based on the level of granularity they want in their reporting.

Hope this helps.

Robin

[Ed Laar1]

Hi Robin,

We are a year later now: What have you done to solve your issue??

Ed

[Robin Chytil]

Hi Ed,

In order to record desktop software (aka PC software, and by the way, also Mobile software), we went with 2 solutions:

One customer used the cmdb_ci_spkg table, linked to its corresponding model. But the drawback is that different software packages are recorded for several versions.

With another customer, as we had implemented a way to search for a service of any class (Business, Application or Technical) in the Service field, we wanted to have all desktop software to be searchable as well. Therefore they preferred to record what they called "Application software" in a custom table, child of cmdb_ci_service (in order to avoid to use the "Application service" table and cause an additional 1000 application services).

An application software represents actually all instances of all models of a software, installed on all PCs or mobile devices. It can be linked (Used by::Depends on) either to a default "PC Software - <business domain>" service, or to a specific service (or service offering), if it is used to render the service.

For example:

• the Application Software "Project standard" represent 2 Software models: Project standard 2010 and Project Standard 365, and is linked (Used by) PC software - Productivity
• the Application software "ADP Payroll" is linked to the Payroll service.

Not an ideal solution, and not 100% aligned with the CSDM, but it solves the issue we had.

Any feedback is very welcome.

Robin