Service Manager Architecture

System Center Service Manager is a help-desk product for trouble ticketing and problem resolution that integrates with Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, and other System Center management products.

End users (top) employ a self-service Web portal to initiate requests (to report a problem, request a password reset, apply for application software installation, and so on) and see the status of their request. Help-desk analysts can use the self-service portal or the console to view incidents and change requests, while administrators use the product’s management console to manage its infrastructure.

Service Manager uses connectors (left) to other System Center and third-party management tools to allow sharing of information, such as Operations Manager alerts or Configuration Manager asset inventories, with Service Manager. The information can be used to tailor workflows to automate IT processes. A workflow engine based on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) integrates with other System Center products to automate IT processes such creating and managing a trouble ticket based on an Operations Manager alert or processing a request for a configuration change and coordinating the request with Configuration Manager. A reporting platform, based on SQL Server Reporting Services, can generate reports on incidents, trends, changes, and performance across the infrastructure, combining information from all System Center products in use.