Service Manager Beta Released

A new beta version of Microsoft’s Service Manager help-desk product, which manages trouble ticketing and problem resolution, gives organizations an opportunity to test this latest member of the System Center product line. Service Manager (previously code-named Service Desk) integrates with Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, and other System Center management products and gives Microsoft a more complete data center management suite. It will be most helpful for companies with large Microsoft-based server infrastructures. However, deploying Service Manager is an ambitious undertaking, and it should be considered a first-generation product that will require careful planning, particularly when switching from a large existing help-desk system.

Microsoft’s First Help-Desk Product

Microsoft has modeled its management tools and technologies around a set of IT operational process guidelines known as the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). The MOF is based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a set of concepts and policies that are generally accepted in the IT industry as providing comprehensive documentation of best practices for IT service management and facilities planning. System Center products, such as Configuration Manager and Operations Manager, provide elements of such a system but don’t assist or enforce the human workflows and processes in the MOF methodology. System Center Service Manager fills that gap in System Center by providing three major functions: incident and problem management, asset life-cycle management, and change management.