Service Catalogs

Get met there FAST! CMDB: A Journey, Not a Destination. Pleeeez!

I was reading this article: CMDB - A Journey, Not a Destination while coming back from Chicago. The article is nice, but I was in the wrong mood to read it.

Stuck in the last row, middle seat, knees bumping on the front seat, over-sold and delayed plane, no food, funny smells (funny like.. never mind). In the middle of a way too long and unpleasant journey.

And I thought, "Hey, I'm American. I don't want the journey, I want to be tele-transported home now, damnit!" 

Enjoy this Delta video about life and manners in the middle seat. (Although they could make the seats bigger, they publish this video trying to change our behavior. I'm but mildly amused)

This article is published in accordance with the rules of this blot that state: on Fridays, try to be funny.

The dark side of SAAS or Google left us without a paddle

This week the dark side of SaaS landed on my lap.

SaaS (software as a service) is touted as the future of software. Why not have everything out in the cloud rather than running your own stuff?  The argument goes, "after all, you don't run your own power plant, do you?" I think for a lot of mature market and technologies, Saas is a good way to go. But not for everything

Here's what happened.   

Our Service Catalog community, ServiceCatalogs.com was built on the JotSpot wiki platform and hosted by them.  Then Google acquired Jotspot.  But Google has different plans for JotSpot, plans that don't include the old business model or technology.

Google has renamed JotSpot sites and downgraded functionality (no more forums), changed the model (only for Google Apps, not open communities), and got rid of the API (many features gone).  Worse they'll shut down the servers we are on later his summer.

So without a clear or reasonable migration plan, and a clear deadline for shutdown, this means that we most likely have to migrate the community off the platform we are on (5,000 users) and move it to another technology or hosted service. Even if we stay with Google, it will be a whole new and downgraded platform.

This will cost us time and money are not budgeted, and all the customization code is now useless and our designs need to be changed. We are left in a spot of that famous creek without a jot of paddle. Doing nothing, an option when you run your own software in house, is not an option.

This is the dark side of Saas, one that ultimately companies like salesforce.com or servicenow will have to address.  What happens if the provider gets acquired? What happens if you choose to change your business model /charging model? What happens if you deprecate functionality that I'm dependent on?

Saas proponents claim that it ends the upgrade cycle, as the service provider now upgrades the platform.  This is what happened to us.  But what's an upgrade to them, it's a downgrade to me.  And the option of "I'll keep running the old code until I figure out what to do or my provider adds the needed functionality" is just not available in the SaaS model.

Think about it, how many of our companies are all up on the latest versions of everything we use?  Not one. We are always behind the upgrade cycle and always running some stuff that is going out of support or has gone.   

With SaaS, we no longer have that option.  That's the dark side of Saas.  I'm still a fan but now I would be more careful about the questions I'd want in the contract before I go to Saas.

Happy 304th Post

I've been meaning to commemorate my 300^th blog post. As usual, I'm behind.  So instead, let's celebrate my 304^th blog post.  It's been 2 years of blogging about Service Catalogs and ITIL.  There's a wealth of information in this blog.  By the way, 304 posts averages about 1 post every 2 ½ days, excluding vacations and Christmas holidays.

So join the celebration and leave a comment.

And yes, these are 304 candles. Count them if you wish.

The Shadow IT department

  The era in which IT comes only from your IT department is over.
This has an impact on your users expectations for services. In a nutshell, consumer technologies are setting the bar for user experience, feature, convenience, etc.

New IT service organization will be one that helps users broker these services, not deny them.  Your future is here.

The Shadow IT Department

The consumer technology universe has evolved to a point where it is, in essence, a fully functioning, alternative IT department. Today, in effect, users can choose their technology provider. Your company’s employees may turn to you first, but an employee who’s given a tool by the corporate IT department that doesn’t meets his needs will find one that does on the Internet or at his neighborhood Best Buy.

The emergence of this second IT department—call it “the shadow IT department”—is a natural product of the disconnect that has always existed between those who provide IT and those who use it.

Link: User Management - Users Who Know Too Much and the CIOs Who Fear Them.

Softwarish vs. content-ish

I was reviewing an implementation of an implementation of another vendor's service catalog last week.  The screen had a big old long navigation bar, help desk ids, menus, a busy screen for functionality, but very little space for content. 

I thought to myself, it's softwarish.  In fact, they had gone to great lengths to make the web page look like a software applications.

The authorization screen looked like ... a help desk agent screen. My goodness, I thought, they are making their executives into help desk operators.  That's not going work, I thought.  Their authorization approach was fine for use inside IT, but won’t serve for the end user community.

When I think of other places where I approve stuff, like digg, or my financial transactions in Schwab, they are very different models from the help desk work management screen.

So softwarish stuck with me.  The catalog model is a softwarish vs. content-ish option.  I had not thought about it in those terms before; my approach was more YADU.  I am sure that the successful model for user adoption is not softwarish.

PS: Why was I reviewing the catalog?  They were experiencing lack of adoption. Resistance by managers leads to requests not getting authorized in time, leads to bottlenecks, complaints. it's No-Flow instead of Work-Flow.

Service catalogs everywhere

Who is reading this blog?  Looks like the whole world.  These are the last 100 visitors as of 11:28 this morning.  Pretty telling, no?  Lots of people working on service catalogs.  You are not alone.

If I took the picture this afternoon, you'd see Europe going to sleep, the U.S. West fully working and Asia waking up.  Thanks everyone from everywhere for making this fun.

Do you have a flag?

ITIL v3 introduces a very comprehensive service design life cycle.  It tries to encompass from the very conception of a service to it's final operation.   

Alas, I have reservations. Will app dev groups embrace it? Will they give up their architecture models, systems for a CMDB?  Will the twain meet?

It's like IT operations planting flags in territories where whole civilizations already live.

Which reminded me of my favorite comedian, Eddie Izzard and his Do you have a flag? routine.

So today being Friday, having just returned from an exhausting road trip and feeling mischievous and impish..... Happy Friday. Enjoy.