System Center Service Manager 2010: An Integrated Platform for IT Service Management

As mentioned in Brad Anderson’s blog that covered the opening of MMS as well as in the Service Manager team blog, Tuesday saw the announcement of the eagerly awaited RTM of Service Manager 2010 (build 5826) with the immediate availability of the product trial.  The sessions this week at MMS 2010 have echoed the excitement on Microsoft’s newest addition to the System Center suite, with great attendance at (and attendee scores on) the sessions so far!

So, what is Service Manager 2010?  Service Manager is an integrated platform that enables automation of core IT Service Management best practices including incident, problem and change management.  Through its configuration management database (CMDB) and process integration, Service Manager automatically connects knowledge and information from System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and Active Directory Domain Services to deliver benefits in the following key areas:

• User-centric support. Service Manager improves responsiveness and reduces support costs through its Self-Service Portal.
• Datacenter management efficiency. Service Manager reduces downtime and improves reliability through its CMDB and Management Packs.
• Business alignment. Service Manager helps the organization align to business goals and adapt to new requirements through asset management, compliance and risk management, and automated reporting and analysis.

We’ve really focused on ensuring that this release hits the mark!  Over 300 customers participated in the Service Manager Community Rapid Deployment Program (RDP), making it the largest System Center RDP ever, and today 57 customers are using Service Manager in production (including Xbox Live and microsoft.com).  To quote some of our customers:

• Equiniti: “We’re looking at a definite reduction in the staff hours required to deliver high service levels. It will take half the time it used to for managing the change process, leaving more time to fix other problems.” Matt Higham, Technical Strategy Consultant
• General Mills: “We installed Service Manager and set up the connectors. In less than two hours, we had a useful, synchronized CMDB that we had not been able to duplicate with Remedy in all the years we have had it installed (more than 15 years).” Glenn Cozine, Senior Technical Specialist and Project Manager
• Avanade: “(Service Manager) helps us gather better intelligence about our infrastructure, which enables us to better plan for hardware replacements, software upgrades, and other modifications to our infrastructure.” Kristin Shulik, Product Manager for IT Management Services

Microsoft Partners have also been hard at work extending the power of Service Manager, with solutions from Provance, Intel, Absolute Software, Bay Dynamics, Savision, ATEA, FullArmor, Infront Consulting, Secure Vantage and RightStar that include asset management, vPro integration, mobile-device enablement, data protection for stolen/lost laptops, and more!  Additionally, over 18 System Integrator partners are also ready to help you deploy Service Manager into your environment.

To help you get the most out of the product, we’ve also been busy building up training and content as follows:

• Service Manager Team Blog
• Hands-On Labs, which will soon be available on TechNet labs.
• Breakouts and courseware at key events, such as that presented at MMS 2010 and TechEd US.
• Microsoft Official Curriculum courses:
  • 50217: Planning, Deploying and Managing Service Manager 2010 (4-day course)
  • 50377: Extending Service Manager 2010 (1-day course)
• Webcasts on TechNet (we’ll provide more information on the upcoming series soon).

Want to get your hands on Service Manager 2010?  Download the Service Manager 2010 Trial, a 180-day fully-functional trial which is immediately available for download via the System Center Trial Downloads page on microsoft.com.  Customers licensed for the product will be able to download the bits from the standard channels when Service Manager 2010 becomes generally available on June 1st, 2010.

Watch out for more news and information on Service Manager 2010 on both the System Center blog and the Service Manager team blog in the coming days and weeks!