IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Service request management

• Prioritizes incident response based on business service impact.
• Speeds problem resolution with a searchable solutions knowledge base and embedded remote diagnostics. Agents can remotely take over workstations and chat with users for faster request fulfillment.
• Provides ticket templates and pre-populate work order fields with service request information through integration with telephony software from Genesys and Cisco.
• Automatically classifies tickets based on keywords and detail fields. Can synchronize tickets through bi-directional integration with BMC Remedy and HP Service Center.
• Processes emails into inbound service requests. Service requests can be created, viewed and approved using Blackberry, Apple iOS and Android devices.

Change, configuration and release management

• Calendaring allows you to schedule changes to minimize their impact. Automated change scheduling can help avoid blackout periods. A blackout period identification feature shows critical business timeframes when outages would be expensive.
• Change and release authorization helps prevent unauthorized changes by verifying authorization access based on roles.
• Compliance policy enforcement tracks and records changes throughout the organization. It manages the desired states of configuration items (CIs), applications and service configurations to help validate compliance.
• CI auditing and remediation immediately remediates an audit variance.
• Approved images are deployed from the definitive media library. Integrates with IBM Rational® Asset Manager and supports a number of media libraries.

IT asset lifecycle management

• Provides a current, proactively managed authorized repository of assets. Tracks and controls hardware assets installations, moves, additions and changes (IMAC). Also manages a complete view of software entitlements for the enterprise.
• Provides an accurate inventory of deployed software. Automates license tracking to help meet compliance requirements and reduce the time, cost and risk associated with compliance audits.
• Generates asset reports that help you identify inactive assets or redeploy underutilized assets.
• Allows you to pick a solution delivery model such as traditional on-premise, SaaS or VM image that is affordable and meets your current business needs.
• Helps you seamlessly move between delivery models while keeping the same functionality.

Service catalog

• Publishes a list of available services for users to search and order. Automates the fulfillment of service requests with runbook automation, minimizing manual intervention required to deliver user requests.
• Associates cost information to services. Now users can understand how much services cost and manage their services consumption accordingly.
• Supports service entitlement, which allows service catalog entries to be provided based on a group or business unit.
• Provides service definition templates for common service items that helps you save time and reduce the cost of catalog development.
• Provides job plan templates, which can help reduce the cost of creating work orders.

Support for service providers

• Multiple billing methods give you visibility into all of the costs of providing service support and service delivery. Customers gain transparency into their service usage.
• Repository for customer agreements performs entitlement checks. These checks help you make sure that the customers are entitled to services requested and are correctly charged.
• Response plans for requests automatically assign the appropriate person or response team to handle each request. Interactive, action-based workflows enable automated service delivery and help provide consistency.
• Multi-customer operations allow you to run multiple customers in one instance. This feature segregates customer data and helps reduce the cost of maintenance and upkeep.
• A versatile reporting engine generates reports, displays key performance indicators on dashboards, and provides ad hoc query functionality. A query wizard allows users to define and schedule their own reports.