Edge Service Management offers competitive edge

Unisys Corporation has announced the addition of new features and services to its cloud-based IT service management (ITSM) solution, which the company has renamed Edge Service Management by Unisys.

Edge Service Management is a comprehensive, standards-based solution that enables IT organisations to focus on making employees more productive by better connecting IT services to related business processes. Delivered via an as-a-service model, the Unisys solution uses prebuilt modules, advanced analytics tools and proven methodologies that enable clients to achieve better business results by proactively managing both services and the underlying IT infrastructure, rather than simply reacting to service events.

Edge Service Management includes the following new capabilities:
· A persona-based user interface for service request and catalog management that enables users to view and initiate services based on their individual organisational roles;
· A discovery module that creates service maps and automates identification and updates to IT infrastructure components central to the services and business processes they impact;
· A comprehensive Service Asset and Configuration Management service that enables management of both data center- and people-focused IT assets.

Unisys also announced a new, dedicated IT Asset Management (ITAM) Advisory Practice to help clients maximise the value of those services. Service professionals in the Unisys ITAM practice provide consulting, implementation and ongoing ITAM lifecycle management services.

“The name Edge Service Management perfectly captures the benefits of our ITSM solution,” said Ron Frankenfield, president, Unisys Global Managed Services. “Our offering gives Unisys clients a competitive edge across the board – in quickly modernising their service management framework to achieve specific business objectives, empowering their people with on-demand access to exactly the services they need, streamlining IT operations through predictive analytics and getting the best possible return from their IT investments.”

Edge Service Management by Unisys is based on global Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standards. Unisys can implement the solution for clients in as few as 45 days, compared to the six months or more that other ITSM deployments typically take. Available on an as-a-service basis through an annual subscription, the cloud-based Unisys solution currently processes more than 600,000 service events per month for clients.

Pre-Built Solution Components Speed Delivery of Results
Many components of Edge Service Management by Unisys are pre-built, dramatically shortening the time it takes to install and make them operational. For example, the persona-based user interface to the ITSM platform gives users a view into the catalogue of services available to them based on their jobs.

Pre-built service request definitions quickly connect all data, tasks and people required to fulfil the request, saving clients approximately two weeks in development time per service request compared to the person/year and more that it typically takes to develop and deploy an offering from scratch.

The new discovery module gives IT organisations greater visibility into the structure of IT services and supporting IT infrastructure, enabling them to improve their change management process. For example, if the IT department learns that updating software on a server will impact quarter-end closing, they can plan the update for another time and avoid potential degradation in performance of mission-critical financial applications.

Through the new Service Asset and Configuration Management service, Unisys professionals from the ITAM Advisory Practice assist clients in developing a comprehensive IT asset management program, including an overall strategy, initial IT asset inventory and ongoing inventory of the relationships among all assets in the central configuration management database (CMDB).

This program enables the organisation to understand the potential business impact of a service incident or a change so they can manage it more quickly and effectively. The service desk operation can use this integrated information to monitor and correlate events across all segments of the managed IT infrastructure and orchestrate pre-emptive and remedial action against potential faults.

Unisys has also added an integration engine to the Edge ITSM core, providing the capability to integrate additional technologies from best-in-class providers. The engine includes a library of pre-built software connectors for ease of integration, along with the capability to easily define rules and business logic for the service the tool delivers. Unisys will seek to recruit new technology providers through a new ITSM Technology Partner program.