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by Michael Cote.
Original Post: PeopleOverProcess.com: Systems Management Research
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I've been working on writing up a more formal description of the systems management world than is readily available online. This idea came up when I was talking with some systems management devs and I suggested that before they start out on their next release, they do a survey of what else is going on in systems management.
Speaking from personal experience, as an enterprise software developer, manager, product manager, etc., it's easy to not know what your competitors are up to. Simply ferreting out what exactly CA's Unicenter is or, to pick on my alum, BMC's BSM means and is can take a long, long time.
There aren't exactly guided tours of the product lines available.
A Different Perspective
Part of the problem is that most enterprise software, including systems management, is pitched in the problem/solution angle: the entry into the data pool starts with a problem you have -- job management -- and then expands out into possible solutions.
That may work for selling at the top of the chain, but from a mid- to lower-level mind-set, technical breakdowns (product X, Y, Z does this-and-that) and hierarchies are best (the SAP adaptor is part of the Enterprise Scheduler). When you're architecting and implementing your own system, that layout is much more helpful: you always want to know the how first, not so much the what and why because you already know those two. Additionally, of course, knowing product and product line history is good for avoiding pitfalls and mistakes.
I've started with CA, pretty much only because James is going to a CA event this week. I'll move on to IBM, HP, and BMC after CA.
Of course, the "smaller" people are much better at conveying this information than the larger folks. I won't be excluding them, but I believe that The Big 4 could use the most "making sense of it all" documentation.
The Deliverable Stream
What I'd really like to end up with is a basic overview of each platform's offerings and product lines, probably profiling each in a blog post by project or vendor. The goal is to get the information written down behind a URL instead of spread out amongst people's heads, PDFs, and conversations. It'd be nice to kick the content into wikipedia as well.
If that sounds too ambitious, then you're probably assuming a grander scope than I am ;>
Just as I'd advice a client, keeping all of this under my hat while it's in progress would be a limiting idea. As such, I'll try to push out as much information as possible.
On the flip side, if you spot holes or have suggestions, I'm hoping a more transparent process will make it easier to collaborate around those areas.
Along those lines, here's a work-in-progress mind-map of what systems management is:
Like I said, it's a work-in-progress. I'd appreciate any feedback ;>
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