Everyone,
I've been working with Remedy in a custom development context for a very long
time, and I'm now preparing to start a new gig where I'll be working with ITSM
for the first time. I've gotten rather lucky in that the shop I'll be working
for has both custom development work (which I should be able to step right
into), and also an ITSM system that I'll be getting up to speed on, and doing
quite a bit of learning about.
I don't expect I'll become an expert overnight. ITSM is deeper than the mind of
Minolta, no doubt. However I'd like to do a bit of homework before I start the
new job, so that I have a good foundation to begin from.
For the last three weeks it feels like I've been completely spinning my wheels.
Though I've finally managed to get a proper 8.1 install over Oracle set up on
some Linux VMs, the online documentation for 8.1. is basically rubbish. I'm
sorry to say it, but after really giving it everything I've got, trying to make
heads or tails of it for three weeks now … the 8.1 ITSM online documentation
really is like someone took a pile of half written design documents and put
them through a blender, then slapped 'em on the internet and said "DONE!".
What I'd give at this point for a nice set of PDFs like those that come with
the arserver install … (PDF exports of the mess on the internet do not count).
Well … I was ready to give up, then out of desperation, I began typing my
questions into Google, and LO and BEHOLD … PDF's EXIST, but only for the 7.6.04
version (well ok … it's better than nothing -- which is precisely what the
online documentation is, at least to someone coming from my perspective). After
further investigation, I determined these PDFs were for all intents and
purposes deeply hidden in the help file downloads for each ITSM component. It
took me all darn day … I had to download like 10 or 15 GB of data off the
support site, write a perl script to spider through, find all the PDFs, MD5
them and expunge the duplicates, but I finally managed to get a set of ITSM
documentation together (per the list of 'related documents' at the top of the
"BMC Remedy IT Service Management Concepts Guide").
Well … mostly complete. I still can't find these, and I'm wondering if anyone
can help me or point me to where they might be:
* Remedy BMC ITSM Configuration Quick Start
* BMC BladeLogic Client Automation Configuration Discovery Integration for
CMDB Getting Started Guide
* BMC BladeLogic Client Automation CMS Tuner User Guide
* BMC Service Management Process Model Best Practice Flows
* BMC Service Management Process Model Role Mapping to BMC Remedy ITSM Suite
Again … I've found the rest, though to be frank even the PDFs (though 10000x
better than the "online documentation") tend to be rather impenetrable as well.
I've got about 2.5 weeks left to get my learn-on. I'd like to be able to do the
following before I start my new gig:
1) set up a new company via the Application Administration form, and actually
*know* what all the steps mean -- it seems like there should be some sort of
walk through doc that tells you for instance, what the specific significance of
"support group role" is, but damned if I can find it so far.
2) set up a minimal group of fake users required to walk various ticket types
through a lifecycle (Incidents and Change Requests minimally). Not unlike the
Calbro demo data, but I want to set this up myself for my fake company from
step 1so I can genuinely understand what's going on.
3) enter some fake CI's into the CMDB for my fake company. My first thought was
setup ADDM and let it scan my home network and put in whatever it finds. After
looking at the complexity of ADDM, my second thought is "there must be a way to
feed in a CSV file or something"
If anyone out there in Remedy-land has any resources in mind that could help me
on my way, I'd much appreciate links and hints,
thanks everyone,
-Andy
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