DoD Enlists BMC to Support ITIL Best Practices

Enterprise management vendor BMC Software disclosed this week that it is supplying the Department of Defense with a number of software solutions to assist the agency in meeting federally mandated architectural guidelines and implementing ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) best practices. BMC points to the DoD's selection of its management solutions as an endorsement of the company's particular approach to deploying more efficient IT administrative practices by an agency with very high standards.

BMC says the products in its BSM (Business Service Management) portfolio aid organizations in maintaining operational continuity and prioritizing their IT assets according to corporate or agency requirements. Like many of BMC's customers, the company says the DoD is taking a phased approach to implementing BMC's BSM strategy.The BSM portfolio includes a number of software solutions, such as the Remedy IT Service Management, Change and Configuration Management, Identity Management and Service Level Management. BSM solutions automate ITIL best practices for managing enterprise infrastructures, and rely on the BMC Atrium configuration management database to improve IT resource information-sharing across agencies to fulfill the FEA (Federal Enterprise Architecture) requirements. Analysts praise ITIL as an effective foundation for putting more efficient IT management practices in place. By instituting ITIL best practices and BSM capabilities, the DoD should expect to lower its IT costs through better consolidation, says Richard Ptak, principal analyst with Ptak, Noel & Associates.

BMC says all four branches of the military as well as other subagencies of the DoD--including the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Defense Logistics Agency and the Missile Defense Agency--have purchased BSM solutions.