Take a Look Under the Hood of BMC Remedy with Smart IT: An Architectural Review

© Copyright 2/12/2015 BMC Software, Inc1
Tom Adrian
Product Architect
October 15, 2014
Take a Look Under the Hood of BMC
Remedy with Smart IT: An
Architectural Review

Agenda
1. What is Smart IT?
2. Design Philosophy
3. High Level Architecture
4. Deployment Model
5. Data Architecture
6. My IT Touch points
7. Configuration Model
8. Permissions/Tenancy
9. Changes in the application interaction model
10. On-Boarding
11. UX Patch Details

What is Smart IT? Not THIS! Remedy Template 1.0 (1995)

What is Smart IT? Not THIS! Remedy 2.0 (1997)

What is Smart IT? Not THIS! Remedy Help Desk 4.0 (1999)

What is Smart IT? Not THIS! Remedy ITSM 7.0 (2006)

What is Smart IT? Not THIS! Remedy ITSM 7.604 (2010)

What is Smart IT? THIS IS Smart IT! This is NOW!

Architectural Goals
• Multi-platform/deployment Strategy
– Multi-backend - Remedy ITSM(7.6.04 SP2+)
– Multi-client – Web, IOS, Android
– Multi-deployment options - SaaS & On-Premise(SaaS first design
philosophy)
• Leverage My IT 2.1 platform
– Use same technology stack as My IT
– Smart IT server supports Smart IT and My IT clients
• Minimize changes to back-end components in 1.0
– Must not require any significant changes to back end application

Smart IT/My IT
Server
Knowledge
Communications
Saved Chats
Back to AR
Internet or
Corp. N/W
ITSM Outage
Apple Notification Service (APNS),
Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
ITSM
Incident, Task, Work Orders,
Service Requests
RKM
Social
Engine
Local
Data
Store (RDBMS)
SAML
Service
Provider
Social
Data
Store (Mongo)
Service Health
Asset
Push Notifications, Email Notifications
Atrium SSO
Identity Provider
ITSM, ADFS, Okta
Smart IT 1.0 Architecture
CMDB, Asset Inventory
Broadcasts
ITSM Broadcasts, My IT Broadcasts
Chat
Server
Firewall/LB

Deployment Architecture
Universal
Client
Web Application
AR Server
ITSM
7.6.04+
L
o
a
d
B
a
l
a
n
c
e
r
L
B
Clients
Smart IT
Server
Cluster
Data Stores and
External
Systems
Firewall
Native Mobile –
Android, iOS
Gold = Shipped with Smart IT; Gray = already exists if ITSM is deployed
*Shared Between My IT and Smart IT, includes social services.
RDBMS
MongoDB
(Primary)
Smart IT
Server*HTTP
Chat
Server
HTTP/BOSH
(Chat)
LB
XMPP
CMDB
MongoDB
(Secondary1)
MongoDB
(Secondary2)

Data Architecture – Social Functions
• Following
– Tickets, Assets and Services
– Explicit Follow and Implicit Follow
• New System Events
– Status Changes, SLA Breach, Assignment Changes
• Update Feed
– Common area to view work events on any ticket being followed
– Place to view Broadcasts
• @ Mentioning a Person or Asset in a post
• Social images across Smart IT and My IT
• Chat

Data Architecture – Social Data Flow
• Existing ITSM is still the source of truth for:
– Transaction Data
– Foundational Data (People, Support
Groups, Company Etc.)
• Data Flow Smart IT Client
1. REST call from Smart IT Client to Smart
IT Server
2. Smart IT Service call to create in social
and read RBAC from ITSM Server
3. Smart IT Provider call to create data in
ITSM Work Info Forms
• Data Flow ITSM Mid-Tier Client
1. CAI Filter Plugin Call to Smart IT Server
2. Smart IT Service call to create in Social
• Data Flow Model
Smart IT Server
Smart IT Client
AR Server
Social Server
CAI Filter Plugin Call

Data Architecture
• Local Smart IT Database
– Data shared with My IT
• Points of interest for Work Orders
– Smart IT Specific Data
• Preferences
• Chat
• Message Catalog
• Custom Fields Meta-data

My IT Connect Points – Points of Interest
• Crowd Sourced Data from My IT
• Used in Smart IT for location details on
Work Orders
– Used to display building location on
the Work Order.
– Will be able to navigate to the
building map from the location link
in the Smart IT UI.
• Data Flow
Smart IT
Server
Smart IT Work
Order UI
SHR:PointOfInterestAssociation
(AR Server)
POI Database
(Local DB)

My IT Connect Points – Broadcasts
• Current Smart IT Broadcasts
functionality is being extended to
include broadcasts from Classic ITSM.
• Broadcasts from Smart IT will be sent to
ITSM and vice versa.
• Will be displayed in the Update Feeds
– Supporting targeting to Company
and Site
• Data Flow
Smart IT Clients
Smart IT Server
(Broadcast
Service)
Social Server
(Update Feed)
ITSM Broadcast

Configuration Model
• What it does
– Provide a way to bring custom fields and fields not included
out of the box into the Smart IT UI
– Fields will go into predetermined areas of the screen
• What it is not
– No Business Rule Design
– No Custom Forms
– All fields must be added via Developer Studio to appropriate
forms
– No support for trim fields, table fields, display only fields,
Currency Fields, Fields with Dynamic Menus
• Things that can affect Smart IT
– Active Link with Business logic in them
– Dependency on Active Link navigation to custom forms
• Configuration Approach
– Read available fields from AR System
– Provide way to configure where fields appear in Galileo UI
– Smart IT server layer will manage how to display in the Galileo
UI

Permissions and Tenancy
• Permissions
– Business Logic
• All ITSM Application permissions
and business logic are enforced
– Application Access
• Minimal Set of Permissions to
access Smart IT
– Incident User, Asset
Viewer, Work Order User,
SR User, Task User, Contact
User
– Contextual Permissions
• Calculated based on ITSM Rules
and control the UI Access
Smart IT
Client
Smart IT
Server
AR Server
Authentication
Check
Call to check
for minimal
permissions
If not met,
reject access.
If not Admin,
disable
configuration
tab
Context
Permissions
Smart IT
Server
1. Provider gets
data from AR
Server.
2. Provider
checks ticket
context and
permission
context.
3. Meta-data is
sent to client
to disable
functions
based on
context
Smart IT
Client

Permissions and Tenancy
• Tenancy
– ITSM Row Level Security
• Protected via AR API
• Social Update Feeds protected as well via ITSM Row Level Security
Groups
• Rules around lookup of data protected by Customer and Service
Provider Companies

Application Interaction Model Changes
• Smart Recorder
– Provides a way to create tickets in a formless interface
– Uses @ as a way to search for people and assets
– Leverages FTS/MFS to find proposed templates
• Application templates driven by company not support group
• Reduced Set of Asset Uis
– Hardware, Software, Service, Network, Generic
– Mapping of ITSM classes into these 4 types
– Common denominator set of fields, full functionality when Asset Management is
implemented
• Categorization Model Change
– Service CI drives product categorization on the ITSM backend
– Affected CI drives resolution product categorization in ITSM but it is renamed product
categorization in Smart IT UI
• Aligned with Intelligent Ticketing approach

Onboarding
• Social Data Synchronization
– Open Tickets and Related Work Info
– Assets related to Open Tickets
– People

UX Patch Details
• Additive Functionality
– Join forms for master ticket console
– New association form for Work Order POI Integration
– Integration workflow for notifications
– Integration workflow for social
– New joins for SRM integration
– Email Templates for Smart IT Notifications
• Updates to existing forms
– New FTS Indexes on the template forms
– Additional Indexes on the Incident form.
– New fields on KPI:DataCollector for support new Galileo metrics
– Simplify Ticket IDs

Conclusion
• Smart IT provides a new User Experience to existing ITSM
7.604 SP2 and higher
• Leverages the same technology stack as My IT
• Provides key new functionality around social and chat
• This is just the beginning!

Questions?
Tom Adrian
tom_adrian@bmc.com

Thank You.

Take a Look Under the Hood of BMC Remedy with Smart IT: An Architectural Review

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Take a Look Under the Hood of BMC Remedy with Smart IT: An Architectural Review