ITM Agent Insights: Jazz for Service Management and its parallels with Fantasy football

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The start of the football season is a welcome time on my calendar. Football fans all over venture in fantasy football leagues, where a perfect combination of appropriate components can lead to a successful season. The same applies to the world of software. Like new draft picks, there are enhancements and new products which make way every year, IBM software group is a leader on this front.

Jazz for Service Management is a relatively new offering in the Tivoli portfolio which provides a wide range of monitoring solutions. In addition, it also provides the base for a wide range of other monitoring products. Jazz for Service Management  lists the contents available in this package. It is important to understand what requirements constitute the basis for a product in question. Here are a few examples to illustrate this.

Netcool WebGUI Version 8.1 requires Jazz for Service Management components IBM Websphere Application Server (WAS) and IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub (DASH). In some instances if you try to perform the WAS installation as stand alone, (which is permitted), it could throw off the installation of the DASH component. Hence, the best practice is to install both the components via the Jazz for Service Management bundle and then proceed further to Netcool WebGUI install.

Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Version 5.2  packages Jazz for Service Management 1.1.0.1 (Websphere Application Server) and IBM Tivoli Common Reporting (TCR) Version 3.1.0.1. These components need to be installed from Tivoli Storage Productivity Center installation program.  You do not need to download the Jazz for Service Management bundle explicitly in this case.

As accomplishments of a fantasy football team are largely dictated by the composition of the team, we need to identify the appropriate ingredients that can drive a winning combination. Similarly, Jazz for Service Management requires you to identify if the components are packaged directly in the product or need to be installed individually. The pre-requisites needed for deploying the monitoring solution need to be identified beforehand. This avoids potential penalties and launches a clear path to the end zone.