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Comparative Study on Incident Management

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 International Journal of Applied Information Systems (IJAIS) – ISSN : 2249-0868
Foundation of Computer Science FCS, New York, USA
Volume 3– No.2, July 2012 – www.ijais.org

Comparative Study on Incident Management

Amanullah Bashir Tariq Rahim Soomro

Department of IT, College of Engineering & IT,
SZABIST, Dubai Campus, Al Ain University of Science &
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Technology, Al Ain, UAE

ABSTRACT results, less impact on business and more confidence of users

Organizations using Information Technology (IT) is always [1].
facing certain situations, where an error occurs or something
doesn't work the way it was supposed to be. Here the Incident
3. PROMINENT TOOLS
Management (IM) is coming across the way to play an Organizations using ITIL are using several different tools to
important role to restore IT services as normal as acceptable implement it. Among them HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, BMC
and as agreed in Service Level Agreement (SLA) within Software, Computer Associates are the prominent tools to
minimum time and least disturbance of business. The focus implement ITIL processes. Following are two most prominent
of this study is to explain incident management process of tools:
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) in the
view of different vendors, which support ITIL. This study
3.1 BMC SOFTWARE:
Maximum availability of IT services is essential to run
will explore similarities and differences in incident
business smartly, and for this BMC Software is the best
management processes, between BMC and Computer
choice. BMC Software started its journey in 1980 and now
Associates (CA) and produce comparative study on incident
most demanding IT organizations rely on BMC Software for
management.
quality software products. Classical brands from BMC
Keywords Software are Atrium, BMC Remedy, PATROL, Marimba,
ITIL, Incident Management, BMC, CA. Control-M, Control-SA, BMC ProActiveNet and Magic
[5][6].
1. INTRODUCTION
According to ITIL, the term "incident" is defined as “Any
3.2 COMPUTER ASSOCIATES (CA):
event, not part of the standard operation of a service, that CA is a leading enterprise management software company for
causes, or may cause, an interruption to, or a reduction in, the simplifying complex business issues. Cloud computing
quality and/or level of service provided” [1]. The term management strategy by CA was announced in 2010 in World
"Incident Management" can be defined as “Maximum user conference. In 2010 the company acquired eight
availability of the systems within minimum interruption to companies to support its cloud strategy. These companies are
business”. The Service Desk plays a vital role in incident 3Tera, Nimsoft, NetQoS, Oblicore, Cassatt, 4Base
management, acting as first point of contact and support, Technology, Arcot Systems, and Hyperformix [5][7].
assign incidents to technical experts and incident management
is linked with problem management for root cause analysis of
4. SIMILARITIES & DIFFERENCES
BMC Software and Computer Associates (CA) Inc. have their
an incident [2][3][4]. This paper highlights the comparative
own processes to implement the incident management, but
study on incident management process based on different
those processes are based on ITIL processes for the incident
vendor’s tool. Each vendor has different approach to
management. Each vendor tries to design process of incident
implement the incident management process based on ITIL
management in a way that it will align with the business needs
incident management process. The paper focus on the
and with ITIL processes. Each vendor is including its
similarities and differences between the vendors which can
technical area, management area, history of products and
also be helpful for the standardization of the ITIL processes of
processes to form an incident management process [5].
the incident management [5]. The next section will discuss
why incident management is important for an organization; BMC – Incident Request Registration: Service Desk is
later the study will focus on similarities and differences centre point of contact for users. Users can use different
between BMC and CA; and finally we will conclude this channels (i.e. email, phone call, Direct) to register an incident
study. request. In case of old registered incident, Service desk agent
will investigate and update user to reopen incident. For new
2. WHY INCIDENT MANAGEMENT? request agent will register new incident and tries to resolve, if
To meet challenging business objectives, the best level of IT not possible then incident assignment procedure starts [8].
services are required. The main objective of the incident
management process is to ensure incident’s recording, CA – Raise an Incident: The first process activity is to raise
classification, diagnosis, escalation and resolution. Incident an incident. Incidents can create through different channels
management is the front face of IT organization to its users such as web, email, and direct call. The source of an incident
and first point of contact in trouble time. Incident is also based on an event, which causes service failures. Event
management kept old incidents record for reporting and detection before impact on IT services is very important. The
further improvement [2][4]. The timely resolution of incidents purpose of Event detection is IT service continuity [2].
Similarities: Both are based on same concept.

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 International Journal of Applied Information Systems (IJAIS) – ISSN : 2249-0868
Foundation of Computer Science FCS, New York, USA
Volume 3– No.2, July 2012 – www.ijais.org

Differences: The only difference is the name; for BMC the informs problem to manager of the affected service to stop
name is "Incident Request Registration" and for CA the name future occurrences [8].
is "Raise an incident".
CA Check Junction: It is about Incident Management
BMC – Incident Request Assignment: After registering new outputs derived from detection and reporting of incidents and
incident, agent confirms that service management application providing a way to proactive and optimize problem
have capability to assign incident automatically to an management. The accurate incident recording will minimize
appropriate group. Assigned group manager reviews the incident repetition. Alternatively check junction provides
incident and sends back to Service desk, in case information is capability to incident management for taking inputs from
not completed. This gives an idea to agent for better problem management to stream line whole process [2].
understanding of customer information and correct assigned Investigate & Diagnose – Service Desk Analyst investigates
group. In case of correct group assignment, manager assigns and analyses all related information of an incident. If
incident to specialist otherwise incident request required resolution is not provided by analyst then route incident to
Change Management process [8]. subject matter experts (SMEs). Integrated Management
technologies can play a vital role to identify and route
CA – Record an Incident: In most of the cases, incidents are incidents to suitable SMEs. In this process, involvement of
recorded by service desk. Users should possibly report multilevel SMEs group and vendor may require [2].
incidents in quick fashion, providing complete information to
front line analyst. Most effective way is capability of system Similarities: In CA case, an incident is routed to SMEs if
itself for auto record incidents. Recording of an incident is resolution is not provided by the Service Desk Analyst. In
important even if users have resolution of an incident. The BMC case, group manager reviews the incident and sends
service desk calls can be minimize by using effective back to Service desk, in case information is not completed
Knowledge Management, and web interface to log an incident otherwise manager assigns an incident to specialist. The basic
[2]. Categorization of an incident is sub part of record concept is same.
function in Incident Management. Categorization has two
aspects; classification and affected configuration item. Service Differences: The Check Junction, and Investigate & diagnose
desk agent should categorize an incident rightly, otherwise process does not exist in BMC Incident Management Process
complication can occur [2]. separately.

Similarities: No similarities. BMC – Incident Escalation Handling: After escalation of an

incident to service provider, it should be discusses with
Differences: There is no separate process to record an specialist in detail to find best solution. If found the effective
incident in BMC to handle Incident Management Process. way for affected service recovery, it escalates incident to on-
Categorization is the sub part of record function in CA duty manager for service recovery. If change management is
Incident Management Process but not in BMC. not required for incident resolution, then service provider
confirms most suitable specialist for resolving incident within
BMC – Incident Request Tracking: After Service level incident management process. If change management is
Agreement (SLA) has escalated an incident, and resolution required, service provider consults in detail with specialist
threshold has been passed, the manager escalated incident to regarding risk and impact of change on users. They both find
service provider of affected service. In case of first specialist out the best way of change implementation with least risk [8].
failures to resolve an incident, it reassigns to another skillful
specialist for resolution. If manager does not want to reassign CA – Escalate: Escalation of incidents as per agreed service
the incident, he/she informs assigned specialist for quick levels and assigned more support resources if necessary is
resolution to avoid SLA violations [8]. critical here. Escalation can have two paths; horizontal or
vertical. For incident escalation to different SME groups,
CA – Prioritization: Prioritization is very important in horizontal escalation is required. Proactive approach and
Incident Management. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and process automation is important for routing incidents to
service desk solutions can be helpful to determine priority of correct SMEs groups. Vertical escalation is required when an
an incident. If an incident has high impact on business then incident requires gaining higher level of priority. Technology
priority would be high. If resolution of high priority incident plays a vital role to automate escalation process to identify
is not provided immediately, then the incident manager should correct error source [2].
create a problem [2].
Similarities: Both worked in same way.
Similarities: No similarities.
Differences: No differences.
Differences: There is no separate process for prioritization in
BMC Incident Management Process. Prioritization is the BMC – Incident Request Closure: When a service desk
separate process in CA. Incident Request Tracking process agent is capable of resolving an incident, he/she resolves an
doesn’t exist in CA. incident and provides resolution detail, which will helpful to
resolve incident in future. The agent closes an incident if
BMC – Incident Request Resolution by Specialist: The customer is in contact with him/her and able to verify
specialist reviews and finds the way to resolve an incident. If solution. As agent resolves an incident, customer receives
incident request requires change management to resolve the incident resolution notification. The customer checks the
issue, then specialist escalates to service provider. The solution, if solution is correct then there is no need for any
requester should be informing at the time of incident other action, and if an issue exists, customer can reopens
resolution. In case specialist believes that solution can useful incident for better solution [8].
for agents, specialists, and requesters then he/she proposes it
for general use. At last, if workaround was used to resolve the CA – The Act Junction: At the act junction, investigation
incident and specialist thinks that incident can reoccur, he/she and diagnosis has find incident nature and correct actions for
resolution. By using workarounds, service failures restoration

22
 International Journal of Applied Information Systems (IJAIS) – ISSN : 2249-0868
Foundation of Computer Science FCS, New York, USA
Volume 3– No.2, July 2012 – www.ijais.org

can be done very quickly, and incidents are required to 5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
escalate to problem management for identifying cause of In this paper we had compared incident Management
problem [2]. Workaround - The workaround requires to be processes of BMC and CA, which demonstrate that there are
documented in problem record and creation of known error few similarities among them, which may help for
record. During root cause analysis, it is possible that an standardization of ITIL process and obviously there are few
organization can find resolution to a problem, but differences, which are liable to resist standardization of ITIL
management may deem costly permanently fixed. In such processes. The versions of ITIL process can be set if ITIL
cases, workaround is the permanently fixing the problem and incidents management standards exist, the versioning concept
record denotes this status [2]. is always a useful for the enhancements of the processes at all
Similarities: No similarities. the time. One should consider the possibility of open
standards as a new initiative [5][9].
Differences: The workaround concept is used as part of
Incident Request Resolution by Specialist in BMC but 6. REFERENCES
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