Itsm Whitepaper: The 5 Upgrade Headaches ... And How To Avoid Them

Itsm Whitepaper: The 5 Upgrade Headaches ... And How To Avoid Them

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Executive Summary: Enterprise applications should deliver strategic value to customers, not drain resources through inefficient application management. The problems caused by application upgrades have become so commonplace however that they are often accepted as 'a necessary evil'. At Axios Systems, we believe it is the responsibility of the vendor to ensure customers can upgrade quickly and easily to access the functionality they need and gain maximum value from their investment.

This white paper outlines the five most common problems relating to upgrading an enterprise IT Service Management (ITSM) solution, and how assyst avoids or minimizes these issues to reduce costs and optimize the value that our customers gain.

If your organization suffers from any of these upgrade headaches, then read on: 1. Application complexity 2. Migrating customizations and integrations 3. Withdrawn support and solution sun-setting 4. Too little, too late 5. Version incompatibility - multi-stage upgrades

Headache #1: Application Complexity: Many IT Service Desk and IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions offered by the 'framework' vendors, comprise a patchwork of acquired technologies built up over the years to provide comprehensive ITSM functionality. Instead of expanding the functional footprint to meet customer needs through organic development, which naturally leads to more cohesive solutions, they acquired smaller technology vendors and integrated the products into their portfolios. As a result, the applications form a complex network of software components with their own platform and hardware requirements. In many cases, each of these modules must be upgraded individually, in the correct logical order, to achieve overall upgrade success. Individual modules may also have their own research and development cycles, product roadmaps and upgrade processes, which together combine to create a very difficult and complex upgrade project-and this is before taking customizations into account.

When one manager of a certain framework vendor's ITSM solution was asked to map out a project plan for upgrading to the latest version, he indicated this: Milestone 1: Begin. Milestone 2: False sense of hope. Milestone 3: Unwelcome sense of reality. Milestone 4: Depression. Milestone 5: Desperation. Milestone 6: Quit your job. Milestone 7: Go fishing.

The impact of upgrading a framework vendor's ITSM solution is a long and arduous upgrade project, which can last many months or even years. The effort involved, combined with a lack of internal IT resources and the vendors' inability to support their own customers, has resulted in third-party consulting organizations entering the market to manage and support clients' upgrade projects. Engaging a consulting organization equates to a huge capital cost that further adds to the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), reduces Return On Investment (ROI) and decreases the business value of the solution by impacting end users over an extended period of time. On top of this, the complexity of the solution means there is considerable potential for the upgrade project to fail entirely and force a complete reimplementation, which could last another 12-18 months.

At Axios Systems, we have uniquely avoided this problem by utilizing a single, unified application architecture, driven by organic product development spanning over 20 years. The assyst solution architecture was designed from inception as one application to provide comprehensive support for-and interaction between-all ITIL processes within a single application. It is not a system of modular components stitched together from disparate, acquired technologies that have been hastily integrated. As a result, the application architecture is a robust, cohesive unit-sharing a single, centralized CMDB that can be upgraded in a single action.

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For full free whitepaper please CLICK HERE

Axios Systems was the first ITSM vendor to adopt the ITIL framework, with assyst.



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