There is a growing range of innovative and imaginative new IT management tools that are ITIL-ready and supports the ITIL processes. To obtain the most value out of them, however, requires ITIL training, which the RCCSP Professional Education Alliance provides.

Here are just two examples of these new ITIL-enabled IT solutions:

Giva has come out with what is reportedly the industry’s first set of visual reporting tools for IT help/service desks. With them, real-time reports with high volumes of complex data sets can be generated within seconds, allowing managers to instantly identify emerging trends and patterns to facilitate better and faster decision making. Most of the real-time visual reports run in ten seconds or less with visual representation of data and drill-down capability.

The new reporting tools feature full color, high contrast charts and graphs that allow for more graphically driven data presentation to better understand relationships between all of the call data. Metrics, business analytics and key performance indicators are now displayed with more graphs and charts; they allow CIOs, IT directors and IT help desk managers to better identify emerging problems, issues, trends and patterns so that systemic changes can be made.

Giva’s visual reporting tools are available for all of Giva’s ITIL-compliant modules including IT help desk, problem management, incident management, knowledge base, asset management, IT change management and software license compliance. They make identifying trends and patterns easier and quicker and with less time building, running and reviewing reports. CIOs and IT leaders can also finally measure differences in performance between individuals and teams with data driven objectivity to know who to reward, warn and terminate.

“Reporting and dashboards are significant Giva differentiators and areas in which Giva will continue to provide industry innovation,” said Ron Avignone, founder of Giva. “This new release continues to set us apart and further establishes Giva as an ITIL-compliant IT help desk, knowledge base, change management and asset management industry leader.”

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ManageEngine (News - Alert) has rolled out ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand, an ITIL-ready help desk and asset management solution delivered as a web-based a.k.a. SaaS (News - Alert) application, which complements the established premise-licensed ServiceDesk Plus software.

While ServiceDesk Plus is designed for small and mid-size businesses, as well as mid-size enterprises, the suite contains an array of high-powered capabilities normally only available in significantly more expensive, more complicated offerings. For example, ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand includes incident management, problem management, change management and asset management.

ServiceDesk Plus is reportedly unique in that it can also integrate asset management, purchase management and contracts management capabilities, communicating data collected by a small-footprint software probe back to the ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand application through a secure channel.

ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand is offered in three editions. The Standard Edition, providing an IT help desk, is priced at $29 per technician per month. The Professional Edition, offering an IT help desk with asset management capabilities, is priced at $39 per technician per month, plus $9 per month for a pack of 50 assets. The top-of-the line Enterprise Edition supports ITIL processes and is priced at $59 per technician per month, plus $9 per month for a pack of 50 assets.

“The next step in the evolution of IT is the movement of applications to the cloud and IT management applications are no exception,” said Rajesh Ganesan, director of product management at ManageEngine. “With no cost or effort involved in set-up and even easier maintenance, IT support teams using ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand can now expect to be the most productive.”

To assist IT professionals the RCCSP Professional Education Alliance offers 14 ITIL v3 training and certification courses. These cover:

--Foundation certification and training
--v2 to v3 foundation bridge certification
--Service manager bridge course
--Service catalog certification
--Release, control and validation
--Operational support and analysis
--Service offerings and agreements
--Planning, protection and optimization
--Service strategy, design, transition and operation
--Continual service improvement
--Managing across the lifecycle

“The accredited ITIL Version 3 training course is an update to the best practice guidance of the IT Infrastructure Library,” explains RCCSP Professional Education Alliance ceo Nina Kawalek. “Known as ITIL v3, the books are framed around the Service Lifecycle, taking a holistic approach to managing services and delivering business value. All of the core processes and concepts from ITIL v2 remain in ITIL v3 with updates to address emerging trends. New processes are in response to requests from the practitioner community.”

The ITIL training courses are offered at various locations. For dates, places and more information visit www.the-resource-center.com or call 708-246-0320.