You just have to guess how many chips are in our big jar of chips, and the 10 best guesses each day win a shirt.

Monday’s winners were:
Anoush Dadgar
Elise Nadeau
Martin Hebert
Jan Meinster
Fred Kenworthy
Michael Smidt
Star Carnes
Satish
Billy Gilchrist
Harold Baker

To enter, simply swing by the Westbury booth – we’re right next to the Vivit community lounge – and make your guess today!

If you can’t be here this week, this should give you a good idea of the flavor of the show.

Yesterday’s blog from Yvonne Bentley all about HP Service Manager 9.30 was a great read – and if you don’t take my word for it, you can find it here: http://h30501.www3.hp.com/t5/IT-Service-Management-Blog/HP-Service-Manager-9-30-coming-July-2011/ba-p/34999

Of course, for us it was a great read because one of the key new enhanced functionalities announced was:

Easier (and better) reporting: Service Manager’s new partner extension solution for reporting, Westbury’s Service Management Intelligence (SMI) Suite, removes the complexity out of reporting and at the same time provides better operational data.  Even a non-technical user can create meaningful, accurate reports that can be used to objectively analyze IT service delivery performance. IT can distill and demonstrate its value to the business and also identify areas for service improvement.

All of which is very true!

As we speak, David vH – ably assisted by Richard and Jason – is delivering a Vivit training session at HP Discover 2011, entitled A practical approach to reporting from HP Service Manager.

The session is a mixture of presentation – looking at the various options for reporting from Service Manager – followed by a hands-on exercise in which the trainees build their own reports using SMI 2011.

We’ve run this session before – in fact we ran it at the HP Software Universe show in D.C. this time last year. It’s a great way to spend a significant chunk of time with people, getting some in depth, hands-on time with SMI 2011 and explaining exactly how the various reporting options stack up against each other.

Tom

As such we’ll have a booth on the exhibition floor and we are chomping at the bit to get there and take part in what looks to be a fantastic – and utterly massive – event.

Our focus for the week will be to get as many people as possible in front of a screen so we can show them SMI 2011 in the flesh. We’ll also be paying very close attention to some of the track sessions focusing on HP Service Manager 9.2, particularly Jacques Conand’s session on the roadmap for Service Manager.

We’ll also be keeping it fun: if you stop by the booth you’ll have the chance to win an awesome limited edition, Vegas-themed t-shirt by taking part in our business intelligence challenge – I’d reveal more but that would ruin the surprise.

You’ll find us at booth 455 and we’re usually pretty easy to spot because we wear a lot of orange. It’s not a look most people can pull off, but we think we just about manage it. We’d also love to hear from you in advance if you’re going to be at the show – either leave us a comment here or tweet at us (@westbury_it) letting us know that you’re going.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Tom

After a period of extensive testing, the folks at HP Software have bestowed upon SMI 2011 the first ever ITSM Product Quality Certification.

For us, this is huge news.

It means that our product, which is only for HP users, has proved itself to HP, and that the HP people are happy to endorse SMI 2011 as a reporting solution for Service Manager. We’ve always had an excellent working relationship with HP, but this represents a significant strengthening of that relationship.

The man responsible for the certification is Jacques Conand, Product Management Director – Service Manager at HP Software. He said:

“We’re excited to renew and strengthen our partnership with Westbury by certifying SMI 2011 for HP Service Manager. We see Westbury SMI 2011 as a key off the shelf solution for HP Service Manager customers. It provides ad-hoc, operational reporting that is powerful, user friendly and flexible. There is a wealth of ITSM information in HP Service Manager and Westbury SMI 2011 is its ideal complement to get at that information.”

We understand HP will be making their own announcement about the certification, and when they do we’ll post the link up here.

Tom

What can I say? We’ve been busy.

In conjunction with Vivit, the HP user group, we’re hosting a webinar, this Wednesday (January 26th), at 2pm EST all about reporting from HP Service Manager. Specifically, Chris, an HP customer and user of Westbury’s Service Management Intelligence Suite, will co-host a session with Westbury’s David de Swaan Arons, looking at the challenges in reporting from HP Service Manager.

In the session you will hear from Chris about:

- what LA County’s reporting needs were before SMI Suite, and what their reporting needs are now

- what challenges they faced around ITSM reporting

- their key drivers in choosing SMI Suite

- their experiences with SMI Suite so far, and their future plans

And there will also be a brief demo of SMI Suite so you can get an idea, first hand, of what SMI Suite can do.

Westbury SMI Suite is the defacto reporting solution for HP Service Manager. It is an out-of-the-box solution designed specifically for HP Service Manager, HP ServiceCenter and HP Service Desk, and comes complete with more than 100 start-up reports, drag-and-drop functionality and a standard implementation time of just ten days.

To sign up for the session, please email info@westburyusa.com with your name. We will include you on the Webex invitation that will be circulated on Tuesday 25th, and which will include all instruction on how to join the session.

Hope you can attend.

Tom

The question is of obvious interest to us because core to the back end of SMI Suite is an ETL utility that takes the data from the Service Manager database, then does a lot of translation to make the nasty array fields, BLOBs and CLOBs readabale, then loads that data into the relational SMI database.

The difference really boils down to where the translation takes place. Under an ELT model, the translation happens once the data has already been loaded into the target repository. And, as Subhankar points out, new technology is making this an increasingly viable option, and is gaining traction in the marketplace.

Check out Subhankar’s full piece for an excellent breakdown of the pros and cons of each approach.

For Westbury it’s an ongoing discussion that will, no doubt, shape our future development initiatives and give us some serious food for thought.

Tom