History of Service Manager?
Does anyone remember of the history of ServiceCenter, like ServiceCenter 1.0? Where it originally came from and that sort of thing? I thought it was a French company that created it originally, but I think I am confusing that with FacilityCenter.
Did Peregrine Systems create ServiceCenter 1.0?
Hi,
Version 1 was named PNMS (Peregrine Network Management System) and it started 1981. AssetCenter is originally from a french company. It was originally running on MVS (host OS) if I remember correctly (only heard that)... Myself I saw only systems starting with SC2.0 (I upgraded one to SC3.0)....
Greetings,
Lars
I also heard that SC started as a mainframe application that got converted to unix/windows. The first version I saw was 2.1 on unix and I upgraded that to 3.0 on MVS.
Yes, it was a mainframe application with green screen text clients. The founders were ex-IBM DB2 developers. I was an admin/developer on that early version back in the 80's. Their user conferences were held at a small hotel in Laguna Beach, CA for a couple of hundred people. At that time, it was just ICM, PM, and CM (no SM, RM, WM) and the RAD license was readily available to write new modules as needed. I took a break through the 90's and returned to SC 2.1 and AC 3.4 (on Windows platform) at my most recent job in 2002. I've upgraded to V5 and we're currently working on the V6 upgrade.
It was AssetCenter came from a French company called Apsylog.
ServiceCenter (and Peregrine itself) was an IBM offshoot. One of my coworkers started back in the PNMS days. We have a custom written app in PNMS that we still use today.
I forgot about the MVS forms that used to exist. I remember MVS was still supported in ServiceCenter 4. When did MVS support get dropped, does anyone remember? It doesn't work anymore with Service Manager does it?
It would be great to see screenshots of the product screens over time. I found a SC2.1 Web Gateway document tonight...it had some screenshots in it, I was enjoying the 1996 web design.
I am currently replacing old mainframe applications for Service Manager 7 at a client site. They also have old Windows computers people still use as well. When I saw three CRT monitors with the windows 95 flying windows screensaver in a row, had a nerdy chuckle to myself.
This is what is bringing on my sense of nostalgia and learning about the roots of Service Manager.
Hi,
if I remember correctly, then they droped MVS with SC5.1 (I think SC5.0 was the last
version...)
Greets,
Lars
Thanks for the tips, I was able to make a history document with some internet research and old release notes.
Do you mind sharing just for the heck of it... it seems quite a few people posted on this thread so there is probably some interest in seeing what you were able to compile.Originally Posted by MrTriple
I am not completely sure on all the facts here, just did a best guess estimate in parts. Correct me on errors:
May 1981: A group of former IBM DB2 developers founded Peregrine Systems, Inc in Carlsbad, CA. One of their first products was PNMS (Peregrine Network Management System) for the IBM Series One computer. PNMS II was developed later and ran on the MVS operating system. Modules created for PNMS were Inventory Configuration, Problem, and Change Management.
RAD Application Code was used, although the license was readily available to write new modules as needed. This mainframe application ran with the green screen text clients similar to Info/Man.
Peregrine was a smaller company back then, with user conferences held in a small hotel in Laguna Beach, CA with 100-200 people in attendance.
1981 – 1985: Peregrine grew based on sales of the PNMS II product line.
March 1995: PNMS was integrated with IBM NetView, HP OpenView and IBM NetView for AIX to provide automated inventory and trouble ticketing for SNA, TCP/IP and Novell networks. At this time it had Problem, Inventory/Configuration, Change, Order and Catalog, and Financial Management modules. Pricing for PNMS Client/Server for MVS began at $42,500 at this time.
July 1997: Peregrine ServiceCenter 1.4 released based on PNMS. Support for UNIX and Windows NT.
September 1997: Peregrine Systems bought Apsylog, a French company, for $29 million in stock. The most notable application purchased was AssetCenter, which was released by Apsylog in 1996. Assetcenter was able to run on Windows95, Windows NT and
UNIX at the time.
December 1997: IBM's Tivoli Systems business unit acquires Software Artistry for $200 million in cash options. Software Artistry's main product was Expert Advisor, a consolidated helpdesk, customer support, and sales product. Tivoli renames Expert Advisor to Tivoli Service Desk at a later release.
December 1998: Peregrine ServiceCenter 2 released.
June 1999: Peregrine ServiceCenter 3 released. Dynamic GUI introduced. The first calendar widget for SC. Windows, HTML, and Java Clients.
December 2000: Peregrine acquires Tivoli for $105 million. Tivoli's main products were Tivoli Service Desk and Tivoli Enterprise Framework. Peregrine took over support for the 1,000 Tivoli Service Desk users and offered enticing discounts to former Tivoli clients. Many companies shifted to Peregrine's new ServiceCenter 4 and Tivoli Service Desk faded away quickly.
April 2001: Peregrine ServiceCenter 4.0 released. Still supports MVS.
June 2001: Peregrine buys rival Remedy Corporation for $1 billion. Mixing Remedy ARS (Action Request System) with Peregrine Get-It, Remedy ARS 5.0 was released in fourth quarter of 2001. Remedy ARS and Peregrine ServiceCenter coexisted with this buyout and were development continued on both products.
June 2002: Peregrine ServiceCenter 5.0 released. The new Eclipse client is introduced and major changes to architecture. Developers didn't eagerly adopt this version due to the changes to ServiceCenter design.
September 2002: In the wake of an Arthur Anderson accounting scandal and Peregrine filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, BMC Software acquires Remedy business unit from Peregrine for $350 million with $110 million provided to Peregrine for financing.
July 2004: Peregrine ServiceCenter 6.0 released.
September 2005: HP acquires Peregrine Systems for $205 million. Peregrine ServiceCenter was renamed to HP Openview ServiceCenter, and HP ServiceDesk was slated to merge into a new product, HP Service Manager 7.0
October 2006: First HP release of ServiceCenter, HP OpenView ServiceCenter 6.2. Change Calendar added. This version fixed issues with the Eclipse client introduced in ServiceCenter 5.0.
November 2007: HP Service Manager 7.00 released. New features include Consolidated Inbox, Predefined Templates, removal of P4, and 150+ SCR enhancements.
They also got Connect-It from Apsylog.
Peregrine did not buy Tivoli as a whole, they just bought TSD. IBM continues to own Tivoli's monitoring suite. Also, I know of companies that still run TSD or even its predecessor EA. They've worked out other support arrangements since Peregrine killed it off.
Did ARS 5 actually have Get-It code in it? I hadn't heard that. ARS 5 was pretty far along in the development pipeline when Peregrine bought them.
Eclipse client came in 6, not 5. 5 was still the old C client.
I knew I had a few things wrong, now it is getting pretty solid. I knew IBM owned parts of Tivoli still, but forgot about it. Did IBM get the rights back to TSD in the end?
Here is the revised version. I am unsure of Remedy ARS 5.0 and Get-It. I read that somewhere and also remember that rumor. Getting closer to the truth here:
May 1980: A group of former IBM DB2 developers founded Peregrine Systems, Inc in Carlsbad, CA. Their product was PNMS (Peregrine Network Management System) running on the MVS operating system. Modules created for PNMS were Inventory Configuration, Problem, and Change Management.
RAD Application Code was used, although the license was readily available to write new modules as needed. This mainframe application ran with the green screen text clients similar to Info/Man.
Peregrine was a smaller company back then, with user conferences held in a small hotel in Laguna Beach, CA with 100-200 people in attendance.
March 1995: PNMS was integrated with IBM NetView, HP OpenView and IBM NetView for AIX to provide automated inventory and trouble ticketing for SNA, TCP/IP and Novell networks. At this time it had Problem, Inventory/Configuration, Change, Order and Catalog, and Financial Management modules. Pricing for PNMS Client/Server for MVS began at $42,500 at this time.
July 1997: Peregrine ServiceCenter 1.4 released based on PNMS. Support for UNIX and Windows NT.
September 1997: Peregrine Systems bought Apsylog, a French company, for $29 million in stock. The most notable applications purchased were AssetCenter and Connect-It, which was released by Apsylog in 1996. AssetCenter and Connect-It were able to run on Windows95, Windows NT and UNIX at the time.
December 1997: IBM's Tivoli Systems business unit acquires Software Artistry for $200 million in cash options. Software Artistry's Expert Advisor, a consolidated helpdesk, customer support, and sales product. Tivoli renames Expert Advisor to Tivoli Service Desk at a later release.
December 1998: Peregrine ServiceCenter 2 released.
June 1999: Peregrine ServiceCenter 3 released. Dynamic GUI introduced. The first calendar widget. Windows, HTML, and Java Clients.
December 2000: Peregrine acquires Tivoli Service Desk for $105 million. IBM continued to own other Tivoli monitoring products. Peregrine took over support for the 1,000 Tivoli Service Desk users and offered enticing discounts to former Tivoli clients. Many companies shifted to Peregrine's new ServiceCenter 4 from Tivoli Service Desk.
April 2001: Peregrine ServiceCenter 4.0 released. Still supports MVS.
June 2001: Peregrine buys rival Remedy Corporation for $1 billion. Mixing Remedy ARS (Action Request System) with Peregrine Get-It, Remedy ARS 5.0 was released in fourth quarter of 2001. Remedy ARS and Peregrine ServiceCenter coexisted with this buyout and development continued on both products.
June 2002: Peregrine ServiceCenter 5.0 released. MVS Support dropped in SC5.1.
September 2002: In the wake of an Arthur Anderson accounting scandal and Peregrine filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, BMC Software acquires Remedy business unit from Peregrine for $350 million with $110 million provided to Peregrine for financing.
July 2004: Peregrine ServiceCenter 6.0 released. The new Eclipse client is introduced which was a shift from C to Java Windows client architecture.
September 2005: HP acquires Peregrine Systems for $205 million. Peregrine ServiceCenter was renamed to HP Openview ServiceCenter, and HP ServiceDesk was slated to merge into a new product, HP Service Manager 7.0
October 2006: First HP release of ServiceCenter, HP OpenView ServiceCenter 6.2. Change Calendar added. This version fixed issues with the Eclipse client introduced in ServiceCenter 6.0.
November 2007: HP Service Manager 7.00 released. New features include Consolidated Inbox, Predefined Templates, removal of P4, and 150+ SCR enhancements.
June 2008: Scheduled HP Service Manager 7.01 ITSM Accelerator GA Release
I don't think so. Pretty sure it's officially dead.
I heard different things about ITSM Accelerator... is it a package that needs to be paid by customer?
Greetings,
Lars
IIA--ITSM Implementation Accelerator
The ITSM Implementation Accelerator (IA) is FREE.
It basically replaces the current sample data forms and workflows with new ones which incorporate ITIL v3. Documentation on ITIL flows and how the tools supports them is extensively updated in the help server.
--The IIA build can be applied to a clean 7.01 install. It is not compatible with 7.00.
--There is no upgrade path to the IIA build. Updated SD 4.5 customer migration tools are scheduled to be updated to work with the IIA build are scheduled for release in August.
--ServiceCenter wishing to upgrade to the IIA build will need to wait until 7.1 is released. The 7.01 upgrade utility does not upgrade to the IAA build.
--With the release of 7.1, the IIA build will become the standard build of Service Manager. Also with 7.1, migration paths for SD 5.x will be released, and the ServiceCenter upgrade utility will be revised.
Hey Mr Triple,
You've done an execellent job there, and thanks to all the other guys for their resource, it's very interesting.
I have Wikipanion on my iPhone and there is tons of stuff on that which could really pack out your history document.
Thanks again, was a good read.
Martin
Interesting read about history of SC/SM. I am coming from HP OpenView ServiceDesk 4.5 and starting to interact with SM7 and from this history it seems the real development and advancing of Peregrine architecture stopped somewhere around version 2 / December 1998 or even sooner. Let me explain:
All this has been properly in ServiceDesk 4.5 (and is done in other tools except Remedy which is now understandable from it's common history) so I would expect the same (actually I'd expect higher) level in a product that is set to succeed it. For me, unless these are addressed this is not a product that should be considered for any real application in 21st century - it is a mess of legacy stuff from last century with Eclipse front-end glued to it.
- Storage model - this is pure perversion of database tools and possibilities created even before first version of SC. How comes there are no database constraints, no foreign keys, etc... How are you supposed to report from this database?
- Table names - is table naming a joke or an attempt to confuse the users? Why almost no table holds a name of an entity it stores?
- Object model - also results from storage model; how come everything is addressed by name? Renaming one item can break anything anywhere and you wouldn't even know.
- Language used to customize it - I have seen some expressions in native language and let me tell you: if PERL is "write only" language, this is even worse.
That is of course your opinion which you are entitle to. But having worked with SC since version 2.1 I can tell you that it has evolved alot. With the biggest changes with the addition of document engine and javascripts.
As for naming tables. Well that sucks yes but it will be an enormous task of renaming them and frankly I would rather have new features such as javascript rather than getting the tables renamed.
OK, what about storage model? What about object model? These are features that remained unchanged from a looooooooooooong time ago and clearly should have been changed back then.
Without having the proper knowledge into those areas I assume it will also be enormous tasks to change that now.
You can't change history and its easy to say "they should have done.... years ago". Well they didn't and you have the choice of either accepting it and work with what you got and not accepting it and find a different application that fullfills your needs.
Well you're right. But let me try to put some things in perspective:
- the storage model actually pre-dates relational databases. It's just storage. You'd hardly call it a database system. Constraints, triggers, and other database stuff are all managed on a slightly higher level than you'd expect from working with other systems.
- The table names and language,... well, that only affects the poor sysadmins. It doesn't affect the end user. And who cares about the admins, right?
- I like Perl.
Right - if you program it like that. if you don't, nothing stops you from ruining the data. How do you report on that? Do you actually join on names? And about pre-dating relational databases - quite hard to believe that - according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relatio...agement_system first implementation appeared 10 years before first version of SC. Even so, there were good 20 years to put relational database to the use it was created to...
Well all our customers were used to do simple (andsome of them medium) stuff themselves and understanding how the system works as whole. I just can't imagine this anymore.
Sure, no problems with that on my side as long as I do not have to attempt to read and understand it- I like Perl.
Hey - if you were meant to understand it, it wouldn't be called 'code'Sure, no problems with that on my side as long as I do not have to attempt to read and understand it
I have a copy of ServiceCenter 1.3.2 somewhere and also the other Peregrine products of the day. Anyone remember them?
Remedy and SC share no common history. Peregrine owned Remedy for a very short time and there was no combination of the products.
As for the rest of it, jeez, man, if you've already made up your mind that you hate it, why did you bother coming here to bitch?
Because I had a little hope that maybe someone would prove me wrong that it is not that bad and help me accept it somehow. No such thing happened so far...
AFAIK, this was not our call to leave things how they are.
As you might have noticed, even the experienced SC/SM developers have problems too. Instead of complaining we try to "flex the thinking muscle" and come out smarter (or dumber).
I strongly suggest this approach, might help with the "acceptance" part of things.
Go on and spam ITRC if you feel bad about the product.
If you think SC/SM has been coded badly and you have the miracly cure to fix it I suggest you contact HP and convince them how bad the product is and how to fix it to your likings.
We can't help you accept things as they are. Thats your own choice. If you search the forum you will see plenty of us complaining about stupid bugs but instead of giving up we try to find fixes for them and report them to HP so they can inlude fixes in future version.
You have to remember none of us here have actually coded a single line of code in SC/SM (well actually there are a few ex-peregrine developers around and HP is reading this forum).
I have given you some slack here but honestly. Coming here and with the first post slam the product like you did saying that ServiceDesk is the wonder product is not going to help you around here.
ServiceCenter achieved dominance in the market for a reason. It's bloody good!
I believe it's neither "dominating" nor the latter.
I think SD was closer to "domination" ... before it got axed
Miaracle cure? I have one: redesign & rewrite to make it what it is supposed to be. But that will probably never happen as it would break all the existing installations (reminds me of Windows getting bigger and slower for the sake of backward compatibility) and also would mean no new version for at least 1 or 2 years...
No problem with slacking ;-) As noted before - I sort of hoped someone more knowledgeable would show me some things I do not see and thus allow me to see it in a better light. I was expecting that a community of users who become to love what they use would highlight some bright spots to counter my claims. I want to hear what is good about it but nobody puts that forward.
Regarding ServiceDesk: I have never said it was a wonder product. It is not a general programming platform (at least wasn't marketed as such - the features are partially there) and has had its (quite severe) limitations in what you could do and how. You officially couldn't add new table (object) for example, you only have native GUI with some stupid design decisions, no ability to programatically control it. On the other hand what has been available has been consistent, easy to understand and use, using underlying technologies the way they were meant...
SC/SM are so huge that nobody have time to give you a complete list of what we think is good.
Ask specific questions (and read what has been posted in the forum) then you migth get an idea.
I can only speak for myself but when someone comes along like you did with an obvios opinion that SC/SM has been coded completely wrong then I have no interest in sheeding ligth on anything because with your biased opinion its probably a lost cause.I sort of hoped someone more knowledgeable would show me some things I do not see and thus allow me to see it in a better light
I gave 3 items with short description that I think are fundamentally flawed. Aren't there 3 other things that are so great they would balance these? I do not want a long list - I want to see what is best, better than the rest has.
I do not deny the bias. Also I wouldn't say it was coded completely wrong. It evolved to (completely?) wrong state. Back to the highlights - if customer asks you about the advantages of this tool over the rest available on market - what would you say?
Just as King of Rock & Roll said: "milions fans can't be wrong"
Just kidding, relax
Artur
Appreciate this one - really a good oneJust as King of Rock & Roll said: "milions fans can't be wrong"
Just kidding, relax
Artur
I can give you one you can't deny.
Almost every day I work with this software I learn something new.
May it be something that's wrong, a duplicated functionality of some kind (legacy) or some new way of developing/managing processes - it's always "new" to me.
I think that's one of the strongest points from a consultant's point of view.
I don't know of a strong point for a salesman, not my ball.
Well if that "new" is a knowledge you can also use elsewhere than you clearly have a point. If what you learn is just another workaround...
I have a question for you Rex. Have you installed a trial version of SC or SM and played with it to see what it is capable of?
The redesign you are looking for is called "ServiceNow". I personally am not impressed by it, but will not deny a massive bias in favor of Service Manager (and its previous versions, excluding SC4.0 - SC4.0.11).
Any design is flawed. Using a "Storage Model" as you call it will have significant impact on database independent behavior, a key feature for Service Manager. The most relevant functions that are typically found in that "Storage Model" are embedded at the application layer. These are not optional and are therefore "just as good" as the ones at the DB level. Unless you meant DB hackers?
Table names an issue? Yes, the first week or so. How could that affect any longer term decision? Functionality is where it's at.
The "Object Model", a long discussed item. There is one clear advantage: I, as a developer, am in control. Sure, reporting guys might be affected, and if I do a bad job the system might become invalid... But those are controllable items. I'd rather have the freedom.
As to the language... The embedded stuff should take you no real effort. If you know an SQL type language and some "basic" you are there. As for the JavaScript, it's a very near perfect fit. I think you are looking to hard at the differences and calling them "bad". Service Desk was easier, sure, but so is Excel. Would you however consider that a "good Service Management tool"?
You maybe will be surprised but I did - and I got lost quite quickly - I couldn't find a system in it that would let me get oriented...
Besides that I work with guys who until now were doing SD and now are doing SM for several months. Unlike me they just have to dig through it and try to find solutions for common tasks they are attempting. And to tell the truth - even the one that was most optimistic about SM from the start and biggest critic of SD has now changed his opinion almost completely. They are struggling badly with trivial tasks and small changes and let me assure you - they are true IT professionals that have been through much so it is not that they'd be lame...
But you have to remember sc/sm is a huge and very complex application which is hard to learn without education from either HP or a fellow admin. And it really does not matter if you are a true it proffesional whatever that means.
I learned SC the hard way 8 years ago. With no training I had to upgrade SC from 2.1 to 3 AND migrate it from a unix environment to MVS. Some of the time I had a consultant to support me but after 3 months the task was complete but it was tough. And today I am still learning about SC because it is so complex. There areas in SC that I never touched before.
My advice is to go on the relevant eductation, work with the application for 3-6 months then tell us what you think about it. Only sniffing to it and making a judgement really is not fair because it is such a complex application.
Haven't heard of that. But I like your response - it's at least something that can be discussed.
The functions you mention may be implemented at application layer - AFAIK they are not always there (only in some cases or if you do the task). What I meant is that you do a model of the data and when stored in relational database it enforces that model and also ensures the data integrity. Are these features always present in SM? I do not think so. Also reporting from SM's storage is something I am having troubles imagining.
You maybe right but it's still highly misleading. Also the reason why it's still not changed is because it would break the amount of things beyond managable repair. Not a good design.
What you're saying is that you'd rather have poor design being attempted to fix by that freedom. Either the model is valid and then you should stick to it or have i redesigned.
This is probably the one that bother me least. I just put it there for completeness and sure would be able to learn it. It's just the expressions are ugly and quite hard to decipher comparing to common languages used nowadays.
Do not be fooled because I mentioned SD only. Also I do not think the real issue resides in "easiness". There is one solution that I know of that has a great appeal to me and it is not HP SD: IBM Maximo platform. I didn't want to put it here originally and just wanted to stick to SC/SM discussion but it somehow fits in right now. The out-of-the-box features are on-par with SM (both feature and process-overage wise). It uses the underlying database the way it is supposed to be used. The object model is defined and enforced. You work with objects and not table rows and columns. The application is real 3-tier thingy - modern J2EE architecture. The process flow is designed visually by drawing the diagram of it and assigning conditions. You can extend it's functionality in OO way (by extending existing classes). You can do reporting by using any database reporting tool.
The guys I mentioned took the courses and work with it for 9 months.
Try to answer this without bias (and I promise I will try to accept that without bias): is the complexity you mention caused mostly by the broad possibilities of the product or rather by the poor design/implementation that makes everything seem so complex/complicated?
Well it would be if the decision was mine ;-)
Hmm what can I say. I would be curious to know what trivial tasks they are stuggling with after 9 months.
No doubt due to broad posibilities. It is possible to do things in multiple ways which gives freedom to choose the way that suits best to the situation instead of being locked into doing things in one way or not at all.Try to answer this without bias (and I promise I will try to accept that without bias): is the complexity you mention caused mostly by the broad possibilities of the product or rather by the poor design/implementation that makes everything seem so complex/complicated?
Here's 2 I remember: dynamically making a field on a form required (that was easier one that just took few hours) and delaying (scheduling) evaluation of a condition to a later date (that one took few days).
So you're saying that in SC/SM there are so many principles/ways that it takes so long time to learn them all without interfering one with another?
No I am saying that sometimes you use method a to achieve a certain result and somtimes you use method b. It all depends on what the end goal is and what the requirement is. Some methods are easy but with restrictions other are more dificult but allow more flexibility. It takes time to leaen when to use what.
For example there are several ways of making a field mandatory on save. The simplest is on dbdict level which also means it will always be mandatory. A more flexible method is to do it in validations on the formatcontrol allowing for it to be mandatory for example only if another field is a certain value. Then you can also be more advanced and check the field in the save process.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks