Follow up for ITIL and monitoring

Shortly after posting my ITIL and monitoring scenario about BMC Performance Manager notifying CONTROL-M that an SAP job was failing, I got a great response about how CONTROL-M even takes it a step further towards ITIL ideals with the Batch Impact Manager module.

Just read your blog. I wanted to update you on a couple of items which help to fill out the drive to ITIL standards achievement in the operations and monitoring environments.

BMC CONTROL-M has an additional module called BMC Batch Impact Manager. This module allows a user to reduce a large flow of jobs to a single service instance and monitor those services critical to the business. Is there any other kind? When a service is predicted by Batch Impact Manager to fail its due out time, Batch Impact Manager issues alerts to operations and provides an interface to Service Impact Manager to focus attention on bringing the service back to normal. Therefore if an SAP process was included in that critical service, as soon as the non-availability of the SAP process impacted the service, CONTROL-M and or Batch Impact Manager would start to squeal.

Great stuff! I’ve just added some links and spelled out the acronyms, otherwise unretouched. The embarrassing thing is, I knew about this module but hadn’t made the connection. Thanks Ronnie for bringing it to my attention!

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Sarbanes-Oxley compliance - containing the costs

Offers some links to white papers about Sarbanes-Oxley compliance efforts

I have been immersed in compliance research lately for a couple of white papers I’m writing. I’m learning a lot about what IT departments have to go through to meet certain standards.

I don’t want to seem self-promoting, but I do want to share this white paper I wrote, Meeting Sarbanes-Oxley Challenges with Distributed Systems Recovery Solutions from BMC Software®. As usual, registration required, but it’s quick and easy. Here’s an excerpt from the paper.

“Containing the costs associated with Sarbanes-Oxley

The estimates for the costs of compliance continue to go up. A two-year-old CFO Magazine survey indicated that companies estimated they would spend up to $500,000 on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. The Financial Executives International (FEI) organization surveyed 217 public companies with average revenues of $5 billion in March of 2005 and asked them to gauge their Section 404 compliance costs. FEI said that 404 compliance averaged $1.34 million for internal costs, $1.72 million for external costs and $1.30 million for auditor fees, for a total of $4.36 million. Other studies estimate that companies are spending even more money on compliance. The Johnsson Group, a Chicago consulting firm, estimates Sarbanes-Oxley will add $3 million to $8 million in annual compliance costs for Fortune 500 companies. (Source: Kahn, Jeremy. ‘A Taste Of Success ; But the real test for Sarbanes-Oxley is still ahead’ Fortune September 1, 2003)

With these costs in mind, though, choosing the proper controls and procedures can help build an infrastructure that adds value to the entire IT organization. You can leverage the knowledge acquired during your analysis to build a solid, enterprise-wide platform of best practices that are also based in the laws of regulation.”

In progress is a second, follow-on white paper about how our DBAs use BMC tools to keep our Sarbanes-Oxley backup and recovery procedures running smoothly. It’s in review but I hope to complete it soon. I’ll post another URL once that’s completed.

Another white paper related to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is Ronnie Daucherty’s Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Using BMC CONTROL-M Solutions for Operations Management. If you attended his seminar you probably got a copy of this but I’ll link to it here as well. Good information.

If you’re responsible for maintaining compliance, keep up the good work! After reading, research, and interviews, I do believe that those compliance controls help organizations run smoothly and that DBAs and admins can sleep at night knowing their backups and batch jobs are progressing as scheduled. From where you sit, how does the compliance effort look to you? Here’s hoping all the long work weeks and late nights are behind you when it comes to Sarbox audits and compliance.

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Sarbanes-Oxley at the BMC Forum

Asking and learning, what does it take to become Sarbanes-Oxley compliant, and can tools help?

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately for a couple of white papers about Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, mostly centered around backup and recovery of databases. In my research I’ve been talking to BMC DBAs about what tools they’re using, and I am really interested in all I’m hearing at the BMC Forum about real-life implementations of compliance efforts. It sounds like tools really can be a help, although you also have to ensure everyone’s following the policies and not using the tools outside of the policies. Check.

This afternoon I attended Ronnie Docherty’s session about BMC CONTROL-M and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. BMC CONTROL-M is an enterprise-wide batch scheduling solution that lets you monitor, manage, and automate all job scheduling. No small feat, I say.

I learned that the BMC CONTROL-M product has a neat replay feature that lets you go back and view a previous (stored) configuration and view what the batch processing did at that particular point in time. Basically, you can store historical job flows, which graphically show all jobs that have been run, and then, you can replay the events by simulating the application environment at a point in time. Operations management folks and your external auditors can validate past production runs using this feature.

I’m learning good stuff, meeting cool people, and now it’s time to enjoy the Heavenly Bed at the Westin and watch The Daily Show. Good night.

Edited to add:
You can sign up for Ronnie’s next presentation at http://www.bulldogsolutions.net/BMCSoftware/BMC10262005/. Here’s the information.
Sarbanes-Oxley and Operations Management—A Guide to Compliance Survival
Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific | 2:00 PM Eastern
Duration: 1 Hour

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