IBM Netcool Agile Service Manager Thoughts

I recently installed IBM's Netcool Agile Service Manager and wanted to give my initial thoughts on it.

What is Agile Service Manager?

Basically, it's a real-time topology viewer for multiple technologies. Specifically, it can currently render topology data for ITNM, OpenStack and Docker, all in one place. Additionally, it maps events to the topology so you can see any events that are affecting a resource in the context of its topology. So, for example, if you receive a CRITICAL event for a particular Docker container, you will see the node representing that container turn red. Pretty neat. Here's an example of a 1-hop topology of my ASM server's docker infrastructure (you always have to start at some resource to view a topology):

What's so great about it?

Combined Topology View

First, this topology view is wonderful for Operations and Development because it shows a topology view of your combined Network, Docker and Openstack environments, so everyone can see where applications are running and the dependencies among the pieces.

ElasticSearch

Second, it's got ElasticSearch under the covers, so updates and searches are amazingly fast, and the topology view is built extremely quickly.

Custom Topology Information

Third, you can add your own topology information to make it even more useful!

Here's a screenshot where I've manually modified the topology using a combination of the File Observer and direct access to the Topology Service REST API (from the Swagger URL):

Notice also that Time Entry is in a Critical state. That's due to an event that I generated.

History

Fourth, it maintains history about the topology. That means that you can view the difference in topology between 2 hours (or two days) ago and right now.

Is ASM a complete replacement for TBSM and/or TADDM?

No, ASM is not a complete replacement for TBSM or TADDM, but you can definitely think of it as "TBSM Lite". TBSM still has some very unique features, such as status propagation, service rules, and custom KPIs that can be defined on a per-business-service basis.

And TADDM's unique capability is the hard work of actually discovering very detailed data and relationships in your environment.

However, because the search and visualization pieces of ASM are so fast and efficient, I can definitely see ASM being used as at least part of the visualization portion of  TADDM. What would be required to allow this is a TADDM Observer to be written.

Additionally, I think the ASM database and topology will in the future be leveraged by TBSM, though this will take a little work.

Parting thoughts

ASM is a truly useful product, with some great capabilities. It's also incredibly easy to install if you've already got Netcool Operations Insight (or at least DASH) installed - I was able to get it installed in just a few hours. I'm certain IBM will be adding features and add-ons to provide even more functionality in the coming months.