Forrester recently published a report on Business Service Management, which was an update on their previous BSM wave, as significant changes had occurred in the BSM vendor landscape.

Like the wave, while the report was very comprehensive in that it covered a lot of solutions, it didn't really give much guidance as to which BSM solutions are suited to what purpose, and which are really doing something else, but are branded as BSM.   Indeed, they listed every solution they reviewed in the 'leader' quadrant during the wave, which reduces their credibility.

The criteria they also used for this report, was somewhat lacking as well.   Forrester take the view that a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is an essential part of a BSM solution, and infer that it is even a prerequisite.    I think including the CMDB as a prerequisite misses the whole point.  Unless the BSM solution is being driven from the business and the top down, its going to be nothing more than Event Management on steroids.   The problem with relying on the CMDB is that invariably the solution moves from being a top down view of what the business needs, to a bottom up grouping of infrastructure into business containers.   

What would have been a more appropriate pre-requisite is end user experience monitoring.   Too many of the BSM solutions look at things through the point of view of the infrastructure and its vital to consider how the applications/business services are supporting their users. 

However, given that Forrester used such rose tinted glasses to rate the vendors, here are a few thoughts of my own:

The Big Four:

The big four solutions all lean heavily on the CMDB, which makes implementations extremely long, and replacement very difficult.   Take into account that if you go with one of these solutions, it will take significant time to implement (unless you already have much of it) and be difficult to replace later on.   Thats not to say that you can't get value from these solutions, but be aware of the downsides.   The upside is that these vendors have a tool for pretty much everything. 

HP Software - Probably the strongest of the Big Four in the BSM space.   HP have a good foundation with the combination of the Mercury and OpenView tools.   Their real end user experience solution (RUM) is a weak link in an otherwise good portfolio of solutions.    Like the rest of the big four they leverage the CMDB heavily and require many products all to be integrated together.   A good choice if the organization is predominantly HP, but be mindful of vendor lock in and long implementation times.  

BMC Software - BMC have exceptional marketing and thought leadership in the area of BSM, and have done some extremely good acquisitions over the last couple of years.   Their current direction would appear to be more around data center automation.   However, their approach is heavily leveraged on their Atrium CMDB, and the solution which actually provides much of the BSM functionality (Service Impact Manager) is the weak link in their portfolio.    BMC are a good choice for those companies who have already invested in Remedy and Atrium and already own a significant portion of the BMC 'stack' (which has been cynically branded as BSM).   BMC is not a good choice for those who are not fully bought into the Remedy/Atrium message as getting a CMDB stood up is a multi- year project for most, and the two significant holes (SIM, and a poor End User Experience offering) make other vendors look more attractive. 

IBM Tivoli - Not at the same level as BMC or HP when it comes to business service management.   Their event Management solution is particularly strong with the NetCool acquisition, but this hasn't really translated all that well into Business Service Management.   Likely only a consideration when Global Services are involved.  

CA - CA do not really market to BSM, and they are definitely the weakest of the big four in this area.   Their focus seems to be digesting the various acquisitions they have done over the last few years.   Their application performance solution (Wily) is completely separated from the rest of their business which makes providing an integrated solution far more difficult.  

More specialized vendors coming in part 2.