By Dick Stark

On July 7, Gartner released a report entitled, “How to Decide Between BMC and ServiceNow for ITSM and Beyond.” The report reviewed current offerings from both as they apply to IT Service Support Management (ITSSM) and IT Operations Management (ITOM).  Not surprisingly, Gartner scored BMC much higher in ITOM and ServiceNow (SNOW) higher in the use of forms and workflow applications that support non-IT needs. The report even suggested that larger enterprises consider using both products, presumably SNOW for service support and BMC for service assurance. Here are other takeaways and observations:

Across a broad range of ITOM categories, BMC is the clear winner (see below table.)  Over the past ten years, BMC has acquired best of breed solutions such as Blade Logic for Service Automation and ProactiveNet for Service Assurance.  A clear differentiator however is BMC’s use of Event Orchestrator to provide fully integrated closed loop change or configuration management. For example, a company can request a change related to a new server, and after the appropriate automated approvals, a new server can quickly be provisioned using Event Orchestrator as the integration centerpiece.

SNOW is just starting its own acquisition binge.  Last year it purchased Mirror42 for dashboard and analytics, and recently purchased IT Service Dependency Mapping vendor Neebula Systems. This sends a strong message that SNOW recognizes the importance of areas outside of ITSM to its future growth.

In RightStar’s experience, Event Orchestrator is not widely implemented. This is due to the limited maturity level of most organizations that we work with.  Over time, this will change as companies recognize the value of automation. Additionally, before we get too excited, remember that most enterprises are not single vendor focused and instead typically procure ITOM products in a heterogeneous fashion  from various vendors like HP, CA, and IBM. However, this reinforces the value of value of integration and workflow automation such as Event Orchestrator.

Likewise, based upon our discussion with other partners, the majority of SNOW’s customers implement only three or so of SNOW’s 15 modules, meaning that SNOW’s Orchestration ability (RBA) is even less utilized than BMC’s. In summary, BMC has the edge for those customers looking for a more ITOM/BSM based solution.

Check out the Gartner link for more information:

http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1WY4VAS&ct=140710&st=sb