ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, is augmenting ServiceDesk Plus, its ITIL-ready help desk software, with new integrated asset management capabilities. ServiceDesk Plus is gaining a configuration management database (CMDB) and several new features including an upgraded service catalog, enhanced self-service portal, automation of common help desk processes and complete integration with other ManageEngine software suites.

Many IT organizations are managing business-critical systems and services completely reactively. They rely on network monitoring tools, help desk software and other solutions to provide notifications about problems and outages after they've already occurred and are impacting the business. These organizations could dramatically improve uptime and overall end-user experience while simultaneously preventing costly, time consuming issues by identifying and managing the relationships and dependencies of all technology assets — hardware, software, services and non-traditional devices — with a CMDB.

It doesn’t matter if an IT asset is managed inside a formal data center or outside; the pace of modern business can make any technology component become business critical in almost an instant. This means that the visibility and benefits that a CMDB can provide are important for systems and services.

"At the end of the day, our customers must deliver high quality business services to their users, and we are committed to helping them succeed," said Uma Shankar, product manager at ManageEngine. "We have worked on this new version with a great deal of customer input, getting their requirements through the beta release and making the product more user friendly. The all-new CMDB, enhanced service catalog and other features in the latest version of ServiceDesk Plus are all designed to help IT organizations optimize service uptime and end-user experience."

ServiceDesk Plus has strengthened its ITIL capabilities with an all-new CMDB to improve overall service availability and mean time to resolution. ManageEngine designed the CMDB in ServiceDesk Plus to address core usability challenges facing typical CMDBs. Most CMDBs are complex and difficult to use, so many IT organizations either 1) fail to implement a CMDB or 2) fail to take full advantage of the CMDB they have implemented. By eliminating complexity and emphasizing ease of use, the ServiceDesk Plus CMDB extends the uptime advantages and business benefits to all IT assets throughout the organization.

The ServiceDesk Plus CMDB is highlighted by a direct visualization map that defines and displays the inter-relationships of each IT asset (aka configuration item, or CI), giving users a complete visual representation of the network. The system can discover relationships between the CIs automatically and populate the details into the CMDB via an Active Directory or LDAP import.

By identifying CI dependencies and their impact on the environment, ManageEngine's CMDB can help IT plan - before performing any changes. Organizations can also integrate incident, problem and change modules with the CMDB to provide a consolidated view of pending issues associated with any CI. The result is higher quality of service delivered by help desk staff with the cost, complexity and expense of traditional configuration management solutions.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus also includes an enhanced Service Catalog, with a new multi-level approval feature for service requests. Now, ServiceDesk Plus makes it easier for end users to view the SLAs' "agreed upon time," which is displayed before creating the service request, making the service catalog customizable to fit the needs of individual organizations.

ServiceDesk Plus also adds new capabilities for the self-service portal. With easier trouble ticket creation, the self-service portal reduces the load for IT administrators. The upgraded user interface and the real-time streaming of ticket status and history let end users help themselves — without intervention from support staffs. The new asset depreciation feature can be configured to assets in ServiceDesk Plus.

ServiceDesk Plus (8.1) is available immediately. Click here for a free, 30-day, fully functional trial edition.

The CMDB, Service Catalog and Change Module are available immediately as add-ons to the ServiceDesk Plus Professional Edition. The CMDB is $995. The Service Catalog is $995. The Change Module is $1,995. Click here for more pricing information.

Click here to learn more about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus