Peregrine Updates ITIL, Service Management Software

Peregrine Systems has announced the latest version of its enterprise IT management software, ServiceCenter 5.1. The new solution sets -- Global Consolidation, Service Level Management, and ITIL and Beyond -- have been redesigned to help enterprise IT managers better utilize IT resources.

The company also renewed the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) certification of its entire ServiceCenter product line through Pink Elephant's Pink Verify program, the de-facto standard for IT service management solutions, the company said.

"Really this is something our customers have been asking for since most of our customers have been trying to align themselves with these ITIL best practices," said Ed Chopskie, Peregrine's director of strategic marketing.

The general release date of v5.1 is June 15.

Significant product updates include: an asset management module that tracks configuration items like warranties, leases, maintenance contracts and SLAs; renewed ITIL certification and alignment with that best-practices framework for managing IT consolidation efforts; increased knowledge management capabilities for technicians trying to solve problems; and a better dashboard view into 'parent-child' application relationships, Chopskie said.

To augment its ServiceCenter offering, Peregrine also updated its Web-based, employee-self-service offering, GetServices 4.1, that enables employees to request technical support via any browser, anywhere.

To come up with the latest version, Peregrine considered more than 900 customer change requests, boiling down the most relevant to come up with the 300 or so product enhancements found in the new version, Chopskie said. As such, the new version is geared more towards managing change, since that is utmost in customers' minds.

"The number one issue we see right now in IT management is how to cut down on costs," Chopskie said. And this more often than not involves consolidation of assets. v5.1 is designed to help in the process by effectively prioritizing which of the hundreds of daily events require the most attention.

"With thousands of events coming into the system everyday people don't know what the particular business effect of a particular event can be," said Chopskie, "and that's why having a product, which has all of the assets organized as they effect businesses and a group of SLAs on those particular items, automatically prioritizes all the events."