Ivanti Service Manager (ISM), powered by HEAT, is the most affordable, flexible, and complete cloud-optimized ITSM solution available today. ISM allows you to automate workflows, eliminating costly manual processes while making your business more efficient, compliant, and secure.
Whether you’re looking for an IT help desk and support ticket solution or need to perform more advanced ITIL service management processes, Ivanti Service Manager (ISM) solution can easily scale and adapt to meet your specific business needs.
Ivanti ISM Workshop Series Index
Part 1 – Analysis and Requirements Gathering Part 2 – Design Considerations Part 3 – Build Your On-Premise Production Installation Part 4 – Application Configuration and Testing Part 5 – Preparation for Going Live Part 6 – Updating and Upgrading Part 7 – Using Xtraction for Enhanced Reporting
Overview
This document outlines the recommended steps to prepare for go-live.
This includes several steps:
Establish the Tenants: Remove all test and demo data from the tenant used for configuration and assure that all tenants contain exactly the same information. This process is sometimes referred to as “synchronizing” the tenants.
UAT Testing: A select group of users will need to validate the design and may suggest changes. If changes are needed these can be incorporated. Once completed we will again assure that all the test data is removed, and the tenants are “synchronized”.
Production Go-Live: Once the tenants are established and user acceptance testing is complete you are ready to go-live. The first step is to publish the production URL to the users.Depending on the complexity of the implementation this may be a “phased” operation where features are enabled as needed to the user community.For example, we may enable Incident for the Service Desk Analysts followed by self-service incident creation. Later service-request, change, and knowledge management or other features enabled.
Miscellaneous Details
The additional information you should consider when planning the go-live.
SaaS – Initial configuration is typically performed using the staging tenant. Once configuration is completed the production and UAT tenants will be created. The Ivanti operations group will create the tenants upon request. We will provide a “clean-up” script to remove test and demo data as required.
On-Premise – We will install the development environment and utilize the “OPS Console” to create the STG and UAT tenants. We will utilize the “clean-up” script to remove test and demo data during this process.
On-Premise Development Environment Installation
The installation is much the same as the production installation but here we will enable the OPS Console. This provides the capability of creating the STG and UAT Tenants in a much more automated fashion.
Installing the Application
Load the installation and license files on the desktop of the server.
Select the Ivanti Service & Asset Manager installer application manager and “Run as Administrator”.
3. Install the prerequisites. Note that you may get a shared objects installation failure. You can disregard this and click Yes to proceed.
4. Next to continue.
5. Accept the license agreement.
6. Select the Product Type – Service Manager.
7. Select the drive on which to do the installation.
8. Select “Custom” Install.
9. Install the Operations Console
Note that the Operations Console is not installed on the production but should be installed in the development (staging and UAT) environment.
10. Select “Next” to Install
Running the System Configuration Wizard
The system configuration wizard will be displayed once the installation has been completed. This configuration sets the server arrangement.
1. Configure application settings.
Notes: Multiple Server Environment – Uncheck Production and check STG and UAT, enter the production server information and “OK”.
Notes
Configuration Database Server … Name of the SQL server
Configuration Database Name – For the development server we will use ConfigDB-DEV
SQL Authentication – You could also use windows authentication but I am using this with the SA account for simplicity. Test the connection to validate.
2. Select Load Configuration Database
The system configuration wizard will now create a database that contains the environment. A window may open up behind the configuration wizard. Select this window and if needed use the advanced options to select the location of your databases. Once done select OK.
3. Configure application settings continued Once the configuration database has loaded select next and scroll down to the bottom of the window. There are a few more items we need to take care of:
Notes
Configuration Server Domain … Domain Name – Central Config-Dev
License Server – This is the development server we are on
License File Production – Browse and select your development (STG/UAT) license file
Administrator account for configuration application Login ID – HSWAdmin Password – “manage” or choose a password you will always remember First Name – HSW Last Name – Admin Email address – Every user in the system needs a unique email address. Use hswadmin@demo.com
4. Select Next to go to Service Management Settings.
Notes
Application Database Server … Name of the SQL Server
Application Database Name – HEATSM-STG is traditional but you can name is something different. For example, if you used IvantiSM for production then use IvantiSM-STG here.
SQL Authentication – You could also use windows authentication but I am using this with the SA account for simplicity. Test the connection to validate.
Unlike production we will not be loading the application database at this point. This will be done later using the OPS Console.
5. Select Next to go to Application Server Settings.
Notes
Configuration Server Location – Development application server
Host name – Development Applications Server
Use this host for Ops Console – checked
Use this host for Survey: I am not using surveys in development (STG and UAT Tenants)
Use these Settings for Reporting Service – Not setting reporting for development (STG and UAT tenants)
Local system account will be used … I am using local system, an alternative would be a domain account
6. Select Next to go to other Feature Settings.
Notes
Select the locations for the log, temp, and cache folders if you want other than the C:drive.
The rest of the settings use the development server. I am not using SSL so the default ports are fine.
Select Restart services after setting configuration files.
7. Select Next to go to Upgrade System
In ISM 2018.3 this page will appear as the configuration base will show 2018.3. In actuality, this should be 2018.3.1. This inconsistency will be corrected in future releases.
8. Click on Upgrade system
Here you will use the HSWAdmin user and password as we are upgrading the configuration database.
9. Once the upgrade has completed click on next to go to the metrics server.
Notes
Database Server Name – SQL Server
Database Name – HEATMetricsCache
Again, I am using SQL Authentication
I will not be using the metrics server in the development (STG/UAT) environment
10. Select Finish and the Completed screen will show.
11. Select Finish again and then Yes to restart the server.
12. Once your system restarts you can look at the Services Window to verify that all of the Ivanti services are running. Note that the metrics server is not being used so that service will not be running.
Clearing out Test and Demo Data
We will now use the OPS console to create the STG and UAT tenants. Note that we recommend using Chrome for the OPS Console.
1. Open Chrome and type in the URL: http://servername/OpsConsole You may wish to save this URL and show on the Bookmarks bar.
2. Enter the Username – HSWAdmin and the password for the account.
3. Login to see the tenants that are active
Notes
• CentralConfig – Configuration of the production tenant • CentralConfig-Dev – Configuration of the Dev (STG/UAT) environment • The bottom entry shows the production tenant. Next to this is the “Manage Migration” selector.
4. Click on “Manage Migration”.
5. Select the “Push” option on the left above “Staging”.
We will now use this option to “Create” our staging tenant.
Notes
• Enter the setting as illustrated above.
• Clear out any entries in Report DB password and confirm password.
We are not using reporting on the STG or UAT tenant.
6. Select “Execute” and the window below will open.
7. Select OK and the confirmation window below will open.
8. Select OK and you will be returned to the migration configuration window.
9. You can now repeat steps 5-8 for the UAT tenant. When you are done you will see the configuration below:
10. Click on the tenants tab to expose the overall tenants layout.
11. Close the OPS Console.
12. Login to the STG tenant to verify functionality.
Double click on the Ivanti Service Management icon to open the application
Enter the User name – HEATAdmin and password
Select ISM Staging from the dropdown
Log out and repeat the above for the ISM UAT tenant
Considerations with the OPS Console
Let’s take a closer look at the tenants to see what settings they may have that we might need to change
1. Login to the OPS Console.
2. Select edit properties to the right of the production tenant.
3. Details of the production will show as illustrated below:
Notes
Metadata Locked – This prevents making changes in the administrator interface to the production tenant. We may wish to uncheck this option if we wish to make changes to the configuration that are requested during UAT testing.
Named and Concurrent Licenses – Generally we will not be using named licenses. We will have concurrent licenses but here the count will show 0 as we are not seeing the production license count on the development server.
Clear out any entries in Report DB Password and confirm password.
Enable Email Listener – This is enabled in production.
4. Cancel if no changes were made or save if changes were made.
5. Select edit properties to the right of the staging tenant.
Notes
Concurrent License – Change this number to 9999 (maximum valid number)
Enable Email Listener – Not checked If we want to have an email listener for the staging environment, we will have to configure one that is different than what is used in production.
If you try to use the same email listener for production and staging (or UAT) there will be a conflict as whatever environment reads the email first will process it and effectively “Steal” the email from any other environment that may be trying to use the same email address.
Save the Configuration
6. Select edit properties for the UAT Environment and repeat step 5 above.
UAT Testing and Updating
Prior to a production rollout we may want a select user group to login to the UAT tenant for validation. There may be several rounds of validation involved.
For SaaS we will make the changes in our STG tenant and then update UAT. Once UAT is fully validated we will Create the production tenant and synchronize all the tenants for production rollout.
For on-premise installations, we will typically make the changes in the production tenant and re-initialize the STG and UAT tenants.
Production “Go-Live”
The URL of the production tenant is provided to the Service Desk Analysts and published to the user population. By the time we actually “Go-Live” the analysts and user community generally have had exposure, but we will monitor to assure that no major concerns are experienced.
There may be a phased roll-out of additional features over time. For example, incident may be published for analysts where the user needing assistance will still call the Support Desk for assistance.
The self-service capability might be enabled at a future date or additional features such as service request provided as they are developed and validated.
In the next blog post we will be discussing Updating and Upgrading your ISM Implementation.
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