The setup is straightforward. 

Generally speaking, Clarity's installation is relatively straightforward. Then again, it depends on how big the architecture is. If it's simple, implementation will take you a couple of hours. But if you have a vast infrastructure with multiple databases and application servers and want to enable the mobile app, it can get a bit complicated.

The amount of technical staff required also depends on the size of the implementation. If it's a small job, one consultant can handle it. But if it's a more extensive implementation with different process owners and stakeholders of the company taking part, then you need multiple consultants.

The initial setup, as far as the stand-alone system is concerned, is straightforward. But for a distributed or advanced eligibility system, it is tricky. It has multiple components. That means various application servers are running at the same time. There can be numerous users standing by for background services as well. So, when we run one installation, it automatically gets identified by the other application instance. We need to install the application separately on the different servers and then do some configuration changes on the central server.

The initial setup can be complex, especially if you want to track and notify on a variety of granular controls. The system is cool, in that it can do this stuff. However, the vendor oversells how easy it is and the training from CA is terrible.

We've been using the tool, the CA tool, for about almost 10 years now. When we initially set it up, it was pretty straightforward because we came from nothing. We didn't really have a service management tool.

We’ve had some hiccups with the upgrades themselves. There were some growing pains. I know they're trying to do a unified installer, and they're trying to make things easier, but they're still not there.

The initial setup of Clarity SM is an area where Broadcom has improved. The previous versions had big problems but with the recent versions, it's very easy to start off the setup. Most of the tasks during the setup are automated, there's not much that you have to do to go through the initial setup. There are a lot of other utilities that you can use to draw data from other sources and import it into the system. Automation of tasks has made it much easier to do the initial deployment of the system.

The deployment of Clarity SM meets all of our expectations. 

The installation was GUI-based, and was pretty standard and straightforward.

My part of the initial setup was pretty straightforward: setting up workflows, categories, and all that. It has a good GUI interface, even the admin functions have a good GUI interface. You do not have to be incredibly technical to use it.

We installed it in 2001. I was a bit to the side, but yes, I was a bit involved. And we implemented it, perhaps, not in an optimal way. We tried to change it so it suited us. That was, perhaps, a mistake. But we have changed it continuously as well.

Minimal training is required to get everyone up to speed and using the system.

I helped start that project and got it going, but then I moved on to a different job. I was involved in all of it, especially with the pricing and making sure we got enough licenses.

I was involved in the upgrade. We just recently did that this year. I was working the project management aspect of it to make sure it got implemented. I had a lot of help from other departments, so it was a very big team effort to get things done.

It went quite smoothly actually. We understand that now, with 17.1, it's even easier to upgrade, but the process didn't take that long. Considering the fact we'd been out of support on the older version and went to 14.1, it worked out quite well. And this is on a worldwide scale, it's used worldwide at Novus International, everyone uses it.

I was involved in the upgrade, the most recent upgrade that we did, not the initial setup. MGM Resorts has been on it for a while, but I did do the upgrade.

I was pretty new to it, and we've done patch upgrades since then. There are a lot of steps in it. But what I'm seeing here, at the CA World conference, is that they have new utilities that make it more seamless. I'll be interested to see when we go to '17 what that does for it.

I can’t comment on the initial setup.

In terms of initial setup, if it's a totally new deployment and starting from scratch, it would have been much easier. We are basically migrating from an old platform to a new platform. For that reason, it takes a bit longer. It's straightforward if it's a new deployment, but not that straightforward if you want to take into consideration building it from other sources.

In terms of timeline for a new deployment, three months is enough. But, it has taken us more than that to get to where we are now. I think we've been six months on the project and we haven't gone live yet. We're about 80% there. We used CA services for the deployment. 

Although I wasn't involved in the initial setup I have been involved with upgrades. They have been fairly complex. We've had some issues with upgrades where we had to roll back and get some things fixed. Some things that we ended up tracking back to not following directions right, but then other things we've run into issues.

The initial setup was straightforward.

It is not straightforward, but it is not complex since I have only done it about four or five thousand times. It depends on who is installing it if it would be complex.

The setup was of the intermediate level in complexity, but there is no need to worry about that.

We experienced no major delays in terms of the migration, configuration and setup tasks.

Since we were not upgrading but installing a new instance, the setup was very complex. We had to define all the configuration items and establish user update routines specific to our installation. However, there were CA support individuals on-site who were very instrumental in a successful installation.

I wasn’t involved in the initial setup, but I heard that it was pretty straightforward. They didn't really have very many issues. The CA people were able to help out with any problems we had.

I only got involved a few months after it was implemented.

No. I was involved in the upgrade, but not before that. It was pretty smooth.

Because there are so many different modules, the initial setup is not that straightforward. There are a lot of things that you need to do to get things to work together, although I'm used to that sort of iterative process. Sometimes, when I look at how other solutions such as BMC are deployed, I find them much easier.

CASDM can take months to deploy, especially if you have data that you've got to take from your previous versions. You may have a lot to do.

Initial setup was straightforward.

The initial setup was very easy. We're quite happy about that.

The initial setup is complex. CA Service Desk Manager has a complex architecture, and depending upon the features you choose to install, you need more than four machines, which is the minimum number recommended by CA. So, it is an effort, and the same for the business rules. A complex model means a bigger implementation effort, process automatization, means some other extra effort too.

I wasn’t directly involved in the initial setup of the product.

It's complex. Customers aren't really able to implement this system themselves, unless they are going to use everything out-of-the-box.

It was not straightforward. We essentially pulled out a legacy system that worked our team to the hilt as we were bringing in not only a new product, we were also bringing in a new process. We were looking at how we could follow a certain methodology, so it was a double whammy for our staff to develop that, so our implementation took a little longer.

The initial setup is simple and not so complex. Of course, you have a lot of configurations as all the processes themselves are complex, however, if you use the out-of-the-box features like the SLA and workflows it's more or less easy to implement. 

Sometimes the partner provides maintenance services and sometimes we handle the maintenance ourselves. Usually, we do the maintenance by ourselves. For example, if we need to do an upgrade to a new version, if we have the knowledge, we do it by ourselves, however, most of the time, we prefer to use a partner when it's something big or at least when it's something that we don't know for sure how best to handle things.

The initial installation was not complicated. It was pretty easy because I had previous experience. Occasionally, however, we did have problems with the environment and the application server would be on standby for a long time. I didn't find this too be too much of an issue though.

I don't think I needed anybody's help to stand it up. I think the documentation walked me through what I needed to do.

I think it's pretty easy. The documentation was good for somebody who has a background on it. I can stand it up with my eyes closed. I don't know if someone coming to it for the first time could look through the documentation and make sense of it, though.

Initial setup was complex, because components (SDM, BO, and PAM) were on different servers and a lot of configuration was needed during the setup. 

The initial setup was straightforward and was done by a third-party installer. I'd recommend using the three-tier solution rather than the two-tier solution for installation.

I wasn't involved in the setup.

Easy. In the latest versions it is straightforward.

I've been involved in initial setup many times. It can be complex, depending on the requirements of the customer, primarily, whenever the customer wants to deviate from the out-of-the-box, in a large way; if they want to over-customize because they think it should look that way. It's better to accept the way it looks rather than try to force it, because then when you come around to upgrading later, those customizations may or may not be appropriate.

It's as easy as a Windows install. You can check on CA Communities.

The setup was straightforward, once you have almost all the things planned.

The initial setup was straightforward, but there are many steps involved. I don’t fault the vendor for this. There are many aspects that require attention as the system is very customizable.

When we first did our development and implementation we didn't scale appropriately so we were not dedicating enough resources to the tool. All those bugs and issues we've been discovering initially were partly self-inflicted wounds that we had to overcome. Once we then worked with CA and said, "Well, it's not really so much of a bug or a problem, it's because you only got one core dedicated to this and you can't do much with just one core." Once we started getting our ducks in a row and start saying, "Well, how much do we really want to dedicate to the tool and how much do we want to see ourselves in the future." Once we started getting those aligned into our business needs things started to work a lot better.

The setup was straightforward, i.e., once you have almost everything planned, it is quite straightforward.

I was only involved in performing a reinstall on our development environment. The setup was easy. The documentation could have been better for a couple steps, but support was able to help.

The initial setup is straightforward. One can dump all databases and applications with one primary server into a single box with a minimum 8 GB RAM for applications and 8 GB RAM for databases in a vanilla setup. This allows you to have CA CMDB, Support Automation (Remote Connect to the end user by an analyst) along with a ticketing system and Knowledge Management.

A vanilla setup involve the following three steps, and the times given are adjustable +/-15 minutes -

1. Database setup (10 minutes)
2. Software installation (45 minutes)
3. Configuration (five minutes)

The initial setup is pretty much next-next-next-next-ok, if you just need to get it running to play with it. After you start thinking about security or fault tolerance and scalability, it becomes more complex. However, just to evaluate it a blunt tool from the shed will be enough to ram it in and get it running.

I think we were a year, year and a half into our big implementation of that whole ecosystem. I think initially we probably had some bumps and it was a little bit slow based on we were in the cloud, and migrated back into our data center so that we could see growth and speed and improvements there.

I'm managing the project, but I'm not integrating the technical part of it. I used to work in the front technical team for the center and the old versions, but nowadays I'm just managing the project as manager.

This initial setup of this solution was complex, considering external access for Mobile use.

I was not involved. It was already implemented when I joined the company. It was migrated from another company, and I understand the migration process was not difficult nor complex. 

The basic setup is easy and straightforward. The product is tailored around ITIL. Business processes need to account for that in order to make the most use of the product.

Installation is straight forward for conventional configuration following CA-recommended specifications. Advanced Availability configuration is more complex and requires good planning.

I was not involved in the initial setup but I was involved in the upgrade. The solution was already there. But when I started, I knew that there were new features that we needed, so we upgraded.

We went from 12.1 to 14, so there was a lot involved in it. But from what I hear, the upgrade from 14 to 17 is way easier. So I look forward to that.

The issues we had were migration issues, getting our information from one place to the next and making sure everything was as everyone needed.

I was involved in the upgrades. From the old database to the new database, I did that upgrade, and actually a fresh install, which was very straightforward. That was version 11 though. The newer versions have become a little bit more complicated to do a fresh install on, rather than doing an upgrade. They are a little bit easier to upgrade versus doing a fresh install.

The initial setup just depends whether you have training or not. Usually, you just need the first training. After that, you can just follow up with the guidelines that CA has given to you and you can pretty much go through them.

ITSM deployment projects are always quite difficult.

I wasn't involved in the implementation.

The initial setup was complex, it's possible that the integrations between this tool and other tools like Quality Center, ALM may have made the setup more difficult. 

They already had this stood up when I came to this company. But I own the system now. We just upgraded about a year and half ago and it was painful.

First of all it cost me a think $70,000 to pay my consultant. We had the testing of the dev environment, and then testing of the production environment, so it was two weekends out of my life. And stuff broke. 

The initial setup is tricky. There are a lot of things to keep in mind, especially when everything is moving to the cloud or is virtual. Scalability becomes a challenge if we use the wrong resources.

It's simple, as we used the manufacturer's documentation (Green Book).

The initial setup was direct and easy with the settings that occurred in the wizard. We used to make it version 14.1.

I was not involved in the initial setup, but was involved with one upgrade of it. The upgrade was pretty complex. They are really focusing on fixing the complexity of the upgrade, so it looks like it is going to be a lot easier.

Setup and integration went smooth. After installation, we were able to import ITIL content to get started modifying the processes to our needs.

Initial setup is straightforward.

SDM comes preloaded and preconfigured. We have started a service desk in a week, but without a doubt, the difficulty comes from the customer environment; the volume, the processes to be assembled, their level of maturity, etc.

It was not simple or complex to set up. It was medium with CA's support.

I was involved in the initial setup. The first one was quite complex because we had to integrate into legacy systems. We had to integrate into new solutions with other suppliers and integrate into the integration bus, so it was quite complex.

I was involved in the initial setup. The setup was complex. Out-of-the-box was definitely a difficult configuration because a lot of manual configuration needs to be done. It is due to the flexibility of the product. 

I am also having issues with the complexity of the upgrades. In regards to configuration to the new version, when you are not completely out-of-the-box, like an SSL configuration, it cause us issues with the upgrade. 

Initial setup was complex, but normal. We use test and homologation environments.

I am not interested in sharing this information.

Set up was very, very easy, and we were happy with this. There was no problem at all on this front.

The initial installation was simple. The initial configuration and integration between products was complex.

The initial setup was performed by our integrator.

The initial setup and integration was very complex. At the moment, we have an upgrade that is going to take eight months.

It's straightforward.

The high availability setup is more complex, but nothing special.