Integrating autonomous Problem Resolution Models with Remedy

This paper briefly defines the concept of Problem Resolution Model and shows possible approaches to the issues which may arise when integrating various PRMs to present a consistent view to the end user, despite of the peculiarities of each physical implementation. Integration refers to various autonomous PRMs having to interact as problems pass from one to another in the resolution flow. This process should be transparent to the user and internally there must be a way to track in which stage of the resolution process any problem is. This means addressing two different issues. On one side PRMs which are to be integrated need to comply with certain interface standards. These standards must ensure that problems exchanged between them can always be traced. On the other side problems owned by different PRMs should be presented to the end user under a homogeneous view. This means having an uniform criteria for automatic notification messages, a single reference point (www) where users can query the status of problems regardless who owns them , etc. Remedy is a specialized development system designed to implement PRMs and it is the current choice of IT Division for such a system. When integrating Remedy based PRMs system there are some difficulties arising which are intrinsic to Remedy's design. In this paper we describe our assessment of those difficulties and their Remedy specific implementational implications.