ITSM employs ITIL documented best practices and in most cases extends beyond into additional areas such as enhanced processes and implementation to provide additional value-added functionality. At present, ITSM methods have evolved to include specific ways to enable and optimize assessment, planning, and implementation of ITIL best practices.
One primary origin of ITSM can be found in the systems management services and functions historically done in large scale mainframe environments. Through constant refinement over the years these services and functions attained a high level of maturity. Problem and change management, configuration management, capacity planning, performance management, disaster recovery, availability management, etc. are some examples.
When examining the differences between mainframe systems management services and ITSM, it becomes apparent that when ITSM is applied in today's IT environment and across the enterprise the benefits and sophistication of its best practices are highlighted and exemplified. Where mainframe environments are typically centralized, ITSM is applicable to both distributed and centralized environments. In addition, where mainframe services are typically stand-alone and technology based, ITSM provides for integrated services that are process based with a focus on satisfying business requirements.
Although managing the technology itself is a necessary component of most ITSM solutions, it is not a primary focus. Instead ITSM addresses the need to align the delivery of IT services closely with the needs of the business. This transformation of a traditional "business - IT paradigm" can be depicted by some of the following attributes:
|Traditional I/T||becomes||ITSM Process|
|Technology focus||è||Process focus|
|Centralized, done in-house||è||Distributed, sourced|
|Isolated, silos||è||Integrated, enterprise-wide|
|"One off", adhoc||è||Repeatable, accountable|
|Informal processes||è||Formal best practices|
|IT internal perspective||è||Business perspective|
|Operational specific||è||Service orientation|
Business objectives, service level objectives, technology infrastructure and other areas play critical roles in any ITSM method paradigm and are presented and discussed in detail in ITSM Services
ITSM General Methodology
ITSM and ITIL upon which it is based are both an integrated, process based, set of best practices to manage IT services. Whereas ITIL defines and documents the best practices, ITSM employs them to meet unique customer requirements and priorities.
ITSM methodology encompasses the following areas (the basic areas of ITIL):
IT Service Support
Configuration Management - physical and logical perspective of the IT infrastructure and the IT services being provided
Change Management - standard methods and procedures for effective managing of all changes
Release Management - testing, verification, and release of changes to the IT environment
Incident Management - the day-to-day process that restores normal acceptable service with a minimal impact on business
Problem Management - the diagnosis of the root causes of incidents in an effort to proactively eliminate and manage them
Service Desk (Function) - a function not a process, this provides a central point of contact between users and IT
IT Service Delivery
Availability Management - optimize IT infrastructure capabilities, services, and support to minimize service outages and provide sustained levels of service to meet business requirements
IT Service Continuity - managing an organization's capability to provide the necessary level of service following an interruption of service
Capacity Management - enables an organization to tactically manage resources and strategically plan for future resource requirements
Service Level Management - maintain and improve the level of service to the organization
Financial Management for IT Services - managing the costs associated with providing the organization with the resources needed to meet requirements
Depending on the ITSM consulting methodology that is employed, additional value-added areas can be included. These areas could be separate but dependent on those listed above, such as Print and Output Management, or they could be sub-processes of those listed above, such as IT Strategy Development.
ITSM General Implementation
A typical high level overview of an ITSM implementation structure encompasses the following:
Determine the current, existing IT infrastructure, processes, and services
Develop some desired future state of IT and the services that it needs to provide
Architect a "roadmap" that depicts how to get to the desired state from the current state
Determine the steps needed to execute the "roadmap"
The ITSM implementation framework for each of the IT Service Delivery and Service Support areas listed above is a 5 phase model:
Assessment - determine the current state and begin to collect and understand the metrics for the future desired state
Architect and Design - develop a mature design for the future desired state
Planning - develop those plans necessary to achieve the future desired state in a phased evolutionary fashion
Implementation - implement and deploy the plans within IT and across the enterprise to achieve the future desired state
Support - manage, maintain, and improve the future desired state being able to adaptively integrate enhancements as needed or required
Within this framework, effectively managing IT as an enterprise wide, service oriented entity typically comprises one or more of the following separate and distinct perspectives:
People - quantity and quality of expertise and knowledge
Process - IT and organization specific practices, procedures, guidelines, etc. and the level of complexity and sophistication of them
Technology - total logical and physical technology infrastructure consisting of hardware, software, communication networks, applications, DBMS, etc.
Organization - internal and external business factors that affect IT, how IT and the organization interface, what is the organizations "corporate culture", what are the organization's direction and how does that affect IT
Integration - how is IT integrated within the business model, what services does IT provide, how are the services provided, and how are best practices employed within IT
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NOTE: This website and the information contained herein is maintained by Rick Leopoldi of RL Information Consulting LLC. Some information is considered "public domain" and contained here as a central repository, all other portions of IT Service Management information is proprietary to RL Information Consulting LLC.