Itil - Operational Support & Analysis

Front 1

Business Value of Incident Management

Back 1

The value of Incident Management includes:

* The ability to detect and resolve incidents, which results in lower downtime to the business, which in turn means higher availability of the service. This means that the business is able to exploit the functionality of the service as designed.

* The ability to align IT activity to real-time business priorities. This is because Incident Management includes the capability to identify business priorities and dynamically allocate resources as necessary.

* The ability to identify potential improvements to services. This happens as a result of understanding what constitutes an incident and also from being in contact with the activities of business operational staff.

* The Service Desk can, during its handling of incidents, identify additional service or training requirements found in IT or the business.

Incident Management is highly visible to the business, and it is therefore easier to demonstrate its value than most areas in Service Operation. For this reason, Incident Management is often one of the first processes to be implemented in Service Management projects. The added benefit of doing this is that Incident Management can be used to highlight other areas that need attention – thereby providing a justification for expenditure on implementing other processes.

Front 2

Business Value of Request Fulfilment

Back 2

The value of Request Fulfilment is to provide quick and effective access to standard services which business staff can use to improve their productivity or the quality of business services and products.

Request Fulfilment effectively reduces the bureaucracy involved in requesting and receiving access to existing or new services, thus also reducing the cost of providing these services. Centralising fulfilment also increases the level of control over these services. This in turn can help reduce costs through centralised negotiation with suppliers, and can also help to reduce the cost of support.

Front 3

Business Value of Problem Management

Back 3

Problem Management works together with Incident Management and Change Management to ensure that IT service availability and quality are increased. When incidents are resolved, information about the resolution is recorded. Over time, this information is used to speed up the resolution time and identify permanent solutions, reducing the number and resolution time of incidents. This results in less downtime and less disruption to business critical systems.

Additional value is derived from the following:

* Higher availability of IT services

* Higher productivity of business and IT staff

* Reduced expenditure on workarounds or fixes that do not work

* Reduction in cost of effort in fire-fighting or resolving repeat incidents.

Front 4

Business Value of Access Management

Back 4

Access Management provides the following value:

* Controlled access to services ensures that the organization is able to maintain more effectively the confidentiality of its information

* Employees have the right level of access to execute their jobs effectively
There is less likelihood of errors being made in data entry or in the use of a critical service by an unskilled user (e.g. production control systems)

* The ability to audit use of services and to trace the abuse of services

* The ability more easily to revoke access rights when needed – an important security consideration

* May be needed for regulatory compliance (e.g. SOX, HIPAA, COBIT).

Front 5

Business Value of OSA Activities

Back 5

* Reduce unplanned labour and costs for both the business and IT through optimised handling of service outages and identification of their root causes.

* Reduce the duration and frequency of service outages which will allow the business to take full advantage of the value created by the services they are receiving.

* Provide operational results and data that can be used by other ITIL processes to improve services continually and provide justification for investing in ongoing service improvement activities and supporting technologies.

* Meet the goals and objectives of the organisation's security policy by ensuring that IT services will be accessed only by those authorised to use them.

* Provide quick and effective access to standard services which business staff can use to improve their productivity or the quality of business services and products.

* Provide a basis for automated operations, thus increasing efficiencies and allowing expensive human resources to be used for more innovative work, such as designing new or improved functionality or defining new ways in which the business can exploit technology for increased competitive advantage.

Front 6

Context of Service Operation within ITIL Service Lifecycle

Back 6

Service Operation describes best practice for managing services in supported environments. It includes guidance on achieving effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery and support of services to ensure value for the customer, the users and the service provider.

Strategic objectives are ultimately realised through service operation, therefore making it a critical capability. ITIL Service Operation provides guidance on how to maintain stability in service operation, allowing for changes in design, scale, scope and service levels. Orgsniations are provided with details process guidelines, methods andt ools for use in two ajor control perspectives: reactive and proactive. Managers and practitioners are provided with knowledge allowing them to make better decisions in areas such as managing the availability of services, controlling demand, optimising capacity utilisation, scheduling of operations, and avoiding or resolving service incidents and managing problems. New models and architectures such as shared services, utility computing, web services and mobile commerce to support servie operation are described.

Other topics in ITIL Service Operation include event management, incident management, request fulfilment, problem management and access management processes; as well as the service desk, technical management, IT operations management and application management functions.

Front 7

What is the first way (of two) in which service operation is optimised?

Back 7

Long-term incremental improvement.

This is based on evaluating the performance and output of all service operation processes, technologies, functions, and outputs over time.

The reports are analysed and a decision made about whether improvement is needed and, if so, how best to implement it through service design and transition. Examples include the deployment of a new set of tools, changes to process designs, reconfiguration of the infrastructure etc. This type of improvement is covered in detail in ITIL Continual Service Improvement.

Front 8

What is the second way (of two) in which service operation is optimised?

Back 8

Short-term ongoing improvements.

These are the improvements made to working practices within the processes, functions and technologies that underpin service operation itself. They are generally smaller improvements that are implemented without any change to the fundamental nature of a process or technology. Examples including tuning, workload balancing, personnel redeployment and training etc.

Front 9

Purpose of event management

Back 9

* Manage events through their lifecycle
* Detect events, make sense of them and determine the appropriate control action
* Basis for operational monitoring and control (including automation)

Front 10

Objectives of event management

Back 10

* Detect all changes of state that have significance for the management of a CI or IT Service

* Determine the appropriate control action for events and ensure these are communicated to the appropriate functions

* Provide the trigger or entry point, for the execution of many service operation processes and operations management activities.

* Provide the means to compare actual operating performance and behaviour against design standards and SLAs

* Provide a basis for service assurance and reporting; and service improvement.

Front 11

Scope of event management

Back 11

Event Management can be applied to any aspect of service management that needs to be controlled and which can be automated. This includes:

* CIs
- Some CIs will be included because they need to stay in a constant state (eg a core switch on a network).
- Some CIs will be included as their status changes frequently and needs to be updated in the CMS.

* Environmental Conditions

* Software licence monitoring for usage to ensure optimum/legal licence utilisation and allocation

* Security (e.g. intrusion detection)

* Normal activity (e.g. tracking the use of an application or performance of a server).

Front 12

Business Value of Event Management

Back 12

Event Management’s value to the business is generally indirect; however, it is possible to determine the basis for its value as follows:

* Event Management provides mechanisms for early detection of incidents. In many cases it is possible for the incident to be detected and assigned to the appropriate group for action before any actual service
outage occurs.

* Event Management makes it possible for some types
of automated activity to be monitored by exception – thus removing the need for expensive and resource intensive real-time monitoring, while reducing downtime.

* When integrated into other Service Management processes (such as, for example, Availability or Capacity Management), Event Management can signal status changes or exceptions that allow the appropriate person or team to perform early response, thus improving the performance of the process. This, in turn, will allow the business to benefit from more effective and more efficient Service Management overall.

* Event Management provides a basis for automated operations, thus increasing efficiencies and allowing expensive human resources to be used for more innovative work, such as designing new or improved functionality or defining new ways in which the business can exploit technology for increased competitive advantage.

* Event management can have a direct bearing on service delivery and customer satisfaction. As an example, an automated teller machine may generate event notifications that indicate the device is running low on cash, potentially avoiding the failure of the cash withdrawal portion of that service and its immediate impact on customer satisfaction.