Contents

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

The Core Publication of ITIL : Continual Service Improvement

IT Infrastructure Management Processes

Availability Management

Service Level Management

Capacity Management
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

What is ITIL Framework?

ITIL is a framework that s recognized as the de facto standard as the basis for

implementing an IT Service Management. The five phrases that comprise the services

stages cover a broad field of information and responsive management of IT infrastructures.

At its detailed base, ITIL is a collection of proven practices organized into processes, a

process being a set of ordered activities designed to achieve a goal. In addition to

processes, ITIL also describes functions. The processes and functions in ITIL can be

implemented in their entirety or selectively, depending on the needs of the organization.

The Structure of ITIL

From a structural standpoint ITIL interprets IT Service Management as operating through a

series of lifecycle phases with service maturity moving through a sequence of managed

stages. For each stage there is a varying mix of processes, functions, and activities an IT

organization should consider for each service it builds and moves towards production. In
the Service Strategy phase, the organization views new or enhanced services in light of

what exists in its IT portfolio already. The main focus is on complementary and value-

added expansion. The Service Design phase introduces processes that deal with the kinds

of scope and performance considerations that need to be accounted for as services are

being designed. Service Transition includes those preparatory activities that need to be

done in order to move a service from development into production. Service Operation

features those processes and functions that guide how services are managed and

maintained while they are being delivered to customers. Running through all four of these

phases is Continual Service Improvement. This is the process improvement phase which

take care of the other fours phrases to present practices for improving service features,

performance, and quality.

Service Strategy

The Service Strategy phase is designed to provide an organization with processes useful

for directing the form and function of an IT Service Management. The scope of this

direction includes evolving the shape of the infrastructure as well as applying techniques

for designing, transitioning, and operating IT services. It supports what might best be

described as competitive service delivery that combines cost effectiveness with maximized

efficiency. At the same time, Service Strategy helps the organization frame its service

offerings in a manner appropriate for its customer base. Five processes are presented in

following:
 Strategy Management for IT Services

This process assesses the service providers offerings and capabilities, together

with an assessment of competitors, current and potential market spaces to develop

a strategy for services to customers.

Service Portfolio Management

The purpose of Service Portfolio Management is to strategically manage all the

assets that make up the organizations infrastructure in a way that contributes to

business success.

Demand Management

Demand Management is structured to ensure that the Service Portfolio is sized and

configured in the most effective way as to balance demand (present and future) with

operating costs.

Financial Management for IT Services

The Financial Management for IT Services process is designed to ensure that

investments made to create or enhance services are appropriately balanced against

potential Return on Investment (ROI), demand, and the market needs of the

organization.

Business Relationship Management

The purpose of this process is to maintain a positive and proactive relationship with

customers; its primary concern is customer satisfaction.

Service Design
Service Design provides a set of processes intended to ensure that core service attributes

are accounted for and that they meet both the technical and business needs of the

organization. This phrase contains eight processes that focus on considerations that go

into designing a new service or enhancing an existing one. The emphasis across the

seven processes is on production reliability, assuring that once a service is deployed it is

appropriately secure, that it is consistently available, it is dependably capable of handling

the required capacity, and it is quickly recoverable. The processes in this lifecycle phase

are:

Design Coordination

Design Coordination ensures the consistent and effective design of new or changed IT

services, Service Management information systems, architectures, technology, processes,

information and metrics.

Service Catalogue Management

Service Catalogue contains descriptions of business and technical services that the

organization is prepared to deliver to a customer. The aim of Service Catalogue

Management is to define, publish, and distribute a catalogue of current service offerings.

Service Level Management

Service Level Management is in place to establish agreements between IT and its

customers about the scope of services and the quality of service delivery.

Availability Management

This process is designed to help ensure that services are designed in such a manner that

the customers availability needs are accounted for and met.

Capacity Management

This process is structured to ensure that services are designed in such a manner that the

customers capacity needs are accounted for and met, now and in the future.

IT Service Continuity Management

This process is in place to ensure that technical service continuity is maintained if there

are disruptive events so that business activity may be protected.

Information Security Management

Information Security Management ensures that the integrity of business data, services,

and service components are protected from threats through appropriate access and

configuration schemes.

Supplier Management

The intention of this process is to help select and manage suppliers in a way that promotes

a partnership between IT management and its IT service providers, one that contributes to

meeting defined service levels.

Service Transition

Service Transition provides a set of processes intended to ensure that new or enhanced

services are deployed to the operational environment in such a way as to minimize

downtime and protect infrastructure operability. Service Transition is the third phase in the

service lifecycle. At this point a service is ready to move from concept into production. The

idea of transition provides that this move is made in a coordinated and controlled manner,

one that minimizes risk to the operational environment. Seven processes are included

here, which cover the progression from transition planning to change management through

to performance evaluation. Seven processes are presented in following:

Transition Planning and Support

ITIL provides this process to establish a management capability within the organization for

transitioning services from design to live operational service.

Change Management

Change Management provides the organization with a method for introducing change in a

coordinated and collaborative manner.

 Service Asset and Configuration Management

This process helps ensure that the organizations operational assets are tracked in a way

that reflects their current states and configurations.

Release and Deployment Management

ITIL provides this process to ensure that adequate plans exist for moving new or enhanced

services into production.

Service Validation and Testing

The purpose of Service Validation and Testing is to ensure that new or enhanced services

are thoroughly tested and verified against operating requirements before deployment.

Change Evaluation

The Change Evaluation process provides a way to verify that a services performance

meets the intended operating parameters and contributes to business missions as

intended.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is designed to provide the organization with a repository of

knowledge that can be referenced as an aid to managing the infrastructure in an effective

manner.

Service Operation

Service Operation provides a set of processes and functions to ensure IT services are

managed in production in a manner that results in expected service performance. This

fourth ITIL lifecycle phase deals with the day-to-day management, operation, and

maintenance of IT services. Here is the culmination of the activities that occur under

Service Strategy, Service Design, and Service Transition. Additionally, it is the tangible

value of IT service delivery and service quality is practically realized. Five processes are

defined for this phase in following:

 Event Management

An event is any change of state with regard to a service or a service component. Many

events naturally occur within an IT environment. Some may be ignored. Some may simply

be noted and logged.

Incident Management

ITIL defies an incident as an event that causes an interruption to an IT service or

degrades the quality of that service. The purpose of Incident Management is to ensure that

service interruptions are minimized through proactive and reactive management and

response mechanisms.

Problem Management

A problem is the source of one or more incidents, or a set of related incidents. The

purpose of Problem Management is to ensure that the underlying root causes of service

disruptions are identified and addressed as necessary.

Request Fulfilment

Request Fulfillment is a key customer-facing process under Service Operation. This

process is intended to provide the user community with a mechanism for submitting

requests for service to IT support teams.

Access Management

This process is designed to provide customers with appropriate, authorized, and controlled

access to services, systems, system components, and data.

Continual Service Improvement

The Continual Service Improvement lifecycle phase provides processes intended to

position the organization so that it can develop an ongoing focus on Service Management

improvement. Continual Service Improvement is periodic activity under ITIL and it lies at

the vital heart of the framework. The main idea is to make conscientious efforts to refine

and improve service delivery and service quality over time, and to make these efforts a
routine part of how the organization conducts business. With any process program like ITIL

this concept of improvement is key. Improved services and Service Management

techniques lead to more productive and efficient services. That translates into better

support for the business, heightened customer satisfaction levels, and more assured

market success.
The Core Publication of ITIL : Continual Service Improvement

Continual Service Improvement describes best practice for achieving incremental and

large scale improvements in service quality, operational efficiency and business continuity

and for ensuring that the service portfolio continues to be aligned to business needs.

Purpose

Continual service improvement (CSI) aims to deliver business value by ensuring that the

service management implementation continues to deliver the desired business benefits.

Objectives

CSI has a number of objectives. These may change depending on organizational goals,

but will typically include:

Working to improve all stages of the service lifecycle including CSI itself

Carrying out review and analysis of services, service management processes and

service level performance

Identifying improvements to IT services, service management processes and cost

effectiveness

Implementing improvements without affecting customer satisfaction

Assessing current measurement methods and identifying any shortcomings

Applying quality management to CSI; many organizations will already have a quality

management methodology in place that can be applied to CSI activities, preventing

duplication of methodologies.
Continual Service Improvement Approach

CSI needs to be managed, so tasks are not duplicated or missed. The CSI approach

includes the six questions that can be asked from a business and IT perspective to

identify what and how to improve[4].

What Is the Vision?

Clarify the vision, taking into account both the business and IT vision,

mission, goal and objectives, and ensuring that everyone has a correspond

understanding.

Where Are We Now?

Assess the current situation and establish a baseline of exactly where the

organization is currently.

Where Do We Want to Be?

Define steps towards the vision based on priorities for improvement and

setting measurable targets.

How Do We Get There?

Document an improvement plan, using service and process improvement

techniques.

Did We Get There?

 Monitor achievements, making use of appropriate measures and metrics as

defined earlier.

How Do We Keep The Momentum Going?

Maintain the momentum by ensuring that improvements are embedded and

looking for further improvement opportunities.

Activities of Continual Service Improvement

The Deming Cycle

The Deming Cycle (also known as the Deming circle or Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle) is an

important model for CSI[1]. The cycle has four main stages:

Plan: create a plan of activities, including roles and responsibilities.

Do: implement the plan.

Check: assess whether the plan delivered what it was supposed to.

Act: carry out any corrections or new actions required.

The Deming Cycle is used during the implementation of CSI, and during the

implementation of improvements. It is based on incremental improvements, not huge

changes that the organization may struggle to cope with.

Service Measurement

There are actual reasons why the organization monitor and measure services and

processes. There are the following reasons to measure the service performance[4]:

To validate previous decisions or to provide evidence that the previous decisions

To direct activities by setting targets that need to be met

To justify a course of action

To intervene and initiate corrective action such as performed in Event Management

There are three main types of metric that support CSI: service, process and technology.

Technology metrics

These are component-based or application-based such as server availability and

application performance.

Process metrics

These are used to help determine the health of a process and are crucial to process

improvement.

Service metrics

These are the crucial metrics because, ultimately, the organization must measure

service from end to end.

The 7 Steps Improvement Process

The process can be used to add more depth to each step of the Deming Cycle, leading on

to justified improvements in service quality and cost effectiveness. The process addresses

service performance and capabilities, processes, partners and technology involved with

service delivery. It can be applied to the full service lifecycle, not just to live services[1].

The objectives of the Seven-Step Improvement Process include:

to identify improvements

to reduce the cost of service provision and make sure services meet business

requirements

to identify measurements needed to justify improvement

to continually review services and service achievement

to understand what to measure

This is a cornerstone of CSI, the main steps of which are as follows:

Step 1: Identify the strategy for improvement

Identify the overall vision, business need, the strategy and the tactical and operational

goals. Triggers and inputs for the improvement process are as follows:

Business plans and strategy

Service review meetings

Vision and mission statements

Corporate objectives

Legislative requirements

Governance requirements

Customer satisfaction surveys

CSI register

Step 2: Define what you will measure

This step is directly related to the goals that have been defined for measuring the services

and service management processes to support the measurement and CSI activities. This

step has the following inputs:

 Service review meeting

Service portfolio and the service catalog

Budget cycle

Measurement results and reports

Customer satisfaction surveys

Benchmark data

Risk assessments and risk mitigation plans

Step 3: Gather the data

Gathering the data requires having monitoring in place. It is important to remember that for

CSI data capture, These are less concerned with real-time monitoring and more interested

in the exceptions, resolutions, and trends associated with the data produced. This step of

the process includes the following inputs:

New business requirements

Existing SLAs

Existing tools and monitoring capability

Plans from service management processes

Trend analysis reports

CSI register

Gap analysis reports

Customer satisfaction survey

Step 4: Process the data

This step allows us to convert the data into the required format and audience. It shows how

to follow the trail from metric to KPI to CSF and back to the vision. Inputs to processing

data are as follows:

Data collected through monitoring

Reporting requirements

SLAs/OLAs
 Service catalog

List of metrics, KPIs, CSFs, objectives, and goals

Report frequency/template

Step 5: Analyze information and data

Analysis of the information and data we have produced so far from the process is crucial to

enabling its proper use. It is necessary to establish what the information actually means to

the organization. The inputs to this step are as follows:

Results of the monitored data

Existing KPIs and targets

Information and perceptions from customer satisfaction surveys

Step 6: Present and use the information

The knowledge gained can now be presented in a format that is easy to understand and

allows those receiving the information to make strategic, tactical and operational decisions.

The information needs to be provided at the right level and in the right way for the intended

audience. Inputs to this step of the process are as follows:

Collated information

Format details (such as report templates)

Stakeholder contact information

Step 7: Implement improvements to correct

This stage may include a number of actions, from improvement activities to submitting a

business case to justify an improvement. It will involve integration with other service
management processes and other lifecycle stages and will include checking to make sure

the improvement achieved its objective. This step includes the following inputs:

Knowledge gained from presenting and using the information

Agreed implementation plans

CSI register

IT Infrastructure Management Processes: Availability Management

Availability management is part of the service design phase of the ITSM core lifecycle.

Availability management is the necessary precaution, prevention and activities that need to

be carried out by IT services to ensure that the various committed IT services are available

to end-users during the committed time periods. Availability management involves

anticipating and preventing failures, maintenance activities, ensuring security, monitoring

and recoverability. Unless there are unanticipated issues, such assurances must be upheld

by the IT department.

The Important of Availability Management

Customers and businesses depend on IT for most of their needs. An organizations

mission-critical systems must be online and accessible at all times because there will be

many subsystems, departments and even external customers that will be connected and

dependent on them. High availability is very important to most organizations. End-users

must be able to send and receive e-mails whenever they want, during office hours, so IT

services must take the necessary precautions and maintenance activities to ensure that

the e-mail servers are online during office hours.

Purpose of Availability Management

The purpose of the availability management process is to take the necessary steps to

deliver the availability requirements defined in the SLA. The process should consider both

the current requirements and the future needs of the business. All actions taken to improve

availability have an accompanying cost, so all improvements made must be assessed for

cost-effectiveness.

Objective of Availability Management

The objectives of availability management are as follows:

 Producing and maintaining a plan that details how the current and future availability

requirements are to be met. This plan should consider requirements 12 to 24 months in

advance to ensure that any necessary expenditure is agreed on in the annual budget

negotiations and any new equipment is bought and installed before the availability is

affected. The plan should be revised regularly to take into account any changes in the

business.

Providing advice throughout the service lifecycle on all availability-related issues to both

the business and IT, ensuring that the impact of any decisions on availability is

considered.

Managing the delivery of services to meet the agreed targets. Where downtime has

occurred, availability management will assist in resolving the incident by utilizing incident

management and, when appropriate, resolving the underlying problem by utilizing the

problem management process

The Main Responsibilities of Availability Management

Some of the key responsibilities are:

Determining availability requirements from the business.

Determining vital business functions.

Business impact analysis.

Defining targets for availability

Monitoring and trend analysis

Reporting

The Subprocesses of Availability Management

Availability management has the following sub-processes.

Design services for availability: This process will design the procedures and technical

features required to fulfill the agreed availability levels.

 Availability testing: This process will make sure that all availability, resilience and

recovery mechanisms are subject to regular testing.

Availability monitoring and reporting: This process will provide other service

management processes and IT management with information related to service and

component availability.

The Four Aspects of Availability

Availability

This means the ability of a service or a component to perform its agreed-on, documented

function when required.

Reliability

This is how long a service or component can perform its function without interruption.

Maintainability

This is how quickly and effectively a service or component can be returned to its agreed-on

functionality after failure.

Serviceability

It refers to the ability of a supplier (a third party) to meet the contractual targets for

availability, reliability, and maintainability.

IT Infrastructure Management Processes: Service Level Management

Service level management (SLM) is the process of defining, agreeing, documenting and

managing an effective IT service that is expected by the business. SLM covers service

level agreements (SLAs), operational level agreements (OLAs), underpinning contracts

(UCs) and related activities, such as periodic reviews, updating and deletions, as well as

publishing, and making them known to all concerned. The main aim of SLM is to ensure an

acceptable quality of the IT services provided, at a cost acceptable to the business, and
indirectly to the final external consumers of the companys products. SLM is part of the

service design phase of the ITSM core lifecycle[2].

Objective of SLM

The objectives of service level management are not restricted to define, document, agree,

monitor, measure, report, review and undertaking improvement actions when necessary. It

also includes working with business relationship management to build a good working

relationship with the business customers. The regular meetings held with the business as

part of service level management form the basis of a strong communications channel that

strengthens the relationship between the customer and IT.

Scope of SLM

The scope of service level management includes the performance of existing services

being provided and the definition of required service levels for planned services. It forms a

regular communication channel between the business and the IT service provider on all

issues concerning the quality of service. SLM therefore has an important role to play in

managing customers expectations to ensure that the level of service they expect and the

level of service they perceive they are receiving match

Service Level Agreement

A service level agreement (SLA) is a signed contract between a service provider and a

customer that defines, in writing, the services provided, the metrics associated with those

services, acceptable and unacceptable service levels, and liabilities on the part of the

service provider and the customer. If a guaranteed level of service is important for your

end-users, then business managers should have a proper, negotiated agreement with the

IT departments and the service providers they depend on external vendors.

Responsibilities of SLM
Having SLM allows a healthy alignment between the business and IT services. Successful

SLM will be the following lists::

Establish a service catalogue

A list of all services, priorities, documentation, availability and key contacts, provided by IT

services to the business, or a business unit. It may also include service charges and billing

information. A catalogue may specify that IT services are responsible for maintaining all

computers, servers, printers and telecommunication facilities in the organizations

Establish proper SLAs

Organizations can have several IT departments, such as desktop support, server support,

network services and software support. These departments must work in a cooperative

manner to resolve various IT issues.

Establish UCs (underpinning contracts)

A UC is an agreement with an external or third-party vendor, or supplier, for services and

materials required by IT services. IT services could have an agreement with a desktop

spares supplier to supply necessary parts within agreed time-frames, for various desktop

hardware faults.

Ensure necessary management reporting

The SLM manager can generate the necessary reports to see how well the SLM

processes are working, or not working. These reports will have been generated based on

measurements specified in the SLA, OLA and UCs.

The Subprocesses of Service Level Management

SLM has the following sub-processes.

Maintenance of the SLM framework: This process designs and maintains the

underlying structure of the customer agreement portfolio, and provides templates for the

various SLM documents.

 Identification of service requirements: This process will capture desired outcomes, or

requirements, from the customer viewpoint, for new services or major service

modifications. The service requirements are to be documented and submitted to an

initial evaluation, so that alternatives may be sought at an early stage for requirements

which are not technically or economically feasible.

Agreements sign-off and service activation: This involves having all relevant

contracts signed off after completion of service transition, and check if service

acceptance criteria are fulfilled. In particular, this process makes sure that all relevant

OLAs are signed off by their service owners, and that the SLA is signed off by the

customer.

Service level monitoring and reporting: This process will monitor achieved service

levels and compare them with agreed service level targets. This information is circulated

to customers and all other relevant parties, as a basis for measures to improve service

quality.

Measurement of Availability

The term vital business function (VBF) is used to reflect the part of a business process that

is critical to the success of the business. The more vital the business function generally,

the greater the level of resilience and availability that needs to be incorporated into the

design of the supporting IT services. The availability requirements for all services, vital or

not, should be determined by the business and not by IT. Certain vital business functions

may need special designs, these commonly include the following functions:

High Availability

This is a characteristic of the IT service that minimizes or masks the effects of IT

component failure to the users of a service.

Fault Tolerance
This is the ability of an IT service, component, or configuration item to continue to operate

correctly after failure of a component part.

Continuous Operation

This is an approach or design to eliminate planned downtime of an IT service. Individual

components or configuration items may be down even though the IT service remains

available.

Continuous Availability

This is an approach or design to achieve full availability. A continuously available IT service

has no planned or unplanned downtime.

Risk for SLM

Some of the risks associated with service level management are as follows:

A lack of accurate input, involvement, and commitment from the business and

customers

Lack of appropriate tools and required resources

The process becoming a bureaucratic, administrative process

Access to and support of appropriate and up-to-date CMS and SKMS

Bypassing the use of the service level management processes

High customer expectations and low perception

IT Infrastructure Management Processes: Capacity Management

Capacity management is considered throughout the lifecycle; as part of strategy, the likely

capacity requirements for a new service are considered as part of the service evaluation to

ensure that the service is meeting a real need. In design, the service is engineered to cope

with that demand and to be flexible enough to be able to adjust to meet changing capacity

requirements. Transition ensures that the service, when implemented, is delivering

according to its specification. The operational phase of the lifecycle ensures that day-to-

day adjustments that are necessary to meet changes in requirements are implemented.

Finally, as part of continual service improvement, capacity-related issues are addressed

and adjustments are made to ensure that the most cost-effective and reliable delivery of

the service is achieved.

Purpose of Capacity Management

The purpose of the capacity management process is to understand the current and future

capacity needs of a service and to ensure that the service and its supporting services are

able to deliver to this level.

Objective of Capacity Management

The objectives of capacity management are met by the development of a detailed plan that

states the current business requirement, the expected future requirement, and the actions

that will be taken to meet these requirements.

Responsibilities of Capacity Management

One of the key responsibilities of capacity management is to understand current and future

business requirements, and to try and fulfill them in a cost-effective manner. The principal

responsibilities of capacity management are[3]:

Business capacity management

The capacity management team is responsible for ensuring that the future business

requirements for IT services are studied, planned and implemented in a cost-effective and

timely fashion. Requirements for the future usually come from the various business

managers, business plans and forecasts.

 Service capacity management

This area focuses on the performance of current services used by the business. It studies

the current IT services, how they are being used and peak usages, and ensures that the

services can meet their SLA targets. It tries to ensure that committed performance of the

various services meets the business requirements.

Resource capacity management

The capacity management team is concerned with identifying and understanding the

capacity and utilization of various CIs in the organization.

Risks of Capacity Management

The following list includes some of the major risks associated with capacity management:

A lack of commitment from the business to the capacity management process.

A lack of appropriate information from the business on future plans and strategies.

A lack of senior management commitment to or a lack of resources or budget for the

capacity management process.

Service capacity management and component capacity management performed in

isolation because business capacity management is difficult or there is a lack of

appropriate and accurate business information.

The processes become too bureaucratic or manually intensive.

The processes focus too much on the technology and not enough on the services and

the business.

The reports and information provided are too technical and do not give the information

required by or appropriate for the customers and the business[3].

 References

[1] Aidan Lawes, Ernest Brewster, Richard Griffiths, Continual Services Improvement and

Seven Steps Improvement Processes, in IT Service Management - A guide for ITIL

Foundation Exam candidates, 2th ed. , British Informatics Society Limited, 2012, ch. 6,

sec. 2.

[2] Claire Agutter, Service Level Management and Availability Management, in IITIL

Foundation Essentials: The exam facts you need, 1th ed, 2012, ch.8.

[3]Jim Davis, Capacity Management, in ITIL Foundation All-in-One Exam Guide, 1th ed,

2016, ch.4.

[4] Anthony Orr, Dag Blokkum, Ken Turbitt, Frederieke C.M Winkler Prin, Continual

Service Improvement, in Best Practice Insights Focus On: ITIL Continual Service

Improvement For ITIL 2011, 1th ed. AXELOS Limited, 2016, pp. 514.