IT Service Management

This holistic view and control of the organisational environment is provided by configuration management. The complexities now present within IT infrastructures emphasise the need for automated configuration management to assist in the creation and maintenance of the map of the infrastructure. In many organisations, it is impossible to even consider carrying out this task manually, and those that do attempt it will find that it is labour-intensive, expensive, and the resulting output persistently out of date. Of course, out of date information can be more dangerous and damaging than no information, and it can cause severe problems when decisions are made on false, incorrect configuration data.

Configuration management involves the identification and definition of the assets within the IT infrastructure such as switches, software, and servers, and the relationship between the various components. When stored in a central database such as an ITIL CMDB, and it is updated to reflect changes then up-to-date information is available so that impact and risks of proposed changes to the infrastructure can be accurately assessed Increasingly, proactive tools are coming to market that provide solutions in this space incorporating auto discovery. Organisations implementing best practice frameworks, such as ITIL or COBIT, need a quick way to establish configuration management databases and these management products can provide the solution.

The reasoning behind ITIL is that certain functions are imperative in managing high-quality IT services. It provides guidelines on change management, problem resolution, service levels, capacity and contingency planning, and configuration management. Some enterprises try to do configuration management manually when they believe that it is needed.

However, this highlights the problems associated with the lack of service management information. Change planning to assess the risks and impact of proposed changes can involve large teams of people and many meetings. Costs of services cannot be determined, and getting to the root causes of problems is complex and time consuming.

Although configuration management and the use of ITIL and/or COBIT, and the implementation of a CMDB can be seen as central structures for ITSM, the story does not stop there. It is the associated tools that provide the working environment in which the correct decisions can be implemented.
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Section1: Management Summary
1.1. Management Summary

Section 2: ITSM Fundamentals
2.1. Report Scope
2.2. Defining ITSM
2.3. Rationale for ITSM
2.4. Using ITSM to Run IT as a Business
2.5. The Value of ITIL

Section 3: Foundations for Implementation
3.1. Creating a Foundation Architecture for Service Management
3.2. From Transaction Management to Service Management
3.3. Infrastructure Concerns in ITSM
3.4. Ensuring Service Levels

Section 4: Implementation and Control of ITSM Elements
4.1. Portfolio Management and the Service Catalogue
4.2. Service Help Desk
4.3. Incident Management
4.4. Problem Management
4.5. Change Management
4.6. Release Management
4.7. Configuration Management
4.8. Security Management
4.9. Business Service Management
4.10. Application Management
4.11. Service Level Management
4.12. Financial Management for IT Services
4.13. IT Service Continuity
4.14. Availability Management
4.15. Capacity Management

Section 5: Market Dynamics
5.1. Market Adoption
5.2. Vertical Market Considerations
5.3. Futures

Section 6: Solution Profiles
6.1 Total Infrastructure Providers

BMC Software – Business Service Management (BSM)
CA – Enterprise IT Management (EITM)
Hewlett-Packard – HP OpenView
IBM Tivoli – IBM IT Service Management


6.2 Discrete Solution Providers

1E Ltd. – Windows Management Solutions
Axios Systems – assist
Compuware – Vantage, STROBE
EMC Smarts – EMC Smarts Product Suite
Entuity – Eye Of The Storm
Epicor – IT Service Management
FrontRange – IT Service Management
Fujitsu – Systemwalker v12.0
HyPerformix – IPS Capacity Manager™
Hypersoft Information Systems – OmniAnalyser™ v8.7 and OmniContext™ v2.0
LANDesk – LANDesk® Management Suite 8
Managed Objects – Business Service Management
Mercury – Application Management
Microsoft – Dynamic Systems Initiative
OPNET Technologies – IT Guru and IT Sentinel
Pink Elephant
SAS – SAS® IT Management Solutions
Sungard Availability Services – Information Availability and Business Continuity
Tideway Systems Ltd. – Tideway Foundation™
Touchpaper – Touchpaper IT Business Management version 7

Section 7: Glossary
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