Topic 1: ITIL
- ITIL stands for Information
Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of concepts and techniques to providing a systematic approach to the management of IT services.
- ITIL helps organisations to:
->Reduce costs
->Improved IT services through the using best practices
->Improved customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery
->Improved productivity
->Improved use of skills and experience
->Improved delivery of third party service
The IT Service Life cycle is divided into several stages:
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Service Strategy is the heart of the service life cycle. It looks at managing conflicting demands from customers. It also looks at providing a transparent financial information to customers. Lastly, customers are able to know the services available to them from their IT organization. All these provide better communication with customers and services are delivered based on agreed expectations
-
Service Design is concerned with tactical processes that ensure consistent provision of services. It involves agreeing with customers on the expected level of services, planning for the capacity, availability, security and continuity.
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Service Transition is concerned with the movement from design to implementation. This includes systems and application development to provide the required services. It involves keeping track of assets and critical resources, planning for the development, managing changes that are requested by the customer, testing, implementation and sharing of knowledge.
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Service Operation deals with the day-to-day activities in providing the service. It covers functions in terms of providing a single point of contact, application team management, IT operations management, IT Technical management. It also looks at managing incidents and ensuring that problems are resolved. It also handles security access resources.
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Continual Service Improvement is a key concept in ITIL. Since processes are measurable, it is now possible to review existing processes and develop plans to improve services. Once these plans are implemented, the results can be measured and these can be compared with expected results with actual results.
All these processes in ITIL aim to give value by providing services that can increase profit or reduce costs.
In one word ITIL is:
Service Support+ Service Delivery = ITIL
Which companies use ITIL?
■ Large technology
companies such as Microsoft, HP, Fujitsu, IBM
Retailers such as Target, Walmart and Staples
■ Financial services organizations such as Citi,
Bank of America,
Barclays Bank
■ Entertainment entities such as Sony, Disney
Manufacturers such as Boeing, Toyota,
Bombardier
■ Life sciences companies such as Eli Lilly,
Pfizer, Takeda
Pharmaceuticals.
What is an Incident?
Based on the definition provided, an incident is something that needs to be resolved immediately. This can either be through a permanent fix, a workaround or a temporary fix.
An example of an incident would be a server crash which causes a disruption in the business process. If a server is used only during office hours, a crash after office hours is, strictly speaking based on the definition, not yet an incident since the no service was affected. It becomes an incident only when the outage extends to the hours of use.
If a disruption is planned, for example, a scheduled maintenance, this is not an incident. The outage should not be counted as part of the unavailability. If the scheduled outage exceeds the planned schedule, then the over time for the outage becomes an incident.
If an incident requires changes the emergency change process is normally followed, specially if the service level is critical.
What is a Problem?
Problems however are not incidents. An incident can raise a problem, specially if there is a high possibility that the incident might happen again. In the case of a server crash after office hours, the crash is a problem. This is a high priority problem because if this problem is not resolved, this will become an incident.
An incident does not become a problem. A problem may be raised because of an incident and as we've seen in the previous example, a problem may cause an incident
The IT Service Life cycle is divided into several stages:
- Service Strategy is the heart of the service life cycle. It looks at managing conflicting demands from customers. It also looks at providing a transparent financial information to customers. Lastly, customers are able to know the services available to them from their IT organization. All these provide better communication with customers and services are delivered based on agreed expectations
- Service Design is concerned with tactical processes that ensure consistent provision of services. It involves agreeing with customers on the expected level of services, planning for the capacity, availability, security and continuity.
- Service Transition is concerned with the movement from design to implementation. This includes systems and application development to provide the required services. It involves keeping track of assets and critical resources, planning for the development, managing changes that are requested by the customer, testing, implementation and sharing of knowledge.
- Service Operation deals with the day-to-day activities in providing the service. It covers functions in terms of providing a single point of contact, application team management, IT operations management, IT Technical management. It also looks at managing incidents and ensuring that problems are resolved. It also handles security access resources.
- Continual Service Improvement is a key concept in ITIL. Since processes are measurable, it is now possible to review existing processes and develop plans to improve services. Once these plans are implemented, the results can be measured and these can be compared with expected results with actual results.
All these processes in ITIL aim to give value by providing services that can increase profit or reduce costs.
In one word ITIL is:
Service Support+ Service Delivery = ITIL
Which companies use ITIL?
■ Large technology
companies such as Microsoft, HP, Fujitsu, IBM
Retailers such as Target, Walmart and Staples
■ Financial services organizations such as Citi,
Bank of America,
Barclays Bank
■ Entertainment entities such as Sony, Disney
Manufacturers such as Boeing, Toyota,
Bombardier
■ Life sciences companies such as Eli Lilly,
Pfizer, Takeda
Pharmaceuticals.
What is an Incident?
Based on the definition provided, an incident is something that needs to be resolved immediately. This can either be through a permanent fix, a workaround or a temporary fix.
An example of an incident would be a server crash which causes a disruption in the business process. If a server is used only during office hours, a crash after office hours is, strictly speaking based on the definition, not yet an incident since the no service was affected. It becomes an incident only when the outage extends to the hours of use.
If a disruption is planned, for example, a scheduled maintenance, this is not an incident. The outage should not be counted as part of the unavailability. If the scheduled outage exceeds the planned schedule, then the over time for the outage becomes an incident.
If an incident requires changes the emergency change process is normally followed, specially if the service level is critical.
What is a Problem?
Problems however are not incidents. An incident can raise a problem, specially if there is a high possibility that the incident might happen again. In the case of a server crash after office hours, the crash is a problem. This is a high priority problem because if this problem is not resolved, this will become an incident.
An incident does not become a problem. A problem may be raised because of an incident and as we've seen in the previous example, a problem may cause an incident
