Foundation Certification †My Short Notes Essay

A team or group of people and the tools they use to carry out one or more processes or activities. Functions provide units of organization responsible for specific outcomes. Functions are logically isolated from each other. Definition – Process A set of coordinated activities combining and implementing resources and capabilities in order to produce an outcome and provide value to customers or stakeholders. Process has following attributes. Trigger, Activity, Dependency & Sequence Process should be measurable Process should produce specific output Process should meet customer expectation Definition – Process Owner The person/role responsible for ensuring that the process is fit for the desired purpose and is accountable for the outputs of that process. Definition – Service Owner The person/role accountable for the delivery of a specific IT Service. They are responsible for continual improvement and management of change affecting services under their care. The service owner is a primary stakeholder in all of the underlying IT processes that enable or support the service they own. Definition – Service A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs or risks. Definition – RACI Model R – Responsibility (at least 1R per activity who is doing the actual work) A – Accountability (1 A per activity) C – Consult I – Inform Service Strategy The purpose is to define the perspective, position, plans, and patterns that a service provider needs to be able to execute to meet an organization’s business outcomes * Perspective – Defines the organization’s view of itself, generally communicated through the organization’s vision and direction. * Positions – Defines the distinctiveness of the organization in comparison to its competitive market and as identified through the minds of its customers. * Plans – The predefined details for supporting and enhancing the organization’s perspective and positions, usually identifying a potential future state for the organization and a strategic response to the state and level of investment required. * Patterns – Defines the conditions and actions that must be consistently in place and repeatable to achieve the objectives of the organization; patterns allow the organization to predict the future. Service strategy defines the role of serv ices and service provider in achieving the business objectives of the organization through management of IT. Value to Customer To enable a service provider to create value for a customer, a systematic approach has to be adopted. For ITIL, this approach is determining service utility and service warranty. Service Warranty (Fit for use) + Service Utility (Fit for propose) = Service Value Service utility and service warranty are present for every service provided to a customer. One cannot exist without the other. By describing both Service Utility and Service Warranty, it enables the provider to clearly establish the value of the service, differentiate themselves from the competition, and, when necessary, attach a meaningful price tag that has relevance to the customer and associated market space. Service Package = Enabling Services + Core Services + Enhancing Services Definition – Service Asset A Service Asset is any resource or capability used in the provision of services Definition – Business Case The business case is a detailed analysis of the benefits and impact of the business action in meeting the business objective and disrupting the delivery of other IT services. Attributes Introduction, Methods & Assumptions, Business Impact, Risk Service Strategy Processes Demand Management & Strategy Management for IT Services are out of scope for ITIL Foundation exam. 1. Financial Management * Responsible for securing the necessary fund to provide the service to the customer. * Maintain balance between cost of service and quality of the service * Maintain balance between supply and demand * Activities * Budgeting * IT Accounting * Chargeback * Service Valuation * Outputs * Service Valuation * Service Investment Analysis * Compliance (Align with rules & regulations) * Cost optimization * Support for BIA 2. Service Portfolio Management * Track services throughout whole service lifecycle * Link services to their business objectives/value * Ensure all other management processes are working to get expected business outcomes * Includes Service Pipeline, Service Catalog & Retired Service Catalog * Content : Description, Requirements/Business Cases, Value, Options, Price, Risk, Priority Investment Categories and Budget Allocations Phases/Activities of service portfolio management 3. Business Relationship Management * Maintain relationship between customer and service provider and understand customer needs * Ensure high level of customer satisfaction * Understand service packages and service level packages Service Design Benefits of Service Design * Reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) * Improved quality of service * Improved consistency of service * Easier implementation of new or changed services * Improved service alignment * Improved service performance * Improved IT governance * Improved effectiveness of service management and IT processes * Improved information and decision-making * Improved alignment with customer values and strategies The Four Perspectives (Attributes) of ITSM * Partners/Suppliers * People * Product/Technology * Processes Major Aspects of Service Design * Service solutions for new or changed services * The management information systems and tools, especially the service portfolio * The technology architectures and management architectures * The processes required * The measurement methods and metrics Service Design Package (SDP) The contents of the service design package comprise four major sections with several smaller, but equally important, sub-sections. The four major sections are: †¢ Requirements †¢ Service Design †¢ Organizational readiness assessment †¢ Service Lifecycle Plan Service Design Processes 1. Design Coordination * Single point of coordination and control for all activities & processes in Service Design stage * Individual organizations decide whether they need Design Coordination process or not. Only major changes will require this process * Activities 2. Service Level Management * Focus on Service Warranty (performance, availability, and security) * The establishment, monitoring, and improvements in service levels and their achievement * Communication to Customers & Business managers on Service Levels. Will not conflict with Business Relationship Management process since this will only focus on Service Warranty * Manage, Negotiate & Document SLR & SLA * Develop & Review OLA * Review UC for ensure they are align with SLA * Influence improvement within SIP * Monitor service performance against SLA * Three types of SLA structures. Service Based, Customer Based & Multi Level/Hierarchical (Corporate, Customer & Service based agreements) 3. Supplier Management * UC (Underpinning Contracts) SCMIS (Suppliers & Contracts Management Information System) * Activities * Definition of new supplier and contract requirements * Evaluation of new suppliers and contracts * Supplier and contract categorization and maintenance of the * SCMIS * Establishment of new suppliers and contracts * Supplier, contract, and performance management * Contract renewal or termination * Supplier Categorization * Supplier Management process activities are span across all states except Service Strategy 4. Service Catalog Management * Include live service are services available for deployment (Customer-facing service and supportive services) * Service Catalog is a large part of the Service Portfolio. However, while the portfolio is focused on tracking the business requirements and the investments on a service, the Service Catalog is focused on the service solution and its delivery to the business * Service Catalog includes Business Service Catalog & Technical Service Catalog * Top – Down approach is used when defining service catalog. (Business -> Technical) 5. Capacity Management * Maintain balance between Resources/Capabilities Vs Demand * Business Capacity Management & Service Capacity Management * Sub-Process of capacity management * Business * Service * Components * Activities * Performance Monitoring * Demand Management – Short term reactive activity * Application Sizing – New or Changed service * Modeling – Predict future behaviors * Tuning * Capacity Planning * Capacity Management Information System 6. Availability Management * Ensure that the level of availability delivered to all IT services matches the agreed need for availability or defined service level targets * Includes Reactive Activities (Monitoring, Incidents) & Proactive Activities (Planning, Design) * Measurements * Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) or Uptime * Mean Time to Restore Service (MTRS) or Downtime * Mean Time Between System Incidents (MTBSI) 7. IT Service Continuity Management * Known as disaster recover planning * Produce and maintain IT Service Continuity plan to support Business Continuity Plan * Business Impact Analysis (Quantify the loss) Risk Assessment (Identify possible failure points) are considered when implementing strategy * Ongoing activities to make people aware about the recovery plan. Trainings, Reviews 8. Information Security Management * Information security is a critical part of the warranty of a service * Ensuring that the agreed business needs regarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the organization’s assets information, data, and IT services are matched * Develop and maintain information security policy align with business security requirements * Security test schedules and plans. * Information Security Management Perspectives * Organizational * Procedural * Physical * Technical * Framework for Managing Information Security * Plan * Implement * Control * Evaluate * Maintain Service Transition Service Transition Processes 1. Transition Planning and Support * Ensure proper attention is given to the overall planning for service transitions and to coordinate the resources required to implement the new or changed service * Provide clear and comprehensive plans that enable customer and business change projects to align their activities with the service transition plans * The scope of transition planning and support concentrates on the resources, schedules, and budgets required to move the IT service * To standardize methods and procedures used for efficient and prompt handling of all changes * A transition strategy will be constructed to define how all transitions will be managed within the organization based on the type and size of transitions expected in the environment 2. Knowledge Management * Maintain a Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) that provides controlled access to knowledge, information, and data that is appropriate for each audience * DIKW Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom structure * Database to capture Data, Information and Knowledge but not Wisdom * Components of SKMS 3. Service Asset and Configuration Management * Ensure that assets under the control of the IT organization are identified, controlled, and properly cared for throughout their lifecycle * Identify, control, record, report, audit, and verify services and other configuration items (CIs), including versions, baselines, constituent components, their attributes, and relationships * Manage complete life cycle of CI * Activities * Planning – Strategy, Policy, Objectives, CMDB Design * Identification – What CI to be recorded & their relationships * Control * Status Accounting * Verification & Audit 4. Change Management * Ensure that all changes to configuration items are recorded in the configuration management system * Optimize overall business risk. It is often correct to minimize business risk, but sometimes it is appropriate to knowingly accept a risk because of the potential benefit. * Types of changes * Normal Changes – Need to go through all steps of change management process * Standard Changes – Pre approved changes. Should be possible via service request. No need of RFC * Emergency Change * Steps * The RFC is logged. * An initial review is performed (to filter RFCs). * The RFCs are assessed and may require involvement of CAB or ECAB. * Authorization of change builds and test by the Change Manager * Coordination of the build and test, e.g., work orders are issued for the * Build of the change (carried out by other groups) * Change Management authorizes deployment. * Change Management coordinates the deployment (with multiple checkpoints). * The change is reviewed (Post Implementation Review). * The change is closed. 5. Release and Deployment Management * Planning, scheduling, and controlling practices applied to the build, test, and deployment of releases * Define and agree Release and Deployment Management plans with customers and stakeholders * Four phases of release deployment management * Release & Deployment Planning * Release Build & Test * Deployment * Review & Close Service Operation Responsible for the ongoing management of the technology that is used to deliver and support the services. Service Operation accepts the new, modified, retiring, or retired services from Service Transition, once the test and acceptance criteria have been met. Functions Unique to Service Operations is the introduction of functions. While a defined function does have responsibilities in all stages of the Service Lifecycle, the majority of activities they performed are completed within the scope of Service operations. 1. Service Desk * Single point of contact between the services being provided and the users. A typical Service Desk will manage incidents and service requests as well as communication with the users. Thus, the Service Desk staff will execute the Incident Management and Request Fulfillment processes with the intent to restore normal-state service operation to users as quickly as possible * Minimize service outage day to day basis * Make sure that agreed services only provide to those who authorized * Structures * Local * Central * Virtual * Follow the Sun * Activities * Logging all request, prioritization, categorization and first level of investigation * Keep user informed about incident & outage * Customer satisfaction survey 2. Technical Management * Custodian of technical knowledge and expertise related to managing the IT Infrastructure. It provides detailed technical skills and resources needed to support the ongoing operation of the IT Infrastructure. * Plays an important role in providing the actual resources to support the IT Service Management lifecycle. It ensures that resources are effectively trained and deployed to design, build, and transition, operate, and improve the technology to deliver and support IT Services. 3. IT Operations Management * Ongoing management and maintenance of an organization’s IT infrastructure. IT operations is the set of activities used in the day-to-day running of the IT infrastructure to deliver IT services at agreed levels to meet stated business objectives.IT Operation Control * IT Operation Control * Job Scheduling, Backup, Restore and Monitoring * Facilities Management * Data Centers, Recovery Sites, Computer Rooms 4. Application Management * Application Management covers the entire ongoing lifecycle of an application, including requirements, design, build, deploy, operate, and optimize. Service Operation Processes 1. Event Management * Detecting Event, Understanding Event, Determining Appropriate Control Action * Three Types of events * Informational * Warning * Exception * Populate SKMS with event information and history 2. Incident Management * An unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service, or a failure of a CI that has not yet impacted an IT service * The purpose of Incident Management is not to prevent an incident, but to reduce its impact by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible * Ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt response, analysis, documentation, ongoing management, and reporting of incidents * Incident Models – Steps and procedures that should be used to manage previously seen and documented incidents * Steps * Order of Steps * Responsibilities – Who should do what * Time scale/Threshold * Escalation Procedures * Any necessary evidence/prevention actions * Activities * Identification * Logging – All incidents regardless of source of that incident * Categorization * Prioritization * Impact + Urgency = Priority * Initial Diagnosis * Escalation * Functional * Hierarchical * Investigation and Diagnosis * Resolution * Closure 3. Problem Management * Concentrate on diagnosing the root cause of incidents and on determining the resolution to those problems. * Defines a problem as the underlying cause of one or more incidents 4. Request Fulfillment * Form of changes that are small in nature, low risk, and low cost in its execution, and are frequently performed * Activities * Menu Selection * Financial Approval – Optional * Other Approval – Optional * Fulfillment * Closure 5. Access Management * Effectively execute the policies in Information Security Management, enabling the organization to manage the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of the organization’s data and intellectual property. Continual Service Improvements * CSI is always seeking ways to improve service effectiveness, process effectiveness, and cost effectiveness * Review, analyze, prioritize, and make recommendations on improvement opportunities in each lifecycle stage * Periodically conducting internal audits verifying employee and process compliance * Periodically conducting customer satisfaction surveys * Continual Service Improvement Approach * CSI Register * Part of SKMS. And keep track of all improvements opportunities. * Anyone should be able to access and submit improvement points to CSI Register * IT Governance has three main areas * Enterprise, Corporate, IT Governance * Types of Metrics * Technology – Performance, Availability * Process – KPI, * Service * Tension Metrics : Resources, Features, Time Schedule The Deming Cycle * Plan: Design or revise business process components to improve results * Do: Implement the plan and measure its performance * Check: Assess the measurements and report the results to decision makers * Act: Decide on changes needed to improve the process Seven Steps Improvement Process 1. Identify Strategy for Improvements 2. Define What You Will Measure 3. Gather Data 4. Process Data 5. Analyze the information & data 6. Present and use the information 7. Implement Improvement