Management of IT Environment (6)
Riadenie IT prostredia
Martin Sarnovský
Department of Cybernetics and AI, FEI TU Košice
Content
Service Transition
Goal, inputs and outputs, list of processes,
Purpose, goals, scope,
Context, interfaces, principles
Services as business assets.
Service Transition Processes
Service transition planning,
Change management,
Configuration and service assets management,
Release and deployment management,
Validation and testing services,
Evaluation,
Service Transition
Service transition = step in IT service life cycle:
Goal: delivery of operating service for targeted businesses.
Input: Service Design Package (documents), which was created during the design phase of service,
Output: delivery of all parts and components of service in operational conditions for next phase: Service Operation.
Included processes:
Service transition planning,
Change management,
Configuration and service assets management,
Release and deployment management,
Validation and testing services
Evaluation,
Service Transition Purposes
Phase of service transition should provide:
Planning and management of capacity (necessary resources) and deployment of service (i.e. development, testing, release, ...),
Consistent framework for evaluation of service options and risks
Integrity of all service assets defined by Service Transition,
Quality knowledge and information for change, release and deployment management,
Effective and reusable / generic installation mechanism,
Service maintenance in accordance with demands specified in phase of Service Design.
Service Transition Scope
Continual Service Improvement Change Management
Service Asset & Configuration Management
Knowledge Management Service Strategy Service Design Service Operation
Service Validation & Testing Service Transition Planning & Support
Oversee management of organization & stakeholder change Evaluation of a Change or Service
Release & Deployment Management Early Life Support Plan & prepare release Build & test Service testing & pilots Plan & prepare for deployment Transfer, deploy, retire Review & close service transition
Eval Eval Eval
RFC RFC RFC BL BL BL RFC BL RFC BL RFC BL BL Points to capture Baselines Requests for Change Points to evaluate the Service Design
Service Transition Life-Cycle
Input: Service Design Package (documents)
Life-cycle phases:
Acquiring and testing of input configuration units and components.
Build and testing,
Service release testing,
Operational readiness testing,
Deployment,
Early life support – support provided during initial stages deployment,
Service Transition evaluation and termination.
Output: provision of all service components in fully operational state for Service Operation Phase.
Service Transition Processes
Processes included in Service Transition Phase:
1. Service transition planning,
2. Change management,
3. Configuration and service assets management,
4. Release and deployment management,
5. Validation and testing services
6. Evaluation,
1. Service Transition Planning
Purpose and Goals of service transition planning:
Capacity and resource planning for development, implementation, release, testing and deployment of service into operation,
Team support for team realizing service transition i.e. workers who personally realize activities of service transition ,
Change planning, to ensure integrity of customer assets, activity configuration and assets and their management during service transition,
Securing reports of transition process, risks and differences pre for all relevant involved parties, mainly employees holding key managerial posts,
Project activity coordination, coordination of developers and providers,
Effective Service Transition Planning Includes:
Definition and application of Service Transition Policy.
2. Configuration and Asset Management
Management of Service
Configuration and Assets:
Process responsible for configuration management and assets management:
Configuration Management:
Process responsible for storage of information about Configuration Items (CI) required for provision of IT service and their (CI) relationship.
Assets Management:
Process responsible for tracking and reporting of financial assets value and ownership during their life-cycle.
Configuration Item
Definition: Configuration Item (CI):
Any component, which needs to be managed (directed, administered) as a part of IT service provision.
Information about every CI is recorded in Configuration Management System and they are stored during whole life-cycle of Configuration Management.
Configuration Management is part of a process number 3 of Service Transition: Management of Service Configuration and Asset.
CIs are managed by Change management.
CIs typically includes IT services, hardware, software, buildings, human resources and formal documentation e.g. process documentation and SLA.
Configuration Item
Definition: Configuration Item (CI):
Any component, which needs to be managed (directed, administered) as a part of IT service provision.
Information about every CI is recorded in Configuration Management System and they are stored during whole life-cycle of Configuration Management.
CIs typically includes IT services, hardware, software, buildings, human resources and formal documentation e.g. process documentation and SLA.
CI scope – from complete service or system (including the components,
HW, SW, etc.) to SW modules, HW parts
CMDB: Configuration Database
Definition: Configuration Management Database, CMDB
Database used to store configuration records during their whole life-cycle
Configuration management system stores one or more CMDB,
Every CMDB stores CI attributes and their relations to other CIs. Definition: Configuration Record
Record which contains details about Configuration Item.
Every configuration record contains information about one CI life-cycle.
Life-cycle
example: asset and CI
CMDB: Configuration Database
ITIL definition – approved configuration of IT environment components Goal of CMDB – to help the organization to understand the relations
and associations between the components and to monitor their configuration (state)
Logical/data model of the Configuration Records
Usually described by these attributes:
Technical
Ownership
Relations
Configuration Management System
Definition: Configuration Management System (CMS)
Package of tools and databases which are used for Configuration Item management by IT service provider.
CMS also contains information about incidents, problems, known bugs,
changes and releases.
CMS may contain information about employees, providers, locations, business units, customers and users.
CMS includes tools for acquiring, storing, management, actualization and presentation of Configuration Items and their relationship.
CMS is maintained configuration management, which is used by all IT service management processes.
3. Change Management
Change Management
Process responsible for operational management of life-cycle of all
changes.
Main goal of Change Management is to realize useful IT service
changes during least possible IT service downtime.
Change
Change arise from:
Proactive, e.g. by finding new possibilities of gaining business advantage: cost reduction, service enhancement, efficiency enhancement ...
Reactive, as response to bugs / failures or as adaptation to business environment changes.
Goals of Change Management:
Risk optimalization, in line with business risk optimalization.
Minimize count of necessary changes to services / infrastructure.
Success at first trial.
Definition: Service Change
Addition, change, or removal of approved, planned or supported IT service or service component (documentation included).
Change Risk Estimation
Goal: Business Impact of Change Analysis
Method: Indicators quantifying scope of downtime / time needed for change realization.
Definition: Mean Time to Restore Service (MTRS)
Mean time needed to restore Configuration Item or IT service after failure.
MTRS is measured from failure of Configuration Item or IT service until its full restoration and provision of normal functionality.
Other indicators: MTTR - Mean Time to Repair, MTBF - Mean Time Between Failure, ...
Requests for Change - RFC
Definition: Requests for Change (RFC)
Formal proposal for change execution.
Request for Change contains detailed information about proposed change and can be recorded on physical or electronic medium.
Term Request for Change is often used incorrectly referring to Change Record, or to express notion of “change”.
RFC types:
RFC document (physical / electronic),
Service Desk call,
Project initiation document, etc.
IT organization should choose adequate approach and scope of formal expression / documentation of RFC (e.g. based on particular degree of complexity of particular change).
4. Release and Deployment Management
Release and Deployment Management:
Process responsible for Release and Deployment Management.
Release Management:
Process responsible for
planning, creating schedules and management of release transfer into: testing and operational environment. Main goal is to ensure integrity of operational environment and that right components are used.
Deployment (Rollout):
Activity responsible for transfer of new or changed hardware, software, documentation, process etc. into operational environment.
Release Policy
Service Release Types:
Major releases – extensive expansion, new functionality, bug fixes.
Minor releases – lesser expansions and fixes, some of them possibly included
in previously released emergency releases.
Emergency releases – fix to small number of known bugs and problems, i.e.
expansion towards critical business requirements.
5. Validation And Testing
Goal: to ensure quality of provided service.
Strategy: Transformation of service design outputs into testing
requirements, selection of appropriate test combination to include all risks, acceptation criteria defines test inputs and outputs.
6. Evaluation
Definition: Evaluation
Process responsible for evaluation of new or changed IT services.
Ensures, that risks were considered and helps decide if change should be implemented.
Evaluation is also process of
comparison between planned and actual outputs, or comparison of possible alternative solutions.
7. Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management:
Process responsible for acquiring, analyzing, storing and sharing of knowledge and information in organization.
Main purpose of Knowledge
Management is to improve efficiency by reducing necessary knowledge refresh rate. .
Service Knowledge Management System, SKMS:
Tools and databases, which are used to manage knowledge and information.
SKMS includes Configuration Management System + additional tools, databases.
SKMS stores, manages, actualizes and presents all information, which are needed by IT service provider to manage whole IT service life-cycle.
