Service / Resource Management (based on ITIL)

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a consistent and comprehensive documentation of best practices for Information Technology (IT) service management. ITIL based set of concepts and policies are used for managing IT infrastructure, development and operations.

Service support processes

These processes cover the aspects of guaranteeing the continuity, availability and quality of service delivered to users.

• Service Desk: It is not a process; it is a function which represents the central point of contact with customers and users that helps them by resolving service interruptions, raising service requests, reporting on compliance with the SLAs and being the first port of call for sales information. It is not expected that Panlab offers a live Service Desk, but Teagle will be the mean offered by federation for customer’s interaction.
• Incident Management: It is the process to resolve any incidents causing the interruption of service as the quickest and most effective way as possible.
• Problem Management: This process is focused on investigating and resolving the causes of the anomalies in the IT service. It distinguishes between problem (its cause is no identified) and known error (its cause has been identified).
• Configuration Management: The main task of this process is to keep an up-to-date record of all the components in the IT infrastructure configuration and the interrelations between them. The main activities are Planning, Classification and Recording, Monitoring and Control, Audits and Reports.
• Change Management: This process ensures that all the changes made to the IT infrastructure and services are performed and implemented correctly following standardised procedures. The main tasks are Logging, Acceptance, Classification, Approval, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation and Emergency changes.
• Release Management: The goal of this process is the implementation and quality control of all the hardware and software deployment on the live environment. It follows different phases: Planning, Development, Validation, Implementation and update, Communication and training.

Service delivery processes

• Service Level Management: The aim of this process is to put technology at the service of the customer, ensuring the quality of IT services by aligning technology with business process in a cost effective way. It asks for the customer’s needs, the service offering and monitors the fulfillment of the Services Level Agreements (SLA). The related activities are Planning, Implementation, Monitoring and Review. Section 3 of this document deals with these issues.
• Financial Management for IT Services: Its main purpose is to evaluate and control the expenses related to IT services ensuring high quality and efficiency in the IT resources use (activities: Budgets, Accounts, Pricing Policy and Supervision). This matter is not studied in the document D4.2 as it is an issue belonging to WP1.
• Capacity Management: This process ensures that all IT services are properly covered by the processing and storage capacity considering a cost and time effective way. It includes the development of a Capacity plan, monitoring the use and performance of the IT infrastructure, creating a capacity database, etc. Activities susceptible of capacity management are business, service and resources.
• IT Service Continuity Management: It is concerned with preventing unexpected and serious interruptions of the IT services due to catastrophic events such as natural disasters. It includes defining a policy and scope of the process, analysing the impact, risk assessment, strategies to apply (preventive activities, recovery activities), etc.
• Availability Management: The objective of this process is optimising and monitoring the IT services so that they work correctly without interruptions, fulfilling the SLA, and all at an optimal cost. It defines the availability requirements, establishes an availability plan, monitors the availability of the service, etc.
• Security Management: This process is focused on providing confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information. It defines a security policy, security plan, establishing security measures, evaluation and maintenance of security measures, etc. All these aspect are widely studied in section.6 of this document.

More information of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), online http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp