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Implementing

Service Level
Management with ITIL

an IT Management eBook
contents
[ ]
Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL

This content was adapted from Internet.com's


ITSMWatch.com Web site. Contributors:
Drew Robb, George Spafford, Mike Tainter,
Atwell Williams, Hank Marquis, Karsten Smet,
Andrew Sarnoff, Thomas Wimmer and
Darreck Lisle.

2 Getting Started with ITIL


By Mike Tainter
2
5 ITIL: The Prelude to Flexible
Performance
By Andrew Sarnoff &
Thomas Wimmer

8 Ensuring a Successful ITIL


5 8 Implementation
By Drew Robb

13 The Key to Quality Service


Level Management
By Karsten Smet

15 The Right Way to Set SLAs


13 15 George Spafford

17 Service Level Management


is the Hinge
By Darreck Lisle

20 Incidents, Problems, Known


Errors and Changes
17 20 By George Spafford

22 Six Steps to Service


Outage Analysis
By Hank Marquis

24 Automation IT Capacity
Management
22 24 By Drew Robb
1 © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

Getting Started with ITIL


By Mike Tainter

be a respected leader with the ability to make things

A
n increasing number of IT organizations are begin-
ning to adopt ITIL-based IT service management ini- happen.
tiatives, and turnout at national, regional, and local
events on the subject keeps growing. Yet, one of the main When people use multiple methods to understand a
questions on people's minds is, "Where do we start?" new concept, they tend to retain the content longer,
with a more detailed under-
In order to get going, the business standing. Too often, organiza-
and the IT organization must be tions decide to attend training in
aligned in pursuit of common place of reading the books. It
goals. An Information Technology usually works best to start by
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) initiative reading the books that make up
is a long-term methodology for ITIL.
providing quality services that
enable the business to gain a Attending training after reading
competitive advantage. Executive the books allows people to ask
leadership within IT must embrace challenging questions of the
the benefits and sell the idea to instructors so they can apply ITIL
the business. in their specific organization.
Better understanding also tends
Educating the to create greater enthusiasm for
and dedication to overcoming
Organization the challenges ITIL adoption
The first step is to ensure that sen- presents.
ior IT leaders develop a solid understanding of the
activities that comprise ITIL and of what ITIL adoption Next, this core group can begin imparting their ITIL
accomplishes. Candidates for training should be select- knowledge to others in the organization so they all start
ed carefully; each person who attends training should to "speak the same language." Workshops and educa-


The first step is to ensure that senior IT leaders develop a solid
understanding of the activities that comprise ITIL and of what ITIL
adoption accomplishes.

2 ”
Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
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tion sessions are effective ways to promote excitement Change Management even before they begin an ITIL
(and thus reduce resistance to the changes ITIL adop- initiative.
tion requires).
The results of the assessment must be shared with the
You know you are successful when you start to hear members of the steering committee and executive
hallway chatter about the benefits of ITIL. leadership to gain consensus on the current state of the
organization's processes. Once consensus is reached
Establishing a Steering Committee and a commitment is made to address the gaps in the
report, you can start to build your action plan.
A steering committee is necessary to lead the organiza-
tion through the ITIL adoption. At the core of ITIL are If you obtained services from a vendor for your assess-
Service Support and Delivery processes that will funda- ment, ensure this same vendor helps you with your
mentally change the way IT delivers its services to their roadmap. The roadmap should contain a list of projects
customers. that you can undertake to increase your process maturi-
ty.
Assign leaders to take on the role of process owners
and challenge each with gaining a The first project in your roadmap
detailed understanding of his or her
process and its integration with all the
other processes. As with any initiative
of this scale, sound leadership and
A steering
“ should be a strategy and planning
effort to create the project plan that
provides for the following:

guidance is critical to its success. committee is nec- • Creation of a baseline service cata-
Experience demonstrates that such essary to lead the log that defines the services your IT
leadership must be "top-down" ver- department delivers
sus "bottom-up." organization
through the ITIL • Process workshops to gain a more
Assessing Process adoption. detailed understanding of the activi-
Maturity ties for each process

The next step is to assess your orga-


nization's maturity using the ITIL best practices as your
guide. The Service Support and Service Delivery books
contain a list of the activities for each process. Process
” • Assignment of roles and responsibil-
ities for the people that will execute the processes,
including a training
and communication plan
owners should create a list of these activities to use as
a guide to determine how the IT organization is execut- • Tools and technology that can be used to automate
ing against them. the processes

Maturity level is measured through the use of a maturi- • Measurement and reporting to evaluate compliance
ty model; such as 0 = No process in place, 1 = Initial or
identified process, 2 = Repeatable, but not document- Too often, organizations begin ITIL adoption by focus-
ed, 3 = Defined and documented, 4 = Measurable, ing on activities for service delivery such as capacity or
and 5 = Optimized, you can identify and document any availability management, because that's where they are
gaps that exist in an assessment report. experiencing pain. However, the power of ITIL is in its
integration.
This report will be your guide in determining your tar-
get maturity and the steps you need to take to get Organizations adopting ITIL have discovered that matu-
there. When you conduct the assessment you will find rity of their service support processes creates the
that you may have more maturity in some activities for groundwork for optimizing their configurations to pro-
each process than in others. For example, most organi- vide better service. For example, if you consistently
zations perform well in areas such as Incident or detect, log, classify, assign, resolve, and close incidents,

3 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]
it can lead to more effective problem management, because you can learn from their experience. You can
which helps you identify and control known errors. do this by joining a local user group, such as the IT
Service Management Forum USA (itSMF USA) local
Problem Management can then be your entry point to interest group in your area.
creating your availability and capacity plan to enact
changes in your environment to address those known But keep in mind, ITIL is not a project, it is a method to
errors. change the way your organization delivers its services
to the business. A project has a beginning and an end,
Starting the Journey whereas ITIL does not have an end, it is a continual
journey toward process maturity that enables IT to
Your ITIL journey should start with education and lead- deliver quality services to the business so that it can
ership, assessment, and an actionable roadmap for suc- continue to thrive and be profitable. I
cess. Hearing how other organizations have tackled
their ITIL journey can be invaluable to your success

4 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

ITIL: The Prelude to Flexible Performance


By Andrew Sarnoff & Thomas Wimmer

This is where the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best-

W
hen you listen to jazz improvisation, you might
think the music is completely freeform and practice processes can be music to your ears. ITIL
unstructured. While musical improvisation certainly processes can help align your infrastructure's technolo-
creates an enjoyably unique experience, in actuality there is a gy with business objectives, and define the theme to
finely tuned method to the madness. which your enterprise plays.

A central theme runs through each improvised set, and ITIL processes help the business achieve quality IT serv-
each musician in the group ices while helping to reduce
understands the theme and costs in technology opera-
knows how to build upon it. tions, using best-practice
When it's their turn to impro- procedures for change man-
vise, each musician's sponta- agement, incident manage-
neous creation conforms to ment, problem management,
the musical structure (e.g., the and capacity management,
key, time signature, etc.) of among others.
the set and respects the other
musicians' performance. The Because ITIL processes are
result is freedom of expres- guidelines, not standards,
sion (flexibility) for the per- they can be creatively and
formers and enjoyment for flexibly applied, helping you
the audience. Everybody is respond to problem areas
happy. effectively and on many lev-
els. This is particularly impor-
Now compare process management in your organiza- tant during times of crisis when, in the absence of stan-
tion to musical improvisation. You want an enjoyable dardized processes for your infrastructure, you would
experience for both your performers (IT) and audience need to determine how to resolve a situation each time
(the business users), but you realize that each has it occurred.
unique needs for interpretation, expression, and a
good experience. ITIL processes can define how to quickly respond to sit-


Because ITIL processes are guidelines, not standards, they can be
creatively and flexibly applied, helping you respond to problem
areas effectively and on many levels.

5 ”
Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]
uations related to service support and service delivery,
and help IT organizations to understand how other A change management process based on ITIL guide-
groups work, so everyone supports the same musical lines helps alleviate this situation by providing a frame-
theme. That's structure. work for dealing with ad-hoc, emergency changes.
With a structured ITIL approach in place, one that plays
And a flexible IT organization is one that can quickly to the theme of your enterprise, you could respond to
adapt and respond to continually changing needs of this and other change scenarios quickly and effectively.
the business. That's improvisation. An organization that
adopts ITIL as a framework provides a structure for You're much more likely to achieve consistent levels of
people to more flexibly and "improvisationally" support service (and at appropriate cost) if you have the proper
the enterprise. structure in place for change management. While some
might argue that there is more flexibility without struc-
Flexible Change Management ture, think back to the jazz group. If you’re not playing
in the same key, it's just noise.
If you're a CIO, your responsibility is to deliver consis-
tently appropriate levels of service at optimal cost. To
maintain those service levels, changes (e.g., patches,
Flexible Incident Management
enhancements, etc.) must inevitably be introduced. If Flexibility when resolving incidents is a vital considera-
you introduce change without a process in place, it can tion for IT organizations. You must be able to respond
jeopardize your service levels. to incidents based on the ever-changing needs of the
business. The ITIL incident management process pro-
On the other hand, if you have an overly rigid, struc- vides guidelines for assuring that flexibility through a
tured process through which everything must flow, it structured prioritization activity.
might be more than some situations require.
If an incident occurs, and there is no process for priori-
You need to be able to flexibly respond to situations tizing this incident in relation to the other incidents that
requiring change through a universally applicable are currently being worked on, service can be disrupt-
process. ITIL change management explains how to han- ed.
dle all changes in your environment—from minor to
significant, as well as emergency changes. ITIL change Human nature is to respond first to the incident that
management procedures provide a framework to was reported first, and the priority for incident resolu-
implement any change that comes your way and to tion thus becomes "first-in/first-out." Or, prioritizing
give you flexibility in how you respond to any given sit- incident resolution might rely on the service desk tech-
uation. nician's instinct to gauge one incident as being higher
priority than another. But, would the business agree
Consider, for example, that Microsoft releases a patch with the technician's decision?
that identifies a new vulnerability. The patch must
quickly be deployed, but an impromptu approach In the absence of a process that enables IT to catego-
could jeopardize service levels. Without a predefined rize and prioritize incidents based on the business
change deployment process in place, a group will likely impact of the event, it's a free-for-all at the service
need to be assembled to decide how the patch will be desk. Without the right incident management structure
deployed. and process in place, incident resolution most likely will
not be in concert with the needs of the business.
Meanwhile, the vulnerability remains and the enterprise
is subject to attack. The drain on resources as the Consider, for example, that an incident at a banking
group determines how to proceed can further jeopard- institution causes ATMs to fail, and at the same time, in
ize your service levels. And, if you plow ahead and a separate incident, the systems fail at the bank's
issue the patch across the enterprise without appropri- branches. Both incidents are recorded in the operations
ate testing, you could create more problems than you center, virtually simultaneously.
prevent.

6 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
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In the absence of guidelines for prioritizing incidents, the lyrical sound of cash once again being dispensed.
the service desk cannot reliably determine which inci-
dent should be resolved first. Should the ATMs be Flexible Capacity Management
restored first, or is it more important to get the branch-
es back online? The structure of ITIL can also improve your IT organiza-
tion's flexibility in responding to the continually chang-
The answer depends on the priority of the incident as ing demands for scarce computing resources.
viewed by the business. IT needs the flexibility to shift
its incident resolution efforts and focus based on which Imagine that your business customer plans to launch a
incident is considered higher priority by the business: marketing campaign that will increase revenue but will
the failed ATMs or the bank branch system failure. also increase the traffic to your Web storefront. In the
absence of a structured approach to assessing and pro-
ITIL defines priority as the combination of impact and viding for capacity needs, companies frequently are
urgency. While the bank branches being offline may be either caught off guard or over-provision their infra-
of greater impact, that problem is only half of the equa- structure.
tion.
Applying the ITIL capacity management principles of
What if these incidents occurred on a federal holiday, business, service, and resource capacity management,
when the banks are closed? Although the impact of the as well as demand management, provides IT organiza-
incident is still the same (i.e., the branches are still tions with the ability to flexibly respond to the needs of
down), the urgency is low, since no one is trying to use the business while doing so in the most cost-effective
the systems in the branches. manner.

Conversely, the failed ATMs, while perhaps having a In jazz, "riffs" are the repeating, harmonic figures that
lower impact, have a much higher urgency since that's form a structural framework for the improvisational
the only means for people to withdraw cash. piece being performed. Riffs keep the musicians on
track within the theme. Think of ITIL process manage-
As a result of assessing both impact and urgency, ment techniques as the riffs that form the framework of
resolving the incident that resulted in the ATMs being your enterprise, giving both IT and business the flexibil-
ity and expression they need. Together, you and ITIL
can make beautiful music. I
down would be given a higher priority over the inci-
dent that impacted the branches. This is how the flexi-
bility created by the structured ITIL process results in

7 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

Ensuring a Successful ITIL Implementation


By Drew Robb

do it,” he said. "It is important, therefore, that IT and

C
ompanies of all sizes and across all industries are
embracing ITIL in record numbers. By developing business executives work together to understand what
process-driven IT organizations, these companies are specific business problems they are trying to resolve,
achieving significant efficiency improvements and cost sav- and how ITIL can be an enabler to solving them."
ings.
Ron Potter, manager of best practices at TeamQuest
"Before we began ITIL, we had a 700 trouble ticket Corp. of Clear Lake, Iowa, agrees. He feels that it is
backlog and now we never vital to gain early consensus
have more than 40 to handle on the reasons for imple-
at any one time," said Fran mentation.
Findley, a project manage-
ment analyst for information "Everyone needs to agree
services at MultiCare Health on the business benefits for
System in Tacoma, Wash. doing ITIL," said Potter.
"Now it takes hours rather "Some do it purely to
than weeks to handle an improve service, some to
escalated user issue." reduce costs, some to
improve communications
Ed Holub, a research director between IT and business,
for IT operations manage- the rest some combination
ment at Gartner states that of the three."
even though ITIL is a set of
integrated best practices it Buy-in, of course, starts at
doesn't mean it is a cookie- the top. At MultiCare, the
Jupiterimages
cutter program that lays out CIO and a line-of-business
exactly how things should be done. vice president championed ITIL and provided a budget
"ITIL is high-level and focuses on 'what' should be to upgrade the help desk tracking system and associat-
done, but doesn't describe at a detailed level 'how' to ed processes.


"Before we began ITIL, we had a 700 trouble ticket backlog and now we
never have more than 40 to handle at any one time," said Fran Findley, a
project management analyst for information services at MultiCare Health
System in Tacoma, Wash.

8 ”
Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]
ITIL’s Top 10
Understanding the Business

Quick Wins
Typically, senior executives publish goals for the coming
year. The individual business units then determine what

By Graham Price
actions they need to take to support them.

But how can IT learn what these goals are? Ask, said
Fred Broussard, research manager for Enterprise Major change and continuous improvement efforts,
System Management Software at IDC. such as the implementation of ITIL's best practices,
take time. However, most people, including senior
management, won't go on the long march unless they
see compelling evidence within a short time that the
A smart IT team can canvass the various business units
journey is worth the effort and cost, and is producing
to understand their short-term and long-term goals,
and determine how IT fits in. Once the basic intelli- expected results.
gence is mapped, IT management should have a good
feel for where the business is at today, where it is going Here are some of the most common quick wins to
and to determine the best implementation of ITIL keep in mind as you build your own plans:

10. Consolidation to One Incident Database


around the aggregated goals.
Even if your organization is spread out with multiple
It is common sense to start such an initiative at the top physical service desks, common reference to a single
in order to ascertain C-level goals and align projects to incident database will enable more consistency of
ongoing programs to increase revenue and better serv- process, consolidated data for reporting, and more
ice. The lower down the chart you go, the more detail relevant analysis of incident and problem trends. You
will end up with faster and more accurate decisions
for changes and improvements.
is required until all stakeholders have been addressed.

With that basic research completed, though, there is 9. Establish a Single Point of Contact
still plenty of work to do. Asking is one thing, but it has A SPOC is not to be confused with a single service
to be backed up by solid commitment from those desk (or an alien life form). You can have multiple
affected. service desks for different geographies, languages,
business units, etc. Just make sure each customer
only needs to know the one place to contact for every-
thing.
"A CIO needs to be really careful that they get the
commitment to participate on boards, to provide fund-
ing, and add manpower," said Broussard. "You can 8. Establish Incident Management Policies
gauge your level of real commitment by how easily Give your service desk staff some hard guidance on
executives blow off ITIL-related meetings." how to consistently handle specific, expected situa-
tions. The danger of training people in generic cus-
tomer service skills and then not giving them specif-
Understanding IT ic procedures for how to handle typical situations is
that they will do well the first time, and maybe the
second and third times -- but each time they are possi-
While IT has to be all over the business side to estab-
bly reinventing how to handle the situation.
lish goals and align to existing endeavors, the opposite
doesn't necessarily hold true. It just isn't necessary for
business executives to get involved in all the details of 7. Start Thinking Problem Management
how the various ITIL processes are executed, much less To be able to effectively engage in Problem
how the underlying technology infrastructure functions. Management, you need to get out of the front line
and start analyzing incident data. Write this task
into job descriptions and allocate the time to do it
proactively.
"A core concept in ITIL is to define IT services in terms
that the business understands," said Holub. "Business
executives should keep it simple by working with IT to 6. Start Documenting Requests for Change (RFCs)
define what those services are, and be able to negoti- Create a log of changes, when they happened, what
ate formal service level agreements (SLAs) that correctly was changed, who was responsible for the change,
and whether the change was successful, i.e., were any
continued
sync up expectations of what the business needs with
what IT is capable of delivering."

9 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
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incidents triggered? It is a worthwhile first step that
One good way to bring both camps closer together,
suggests Brian Johnson, ITIL practice manager at CA will help with analyzing trends and defining your
and author of 15 books on ITIL, is to address critical problem's scope with "out-of-control" changes.
business continuity (BC) issues. His company has
5. Get Buy-In from Application Development
ITSM is all about operations, and within ITIL there
aligned software tools for help desk, asset manage-

aren't many opportunities for application develop-


ment, change management, and BC to ITIL.
ment staff to get involved (Change Management
"By formulating a proper plan for disaster recovery, IT being the obvious one). Get them engaged and at
helps catalyze business involvement and drive a better least raise their awareness sooner.
understanding between the two camps," he said.
4. Talk "Service” Instead of "System"
There are still too many people in IT who think their
job is "to make the systems run" instead of "to help
Role-playing games, too, such as CA's Apollo 13 ITIL
sell insurance policies" (or whatever it is you do).
simulations, may help organizations drive ITIL aware-
Here is the reality check: If systems are fine but serv-
ness by providing real-world scenarios. These enable
teams to learn about managing processes more effec- ices are out, customers are unhappy. If some systems
tively. The end result can be an educational experience are out or under stress but services are fine, cus-
that demonstrates the benefits ITIL can offer to both tomers are happy.

3. Think "Bottom-Up" Not "Top Down"


sides of the business.
No one disagrees that executive buy-in is crucial for a
successful process initiative just as in any organiza-
Like CA, TeamQuest is also aligning its software to the
ITIL framework in order to bring IT and business units tional change program. But real change is embedded
closer together. TeamQuest View, for example, adds into the rank and file organization one event at a
value to ITIL service delivery, capacity management, time: one change, one incident, one problem, one
service support, and infrastructure management and release.

2. Start Open Reporting


ITIL application management.
It is essential that we measure in order to improve
"Business leaders need to be an integral part of an ITIL but, it is just as important to communicate these
implementation and participate from the beginning," results to everyone involved in order to maintain the
said TeamQuest's Potter. "They should participate in momentum once things start to move in the right
basic ITIL training in concert with their IT counterparts. direction.

1. Get The Boss Excited & Involved


For best results, this basic training should be cus-
A key challenge for CIOs, IT directors, project man-
tomized to the organization so all can understand how
ITIL will fit in day-to-day operations and the benefits it agers, process owners, and change agents is to identi-
will provide." fy early successes as part of the overall planning
process.
Work Ethic
Holub emphasizes that organizations shouldn't under- CA's Johnson agrees and offers a way to create cultural
estimate the level of effort required to transform them change: Identify ITIL champions in all areas of the busi-
into being more process- and service-centric. ness and train them to become evangelists within the
business.
"Fundamentally, ITIL is less about technology and is
more about changing the culture of an organization to "It's also important to ensure that the ITIL plan is not
embrace the value inherent in standardization versus perceived solely as an 'IT' project," he said.
one-off solutions," he said. "Always remember that ITIL "Awareness training early in the project lifecycle helps
should be viewed as a means to an end. Don't get fix- overcome resistance. People need to understand
ated on achieving a certain level of process maturity what's driving the initiative, why change is needed, and
and lose sight of the underlying goals that motivated how they and the organization will benefit."
the journey to begin in the first place."

10 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
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Participation. Agreement. The majority of clients, he said, pick a few processes to
start working on, with Change, Incident, and Problem
Metrics. Checks and Balances. management being the most common. Companies that
IDC's Broussard stresses the importance of communica- limit their ITIL rollouts in this way and treat it as a for-
tion in getting everyone to participate. He related a mal project or even a program consisting of multiple
couple of anecdotes to highlight this point. One con- projects tend to be more successful in adhering to
cerned a federal agency involved in a major software timelines, budgets, etc.
update that required testing and development on a live
system. Instead of keeping it a secret, users were told Those who fail often bite off too much change at once,
about the testing and to let IT know of any problems. bogging down their efforts. The error is then com-
pounded due to the resulting loss of executive support
"They really appreciated it, and they trusted us more as and a greater level of skepticism from the front-line IT
a result," said Broussard. "The alternative -- building a technical staff.
development site on a separate IBM mainframe --
would have been very expensive." Getting In & Getting Out
On the negative side of the ledger, Broussard tells of a Many companies take what they think is the easy route
midsized organization's CRM rollout. IT decided to by assigning a part-time staff to their ITIL projects.
focus on satisfying the needs of sales staff and then While this makes it simpler to get started, it makes it
later expand the system to include customer support harder to adhere to deadlines and it can be a long
staff. while before observable benefits are apparent. Full-
time resources, ideally, are the way to go.
IT, however, failed to appreciate that a major portion of
customer contact came via e-mail and the CRM system "Selecting people from various infrastructure and oper-
didn't function well with e-mail. Yet all that was needed ations teams to work full time on ITIL efforts is the less
was a simple one-button click to have an e-mail stored common approach, but generally delivers higher quali-
as a record in the CRM system. ty results in a shorter timeframe," said Holub.

"IT didn't really talk to the customer support people Personnel selection, though, can be a major point of
and ended up with a decent tool for sales that cus- contention. Resources you thought were available sud-
tomer support doesn't have much use for," said denly are sent elsewhere.
Broussard.
"To avoid potential conflicts during implementation,
The takeaway? Everyone involved has to be consulted resources should be identified as part of the business
and also attend meetings so they know what is planned plan and agreed upon by all," said TeamQuest's Potter.
and what others are thinking. This, said Broussard, is "Any changes need to be driven through the change
the best way to establish commitment. process by the project manager and agreed upon by all
parties concerned."
Deadlines & Commitments He cautioned, however, that day-to-day business
While communication is the starting point and the carri- processes need to be maintained. Thus, flexibility must
er wave of project success, it has to be augmented by be built into the plan to account for a reasonable num-
a multitude of other factors. ber of unforeseen events.

"Fully implementing the 10 core service delivery and CA's Johnson said even the best laid plans can be
service support processes that ITIL describes is a jour- sidetracked especially if resources are cut or rede-
ney that will take several years in most cases," said ployed, or priorities change. Thus an exit strategy must
Gartner's Holub. "Therefore, it is important to prioritize be built in during the planning stages.
what will add the most value and also address current
pain points." "Planning should include some identifiable targets to

11 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
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scrub the project if things go wrong," said Johnson. "There should be two measures: one is current status
"The best defense is a well constructed project plan and other is the trend," he said. "This helps manage-
with regular updates and an exit strategy (with the pro- ment better determine where attention is most need-
jected impact on the business) should resources sud- ed."
denly dry up."
In addition, he called for post-implementation perform-
Checks & Balances ance reviews. Such reviews answer the questions: "Did
we accomplish what we set out to do?", "Was it a
Holub said it is vital to select a balanced set of metrics smooth and quality implementation and if not, what
to gauge the health of processes from both an efficien- parts of the implementation process need changing?",
cy and effectiveness perspective. and "Is this new process providing the expected bene-
fit and if not, what changes need to be made?"
"If either efficiency (cost) or effectiveness (quality) is
overemphasized, you may inadvertently drive the
wrong behavior," he said.
Remember TCO
While ongoing metrics are important, it may be even
Potter, on the other hand, highlighted the value of more key to long-term ITIL success to put in place
dashboards. While more in-depth status reports should mechanisms to measure Total Cost of Ownership
be provided bi-monthly or monthly, dashboards offer a (TCO). Gartner's measurements, after all, show that
quick indicator of project component progress. Simple moving from no adoption of ITIL to full adoption can
red, yellow, and green are usually sufficient. reduce an organization's TCO by as much as 48 per-
cent. I

12 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

The Key to Quality Service Level Management


By Karsten Smet

these targets. It is a commitment.

I
TIL has a clear definition of Service Level Management and
goes into considerable detail on the process, implemen-
tation, and content of the key deliverable, the Service The SLA should not favor one side. It is a fair reflection
Level Agreement (SLA). of the business requests and requirements that IT can
provide. It should not be a smoking gun pointed at IT,
But is the SLA really the key deliverable? nor does it relieve IT from providing adequate service
to the business. It does,
ITIL does not go into such however, set expectations.
detail on Service Level
Requirements (SLRs), The obvious risk of missing
Operational Level Service Levels is damage to
Agreements (OLAs), the business. Yet another,
Underpinning Contracts and just as important, is the
(UCs), or the Service effect on customer percep-
Catalogue. Let's discuss these tion that can ultimately
important parts of an SLA and result in the loss of faith in
provide guidance on their IT.
uses. The outcome will be an
understanding of why ITIL Another common flaw is the
places so much importance inability for organizations to
on the production of SLAs. create agreements that are
simple and concise. An SLA
Service Level Agreements should be no more than three or four pages, not 20.

A Service Level Agreement is a documented agree- ITIL identifies how to make this work across large
ment between IT and its customer (internal to an organizations with multiple services. Customer-based
organization) on the levels of a service being provided. SLAs (one SLA per customer across multiple services),
The most important aspect of an SLA is that it is an service-based SLAs (one SLA per service), and multi-
agreement and bears no contractual weight to meet


A Service Level Agreement is a documented agreement between IT and its
customer (internal to an organization) on the levels of a service being provided.

13

Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]
tiered SLAs (corporate-based SLAs, customer-based where time is not an obstacle, it is useful to sit with cus-
SLAs, and service-based SLAs in three-tier format) all tomers who use or will use a service for the first time
offer the ability to enable simple, easy-to-manage and understand their requirements. Don't just take
SLAs. what they say and translate it to "what we think they
want."
Use simple, achievable rules when creating metrics that
apply to SLAs, OLAs, and UCs. Too many organizations Once it is clear what the customers want from a service
spend far too long coming up with encompassing SLAs and you understand what their requirements mean, it is
that in truth are not measurable and will never provide possible to begin to transform the information into an
an understanding of how the service is performing. The SLA. The basic template should be derived from, and
time spent creating these large documents is a waste. maintained within, Service Level Management. It's pos-
sible that certain headings of the SLA template are not
Service Level Requirements applicable and if this is the case, there is no reason to
create additional requirements.
Do we put too much emphasis on SLAs? To answer
that question, we need to understand where this agree- To better understand the translation of the customer
ment originates. It is equally important to understand requirements to an SLA, and to gather a picture of
the business requirements for any services IT provides what each section of the SLA means, completely focus
and that they are concise and well documented. the draft on the customer and review with the business.
From this, negotiations can then begin.
In a mature ITIL environment, the Service Desk (where
appropriate) will support gathering the requirements. Once IT is confident they understand the requirements,
They are speaking to customers every day, and fre- they are in a good position to evaluate whether they
quently liaise with the Availability Manager to discuss can achieve these goals or offer options. The best way
the customers' perception of the service. Even with a for IT to ensure the customer appreciation of why a
Service Desk in place, the ability to gather and docu- requirement can or cannot be met is to translate the
ment a true set of Service Level Requirements and then service into financial terms (e.g., the extra cost of 24x7
construct into a SLA is far from simple. availability).

IT and business speak a different language. Customers The negotiation period will often result in multiple draft
should communicate in their own words what they SLAs, but the focus must always remain on the most
need from a service. Avoid the SLA headings such as you can provide the customer without overextending
"Availability, Throughput, etc." as these will mean little IT. I
to an everyday user or customer. In an ideal world

14 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

The Right Way to Set SLAs


George Spafford

tions environment is not stable, you should start with

E
very IT Service Management consultant will tell you the
same thing: Everyone wants to jump into Service Level Change and Configuration Management first, as setting
Management and set their Service Level SLAs right SLAs can cause everyone to lose confidence in the
away. ITSM effort.

While the SLAs get a lot of To start the journey, IT must


press, they are part of the designate a Service Level
Service Level Management Manager who is empowered
(SLM) process and we need to negotiate with the cus-
to step back and discuss how tomers and make commit-
we should arrive at SLAs. ments that are binding on
the IT organization. This per-
The goal of SLM is to under- son must be very knowl-
stand the requirements of the edgeable about IT and the
customer and organization, business and be an excel-
factor in the capabilities of lent communicator with
the supplier(s), and then honed negotiation skills.
deliver quality services that
meet those requirements and The Service Level Manager
are subject to constant meets with each customer
improvement. The intent of and understands require-
this is to build a better rela- ments. The manager then
tionship between IT and its customers. crafts a Service Level Requirements (SLR) document that
identifies in business terms what the customer needs.
It is important to have a solid SLM process, as it will
affect the overall ITSM initiative. In fact, if your opera- Next, the SLM manager meets with the suppliers who


The Service Level Manager meets with each customer and understands
requirements. The manager then crafts a Service Level Requirements (SLR)
document that identifies in business terms what the customer needs.

15 ”
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[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]
provision the services that the customer is interested in. When creating the aforementioned agreements, always
These suppliers could be internal, external, or a mixture think about how objectives and service levels can be
thereof. These suppliers need to review each service and crafted such that they are "SMART" meaning they must
craft Service Specification Sheets for each. If the SLR is a be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and
customer-facing document, then the spec sheets can be Timely. One reason for these attributes is that once the
viewed as the technical underpinning documents outlin- agreements are set performance must be measured
ing how the business requirements will be met. using the critical success factors and key performance
indicators set forth in the SQP.
Metrics Must Mean
Something to Customers It's About the Relationship
Now, derived from the customer's requirements set An SLA is not a contract. It is a formal expression of a
forth in the SLR and the supplier inputs in the spec relationship. If an SLA is so complicated that nobody
sheets, the manager crafts a Service Quality Plan (SQP) can understand it and therefore gets confused as to
that puts forth key performance indicator metrics and what to do when and how, then the results can actually
any critical success factors for monitoring the perform- be counterproductive and harm both service levels and
ance of the service. It is important that the metrics have the relationship with the customer. IT exists for the cus-
value to the customer and IT, not just IT. tomer -- not the other way around -- and some careful
give-and-take may be needed.
When communicating with the customer and ensuring
requirements are met, it is very important to be meas- On an ongoing basis, monthly or quarterly for example,
uring what matters. For example, what value does the Service Level Manager should sit down with the
availability as a percent really serve if the business lost various customers to review the performance of IT rela-
a painful $2 million during an outage that occurred dur- tive to the services provisioned for each customer.
ing the 0.001 percent of unplanned downtime?
In areas where corrective action is needed, a Service
At this point, the manager needs to negotiate the Improvement Plan (SIP) should be launched and one of
agreements relating to provisioning. The Service the outcomes may be to revise the previously defined
Catalog documenting what IT can provision must be service levels. These Service Review meetings are a
developed or refined if it already exists. The SLAs stat- great opportunity to not only discuss performance, but
ing what IT and the customer will each provide and also the direction of the customer and IT. Whenever
how the relationship will be managed must be crafted. there is a customer contact point, that opportunity
The OLAs stating how IT will meet the service levels should be used to understand what is going on with
that are needed and the UCs committing vendors must the customer and to update the customer about what
be set as well. is going on in IT.

To be clear, the OLAs are used with internal groups to The idea is to build the relationship constantly. If the
ensure they can provide service levels that enable IT to relationship is lost, then all of the service level docu-
meet the customer's defined Service Levels. UCs are mentation is pretty much pointless.
used with vendors/third parties to ensure they can
meet defined Service Levels. The most important things coming from SLM are not
voluminous agreements that sit on a shelf. In other
The creation of these agreements will require repeated words, the goal is not to simply create documenta-
sessions of negotiation, creation of drafts, amendments, tion. Instead, the true benefits lie in understanding
and reaching a final conclusion for each that commits the needs of the customer, measuring IT's perform-
the involved parties. This level of negotiation is why the ance against those requirements, and then continu-
Service Level Manager must be skilled in both commu- ously seeking methods to improve the provisioned
nications and negotiations plus have a solid understand- service levels. In this manner, IT can deliver quality
services to the organization that enables organization-
al goals to be met. I
ing of the IT organization and the business.

16 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

Service Level Management is the Hinge


By Darreck Lisle

each of the support processes is useless, as there is no

T
he most overlooked process, the Cinderella of all
processes, is the Service Level Management (SLM). basis for validation of the level of service expected.
Service Level Management is the process of planning,
coordinating, drafting, agreeing, monitoring, and reporting Most consideration to SLM is given during the Request
on SLAs, and the ongoing review of actual service achieve- for Proposal (RFP) phase. At that time, repeatedly, only
ment to ensure that the required and cost-justifiable quality one part of SLM becomes important: the SLA. But,
of service is maintained and improved. soon after the bid has been awarded, the guidelines of
the SLAs are no longer written in stone and up for
The SLM process is the hinge interpretation. This comes to
for the service support and the detriment of the cus-
service delivery processes. It tomer and the service
cannot function in isolation, provider.
as it relies on the existence
and effectiveness of other Today there is a disturbing
processes. SLM is focused on trend propagating itself
integration -- how well the through ITSM implementa-
service support and service tion efforts both in the gov-
delivery processes function ernment and civilian sectors.
together. ITSM implementers are
viewing Service Level
SLM is responsible for ensur- Management as a necessary
ing SLAs and OLAs or UCs evil and not as the asset that
are met. Ensuring that any it truly is.
adverse impact on service
quality is kept to a minimum also falls with in the realm Let's look at some examples from an ongoing contract
of SLM. SLAs provide the basis for managing the rela- that's been supported for more than four years. This is
tionship between the customer and the provider. An a Service Delivery contract for a customer that out-
SLA without measurable and defined expectations for sourced its IT services to a prime contractor. This cus-


An SLA without measurable and defined expectations for each of
the support processes is useless, as there is no basis for validation
of the level of service expected.

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]
tomer historically had all of its internal IT requirements The first thing the service provider did was to place a
and delivery left to individual business units (silos). That price tag to every CI as an attribute, thus limiting the
means that every silo had its own budget, require- customer from viewing the CMDB information.
ments, and tools to conduct their business independ- Consequently, there was no value add for any of the
ently. This practice equated to having several hundred other processes accessing the CMDB. In reality, the
disparate networks with their own unique flavor of how CMDB was merely an asset library that moonlighted as
they should conduct business, and not as service offer- a DSL for release management.
ings.
How well did the CMDB perform based on the manda-
During the SLM portion of the RFP, the SLAs were writ- tory SLA Report? The configuration manager never
ten in such a way that they did not establish accounta- missed an SLA because it only took milliseconds to
bility, capture expectations, or provide escalation of press the save button on his/her database.
compliance issues. They were written from a gover-
nance/oversight role without specifying what data is to This particular customer didn't back down from the
be made available to the customer and defining challenge and began to introduce tactics to combat the
Intellectual Property that should be rightly protected by practice of hiding behind the SLAs. The frustrated cus-
the service provider. tomer started asking questions like: "What am I paying
for?" "How many assets do I have in the environ-
As soon as the contract was signed, both parties began ment?" and "I want you to prove it to me before I
to interrogate the SLAs for what they could use to pro- pay."
tect themselves. The service provider, instead of figur-
ing out how the SLAs can help the customer benefit To quote one senior manager, "Fundamental, standard-
from the best solution, classified everything as intellec- ized, repeatable processes, or rather the lack thereof,
tual property, and the customer began to ask for have been a sea anchor on our project for some time
detailed reports and data sources that deemed to be now. The perspective is that we (customer and service
outside the scope of a customer purchasing IT services. provider) just don't have time to do it right, but always
have time to do it over. For both of us to succeed, this
The contract specified numerous SLAs and three levels must stop."
of service for each one. These levels of service had a
cost associated with them based on the delivery time. It should be clearly understood that either extremely
At the same time, the SLAs were written so poorly that tight SLAs are written and executed, or cus-
there were no consequences outlined for failure to tomer/contractor interdependencies are established
comply with the thresholds. throughout the support and delivery processes. While
the IT service providers may passionately desire that
Let's drill down into one of the SLAs and provide you a the customer is completely uninvolved, this rarely
snapshot of the complexity introduced from the poorly occurs unless the customer is ignorant, unconcerned,
written SLAs: or both.

• SLA XX: "The Contractor shall provide and maintain Today, there is a realization that both parties have to
a CMDB for tracking assets." work together to make sure that this contract is suc-
cessful. Large amounts of negotiations, sacrifices, and
• Metrics: "The time to update the CMDB will not retooling have gone on over the years, and finally
exceed a four hour window." measurable SLAs are on the drawing board.

This is how the configuration management SLA looked, Lessons Learned


minus some sensitive verbiage. In a nutshell, this was
the extent that the customer could hold the service • SLM cannot be pigeonholed into a small piece of the
provider accountable for all configuration management RFP with little or no thought about how the entire serv-
efforts provided as an offering. ice delivery contract will be affected.

18 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
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]
• SLAs need to have input from both the service Thanks to a clear set of agreements, the Service Desk is
provider and the customer to ensure that the goal of less troubled with calls that are not part of the services
the project is achieved. offered. This way, the 100 Service Desk employees
work 5 percent more efficiently, resulting in a gain of
• SLA data must include metrics, expectations, data 100 x 5% x $25 x 24 x 365 = $1,095,000 a year.
accessibility requirements, ownership, and escalation
procedures written into the contract from the begin- Most organizations that use IT are dependent on it, and
ning. if processes are not implemented, managed, and sup-
ported in the appropriate way, the business will proba-
• The upfront cost of writing solid SLAs is far less bly suffer unacceptable degradation in terms of loss of
then trying to short cut the accountability of provid- productive hours, higher production costs, and lost
ing quality service. opportunity translating into loss of revenue.

The improvements in service quality and the reduction The objective is to continually improve the quality of
in service disruption that can be achieved through service, aligned to the business requirements, cost-
effective SLM can ultimately lead to significant financial effectively. But unless people, processes, and technolo-
savings. gy are considered and implemented appropriately
within a structured framework, the objectives of service
Below is an example of how to quantify the costs and management will not be realized.
benefits of implementing Service Level Management. It
is not intended to be comprehensive. It can be popu- The implementation of Service Management is not a
lated with specific assumptions, purposes, costs, and one-time project, but rather a continuous process of
benefits to get an example that is more suitable to the enabling overall service improvement. I
specific circumstances.

In this example, the following assumptions are made:


• 100 employees cost $25 an hour each
• The organization comprises 50,000 users
• The total number of incidents is 50,000 per year

19 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
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Incidents, Problems, Known


Errors and Changes
By George Spafford

of the SLA.

N
ow that we've examined how to begin an ITIL
implementation and looked at SLAs, let's review
some of the ITIL processes that IT departments will The perspective is grounded in the SLA because it
have to put into practice. should outline performance expectations from the cus-
tomer -- not just from IT's perspective. This reflects the
ITIL uses specific wording in need to support the busi-
the Incident and Problem ness, not just push technolo-
Management process areas gy.
to describe the lifecycle of
system errors through to If the cause is readily appar-
structural resolution. The rela- ent and can be corrected,
tionship of the terminology then a work-around is devel-
used is an interesting topic of oped or a request for
discussion, as we can explore change (RFC) created. Some
the handling of a service error corrections can be done
through the Incident without change -- such as
Management process and resetting a device -- necessi-
opportunities for improve- tating only a work-around.
ment.
On the other hand, if a
An incident is any event that change is required, it needs
is not part of the normal to be handled through the
operation of a service and impacts, or threatens to proper Change Management processes. Even though
impact, the quality of the service delivered. In Incident Management's goal is the speedy restoration
response, IT opens an incident record to try to quickly of service, it must not bypass Change Management or
restore the service to operating within the parameters this will cause production build configurations to drift


An incident is any event that is not part of the normal operation of a service
and impacts, or threatens to impact, the quality of the service delivered.

20

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]
from their established baselines. Opportunities for Improvement
If the cause of the error is not readily apparent, or it is The above outlines the relationships between Incidents,
felt that an investigation is required, then a problem Problems, Known Errors, RFCs and, finally, Resolutions.
record should be opened. This new problem record is Building on the topics discussed above, there are sev-
then independent of the incident because the incident eral opportunities for process improvement:
management function is tasked with restoring service
as quickly as possible. • Be able to quickly identify changes. Most availabili-
ty issues stem from changes. The sooner changes can
In contrast, the Problem Management function is be identified or excluded, the better. Consider using
tasked with identifying the underlying causal factor, an automated integrity management control to
which may relate to multiple incidents. It may take sev- detect and report on changes found in the produc-
eral incidents to transpire before Problem Management tion environment.
has enough data to understand the root cause. Once
Problem Management identifies the causal factor and • Use a proper taxonomy in order to match existing
develops a work-around, then the problem becomes a incident and problems. Speeding up the search for
"known error." similar, or related, incidents and problems necessi-
tates a classification system that supports the needs
The fact that sometimes Problem Management cannot of the organization.
immediately identify the root cause and establish a cor-
rective action puts the two groups at odds, as incident • Record meaningful notes in the ticket. Personnel
management wants a quick fix, or work-around. If the involved with incidents and problems need to enter
Incident Management team develops a work-around, notes that are useful to other people in the ticket.
then the Problem Management record should be Terse or cryptic comments will not aid others who
updated with the information so the Problem may need to read and understand the ticket.
Management team can leverage the additional data.
• Have a resolution editor. Task someone who can
In reviewing the Incident Management team's work- write clearly with reviewing resolutions to ensure they
around, Problem Management may elect to accept the are complete, clearly written and follow any organiza-
work as the resolution because it addresses the root tional documentation standards. This may also be
cause. If it does not, then Problem Management will warranted for known errors, depending on the orga-
dig deeper. If Problem Management develops a work- nization's needs.
around that addresses the incident without solving the
root cause, then the incident becomes a "known error." Incident and Problem Management are valuable
process domains in ITIL. As the pervasiveness of IT
As mentioned above, if a change is needed, then an increases in mission-critical aspects of the business, this
RFC must be filed and handled through Change trend will continue. As organizations look to ITIL to
Management. If Problem Management establishes the improve their processes, they will need to understand
the relationship between Incidents, Problems, Known
Errors, Request for Change, and Resolutions. I
root cause and a resolution, they need to alert Incident
Management so the "known error" tickets can benefit
from the resolution and have their status shifted to
"closed" once the corrective work is completed.

21 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

Six Steps to Service Outage Analysis


By Hank Marquis

forming an SOA is complicated but, in reality, just the

I
TIL refers to service or systems outage analysis (SOA) as a
method to improve availability. Presented as an availability opposite is true: You can perform an SOA without any
management process tool or technique, SOA is a powerful major investment in software, tools, or training.
management tool to improve quality.
Performing an SOA is straightforward. Working with
As is quite common since the ITIL is descriptive and not Problem Management and customers, you examine
prescriptive, ITIL does not explain how to carry out a past outages to identify configuration items (CI), such
SOA. In this section we'll as the products, people, or
explain what an SOA is, its ben- process, related to an outage.
efits, and give you an easy to In effect, you simply review
follow six-step guide to per- the impact to the organization
forming SOA. and infrastructure as reflected
by how the organization
The reason to use SOA is to responded to an outage.
identify the causes of outages
and thus reduce the frequency This is different from proactive
and duration of outages. SOA problem management since
aims to improve mean-time-to- availability management has a
repair (MTTR). scope that includes the
organization (people, process,
The result of an SOA is clear training, staffing, etc.).
understanding of what hap-
pened to cause an outage, and exposes the risk of Getting Started
future outages due to the same cause or causes.
To get going, collect outage data in the form of inci-
Finally, an SOA can produce recommendations for
dents, any related closed problems, or known errors.
improvement to avoid the issue in the future.
Gather together a team of people familiar with the out-
With these types of benefits, you might think that per-


The result of an SOA is clear understanding of what happened
to cause an outage, and exposes the risk of future outages due to
the same cause or causes.

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ages, the infrastructure, processes, procedures, people, Remember to consider the "3 Ps" -- people, product,
and so on. Be sure to include a customer representa- and process. Then review:
tive and perhaps some users on the team as well (their
input will be critical in guiding the team through the • All existing procedures and policies used during
SOA process). the outage
• The actions and inactions of staff members, cus-
Once you have the team empowered, lead them tomers, and anyone else involved in the outage or its
through the six following steps: restoration
• The management directives given to all involved
Group related outages together by vendor, product, during the before and during the outage
family, application, customer, etc. Then, using cus-
tomer and user input as appropriate, categorize each You must determine if anything might have lessened
outage as "significant" or "less significant." Focus only the duration of the outage, or better yet, avoided it
on those labeled "significant," and monitor the "less altogether. Your examination of the "3 Ps" should
significant" for future outages. locate a trend, a related cause, or at something in com-
mon with similar outages. This is the smoking gun.
For each outage tagged as "significant" review the
root cause of the unavailability (this requires closed inci- For example, a common cause that might extend an
dents and problems), for example, faulty hardware or outage may be a hierarchical escalation requirement
software. This is probably already known since the out- that does not allow staff to proceed without manage-
age is resolved. ment approval or a special tool is required and could
not be found.
Perform a simple Pareto analysis to break the signifi-
cant issues into a smaller group. Using the Pareto The next step is to quantify the avoidable outage
80/20 rule you can rank the related outages and their time. That is, if one hour of downtime resulted from
causes. trying to locate the proper tool, then the avoidable out-
age time is one hour times the number of outages so
You will find that the majority (80 percent) of the out- affected.
ages result from a select few causes (20 percent of the
organization or infrastructure). Of course, you want to Identifying the most preventable downtime is your
focus on the 80 percent of the outages caused by the goal. This is then the most significant generator of pre-
20 percent of the causes. ventable downtime.

For each grouping of similar outages, examine the End the SOA by creating a report summarizing the
reasons for the duration of the unavailability. For number of outages analyzed, timeframe, avoidable out-
example, the outage may have occurred because of age time, and the suggestions for improving or avoid-
faulty hardware or software, but the duration of the ing the outage. Prepare a request for change (RFC) and
unavailability might have been extended by lack of pass the entire kit on to change management. I
tools, little or no training, unavailable spares, etc.

23 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]

Automation IT Capacity Management


By Drew Robb

ing IT infrastructure.

F
acing hundreds of servers supporting vital business
functions, capacity management automation has
become a must. This highlights any shortfalls based upon the prediction
of future resource needs. With these results reported to
"The sheer volume of infor- management, the cycle con-
mation required to do capaci- tinues: Capacity and per-
ty management in today's formance data is gathered
highly complex IT infrastruc- on the upgraded infrastruc-
tures makes automation a ture, which can then be ana-
necessity," said Gartner's Ed lyzed and new baselines
Holub. "Even with automa- established. Thus capacity
tion in place, however, there planning is a continuous
still is a lot of effort required process.
by senior IT professionals to
effectively manage capacity." As workloads change, hard-
ware is added or networks
In capacity planning, data are reinforced, new base-
collection tools are first put lines must be isolated, and
in place. This enables organi- future needs forecasted with
zations to gather perform- accuracy.
ance and capacity data,
which can be analyzed to build a baseline view of "The first element of capacity management is visibility
where the current infrastructure stands. With this in of the infrastructure in your environment and knowl-
hand, the organization can better understand existing edge of how the elements are connected together to
business plans and their potential impact on the exist- deliver business services and the associated service lev-


As workloads change, hardware is added or networks are reinforced, new
baselines must be isolated, and future needs forecasted with accuracy.

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]
els," said Rob Stroud, an IT Service Management evan- Further, associating business events to usage can be
gelist at CA. "The second element is to understand the problematic. Performance data, after all, is of little use
demand on your environment." if you can't determine the business events associated
with the usage. Large organizations with several hun-
Any organization beginning capacity planning activities dred applications, for example, make this task complex
for the first time faces a daunting prospect-the entire and extensive.
enterprise lies before them. Every process, every
resource, every system, and every building is a poten- Such challenges can be overcome by using installation
tial target. scripts that can be easily integrated into existing soft-
ware distribution tools to help automate installation.
Getting Started Centrally based administration can also facilitate config-
uration by propagating commonly used configurations
The best approach is to prioritize capacity planning across large number of servers. For example, operating
efforts based on mission-critical needs. That means system component usage may be accounted for in an
focusing on infrastructure components supporting "overhead" category and a database management sys-
those applications necessary to business survival first. tem accounted for in a "DBMS" category.
Typically, this centers around order processing, order
fulfillment, manufacturing, and customer service, "As the delivery of services gains complexity, automa-
depending on the business. tion is key to delivering capacity solutions," said
Stroud. "Automation leveraging technology is critical
Once priorities have been established, the capacity including the configuration management database for
planner should begin with a resource view to gather the storage of the relationships and performance man-
data, look for outliers, and find out more about them. agement technology to record performance in real time
With that data in hand, the next step is to build profiles and delivers usage information and alerts where capaci-
for each component or groups of components such as ty thresholds are exceeded."
clusters, banks, and mirrors.

The capacity planner should also dig in to locate repet-


The Role of Analytics
itive cycles. For example, there might be a spike on Analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools play a part
server usage every Friday afternoon caused by every- in capacity management. Advanced analytics permit
one logging on to check messages and complete tasks you to better monitor infrastructure behavior. For exam-
before the weekend. Monthly, quarterly, and annual ple, you may have a server that operates at 40 percent
processes can also be tracked. Capacity planning capacity. One day the utilization jumps to 60 percent
efforts can be thwarted by a failure to take these repeti- and stays there. Since your capacity threshold for alert-
tive cycles into account. ing occurs at 75 percent, it may be some time before
you realize that there might be a problem.
Further, the capacity planner must determine represen-
tative timeframes. This is meant to discern usage levels "In addition, advanced analytics could perform continu-
that fit various time frames: How many workstations will ous trending functions so when application usage
be in use at any one time? How will usage patterns strays from what is expected, the appropriate people
shift over time? Similarly with servers, representative are alerted to determine cause and permit corrective
timeframes must be established to take into account activities or drive changes to the capacity plans," said
usage and other metrics. TeamQuest's Ronald Potter. "Where business metrics
are not available, business intelligence tools can help
Obviously, such tasks require automation. But rolling you understand business processes and how they
out performance data capture software across several impact infrastructure capacity."
thousand servers can be a daunting task. Even if agents
are used, they still need to be configured in order to By using BI, it is possible to determine counts of busi-
customize the data collected and the way it is aggre- ness events and associate them to the data contained
gated for reporting purposes. in the capacity database. Doing so facilitates the ability

25 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.
[ Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL
]
to communicate infrastructure capacity in business IT has to have information from the business regarding
terms. forecasted growth so it can translate increases in busi-
ness volumes into hardware/software resource con-
But tools are only part of the solution. As with all ITIL sumption. It is vital to have well-defined SLAs between
implementations, the capacity management process IT and the business, so that just enough capacity can
relies on the right combination of people, process, and be cost effectively provisioned to meet those agree-
technology. Thus, effective capacity management ments.
necessitates working relationships with business units.
Changes in business processes, even using the same That's where capacity management comes in. By
applications, can dramatically affect system perform- automating many of the processes and harnessing vari-
ance. Signing a large new customer can have a similar ous tools to add efficiency, capacity-planning efforts
impact. can be streamlined and simplified.

"Without good working relationships with your busi- But Holub points out that capacity management cannot
ness customer, you may not discover business changes operate in isolation within an ITIL framework. Nor
until after they have happened and your systems are should it be done prior to certain other facets of ITIL
overloaded," said Potter. "A good working relationship
permits you to run your infrastructure closer to the "Capacity management is one of the higher-order ITIL
edge since you have confidence that in most cases you processes," said Holub. "Organizations should ensure
will have enough advance notice to react to business they have achieved relatively high process maturity in
changes." the core service support processes such as change
management and configuration management, before
Process, too, is vital. Processes play an essential role in attempting to tackle capacity management." I
the success of capacity planning. The roadmap to suc-
cess is processes that are repeatable and consistent. This content was adapted from Internet.com's
The results from process efficiency can be significant. ITSMWatch.com Web site. Contributors: Drew Robb,
George Spafford, Mike Tainter, Atwell Williams, Hank
"In research I've conducted on behalf of the IT Process Marquis, Karsten Smet, Andrew Sarnoff, Thomas
Institute, we discovered that high performing IT organi- Wimmer and Darreck Lisle.
zations (which constituted about 13 percent of our sur-
veyed population) sustain five-times higher server/sys-
admin ratios, manage eight-times more projects and
six-times as many applications, and implement 14-
times as many changes compared to the typical organi-
zation,” said Gene Kim, CTO of Tripwire.

Once you understand the processes and their interac-


tions with other processes, automation is key.
Automation enables the implementation of the knowl-
edge developed in the organization and allows for
enhanced customer support.

Some vendors offer solutions and tools that automate


ITIL, as well as supporting materials such as a series of
graphical representations or subway maps that help
them no matter where they are in their implementa-
tions.

Capacity Management Not Enough

26 Implementing Service Level Management with ITIL, An Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.

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