4.8 Processes
4.8.1 Service Level Management (SLM)
Service level management principles form the basis on how to contribute to an ITSM culture to ensure that the right services with the appropriate quality are delivered, at the right cost to end users.
A) Purpose of Service Level Management Process
Ensure all current / planned services are delivered to agreed achievable targets
Accomplished through a constant cycle of negotiating, agreeing, monitoring, reporting on and reviewing IT service targets and achievements, and through instigation of actions to correct or improve the level of service delivered
B) Objectives of Service Level Management Process
Define, document, agree, monitor, measure, report and review the level of IT services provided; instigate corrective measures whenever appropriate
Provide and improve a relationship / communication with the business and customers in conjunction with business relationship management
Ensure specific and measurable targets are developed for all IT services
Monitor and improve customer satisfaction with quality of service delivered
Ensure IT and customers have a clear expectation of service levels to be delivered
Ensure that even when all agreed targets met, the levels of service delivered are subject to proactive, cost-effective continual improvement.
C) Scope of Service Level Management Process
Establishing service level requirements
Establishing Service level agreements
Monitoring service performance.
Measuring customer satisfaction.
Reporting on service performance and customer satisfaction.
Maintaining customer relationships.
D) Key Activities of Service Level Management Process
Identify IT services and service requirements
Define, build and manage the IT Service Catalog
Define, build and negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Define, build and negotiate Operational Level Agreements (OLAs)
Identify Underpinning Contract service requirements (UCs)
Monitor and manage SLAs, OLAs and UCs
Initiate service improvement actions
Provide management information about Service Level Management quality and operations
4.8.2 Service Catalogue Management (SCM)
A service catalogue is a database or structured document with information about all live IT services, including those available for deployment. The service catalogue is part of the service portfolio and contains information about two types of IT service: customer-facing services that are visible to the business and supporting services required by the service provider to deliver customer-facing services.
Service Catalogue Management is a process responsible for providing and maintaining the service catalogue and for ensuring that it is available to those who are authorized to access it.
The service catalogue has different views for different people (users, IT, etc.)
Two-view (business service/technical service)
Three-view (wholesale customer, retail customer and supporting services).
A) Purpose of Service Catalogue Management Process
Provide and maintain a single source of consistent information on all operational / ready-to-deploy services, used by customers and IT, essential to service management
Ensure that it is widely available to those authorized to access it
B) Objectives of Service Catalogue Management Process
The production and maintenance of the service catalogue.
Documenting the details of the service, status, interfaces and dependencies (obtained from Configuration Management System), often in service packages (solution)
Ensure the service catalogue is made available to those approved to access it in a way that supports their effective and efficient use of service catalogue information
C) Scope of Service Catalogue Management Process
Contribution to the definition of services and service packages
Development and maintenance of service and service package descriptions appropriate for the service catalogue
Production and maintenance of an accurate service catalogue
Interfaces, dependencies / consistency between the catalogue and service portfolio
Interfaces and dependencies between all services and supporting services within the service catalogue and the CMS
D) Key Activities of Service Catalogue Management Process
Documenting the definition of the service
Production and maintenance of an accurate service catalogue
Interfaces, dependencies and consistency between the service catalogue and service portfolio
Interfaces and dependencies between all services and supporting services within the service catalogue and the CMS
Interfaces and dependencies between all services, and supporting components and Configuration Items (CIs) within the Service Catalogue and the CMS
4.8.3 Availability Management
Availability management is a process responsible for ensuring IT services meet current and future availability needs of the business in a cost-effective and timely manner.
The purpose of Availability Management is to provide a focal point and management responsibility for all availability-related activities in respect of both resources and services
B) Objectives of Availability Management process
To prepare and maintain the Availability Plan.
To monitor availability levels and the status of resources and services to identify potential and actual availability issues and prevent or minimize any consequent business interruptions.
To manage the availability of services and resources to meet agreed service levels.
To assist with the investigation and resolution of availability-related Incidents and Problems.
To assess the impact of changes on availability levels and plans.
To proactively improve availability where the cost is justified.
C) Scope of Availability Management process
Covers the design, implementation, measurement, management, testing and improvement of IT service and component availability (reduce availability issues throughout the service lifecycle)
Ensure that availability is duly considered in service design
Should be applied to all operational services and technology, particularly those covered by SLAs.
Monitor and measure availability according to SLA (if available)
Include both reactive (monitoring by event management, investigating downtime incidences) and proactive (identifying and managing risks) activities.
All information is recorded in the availability management information system. An ongoing process, finishing only when the IT service is decommissioned or retired
D) Key Activities of Availability Management Process
1) Proactive activities:
Ensure that appropriate design and planning of availability takes place for all new services
Planning, design and improvement of availability
Providing cost effective availability improvements that can deliver business and customer benefits
Ensuring agreed level of availability is provided
Produce and maintain an availability plan
2) Reactive activities:
Monitoring, measuring, analysis and management of all events, incidents and problems involving unavailability
Continually optimize and improve availability of IT infrastructure services
Assisting security and ITSCM in the assessment and management of risk
Attending CAB as required
3) Determining availability requirements: the Availability Manager can determine the availability requirements.
4) Determining Vital Business Functions (VBF’s): IT systems that support VBFs should have higher availability expectations and the appropriate systems and support to achieve and sustain these higher levels at critical times which have been agreed and documented in the SLA.
5) Business Impact analysis: A formal analysis of the affect on the business, if a specific set of IT services are not available.
E) Key Indicators of Availability Management
1) Reliability: A measure of how long a service, component or CI can perform its agreed function without Interruption. It is measured as the mean time between service incidents (MTBSI) or mean time between failures (MTBF).
2) Maintainability: A measure of how quickly and effectively a service, component or CI can be restored to normal working after a failure. It is measured as the mean time to restore service (MTRS).
3) Serviceability: Ability of a third-party supplier to meet the terms of its contract. This contract will include agreed levels of availability, reliability and/or maintainability for a supporting service.
4) Resilience: A measure of freedom from operational failure and a method of keeping services reliable. It minimizes the consequences of component failure; one popular method of resilience is redundancy.
5) Security: Security refers to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of that data.
Copyright © Anand Software and Training Private Limited.