Service Transition

7. Technology Considerations

Technology has a major role to play in Service Transition, and this should be designed in, and mechanisms for maintaining and maximizing benefit from that technology must be in place.

There are two ways in which Service Transition is supported by technology:

Enterprise-wide tools that support the broader systems and processes within which Service Transition delivers support
Tools targeted more specifically at supporting Service Transition or parts of Service Transition.

The following systems, supporting the wider scope, will provide automated support for some elements of Service Transition management:

IT Service Management systems:

Enterprise frameworks that provide integration capabilities to integrate and link in the CMDB or tools
System, network and application management tools
Service dashboards and reporting tools

Specific ITSM technology and tools that cover:

Service Knowledge Management System
Collaborative, content management, workflow tools
Data mining tools
Extract, load and transform data tools
Measurement and reporting systems
Test management and testing tools
Database and test data management tools
Copying and publishing tools
Release and deployment technology
Deployment and logistics systems and tools.

There are many support tools that can assist Change Management, Configuration Management and Release Management. These may come in a variety of combinations and include:

Configuration Management Systems and tools
Version control tools
Document-management systems
Requirements analysis and design tools, systems architecture and CASE tools, which can facilitate impact analysis from a business perspective
Database management audit tools to track physical databases
Distribution and installation tools
Comparison tools (software files, directories, databases)
Build and release tools (that provide listings of input and output CIs)
Installation and de-installation tools (that provide listings of CIs installed)
Compression tools (to save storage space)
Listing and configuration baseline tools (e.g. full directory listings with date-time stamps and check sums)
Discovery and audit tools (also called 'inventory' tools)
Detection and recovery tools (where the build is returned to a known state)
Visualization, mapping and graphical representations with drill down
Reporting tools including those that access objects from several databases, providing integrated reports across systems.

7.1 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Knowledge Management tools address an organization's need for management for processing information and promulgating knowledge. Knowledge Management tools address the requirements of maintaining records and documents electronically. Records are distinguished from documents by the fact that they function as evidence of activities, rather than evidence of intentions. Examples of documents include policy statements, plans, procedures, service level agreements and contracts.

Document management - defines the set of capabilities to support the storage, protection, archiving, classification and retirement of documents and information
Records management - defines the set of capabilities to support the storage, protection, archiving, classification and retirement of records
Content management - the capability that manages the storage, maintenance and retrieval of documents and information of a system or website. The result is often a knowledge asset represented in written words, figures, graphics and other forms of knowledge presentation. Examples of knowledge services that directly support content management are:

web publishing tools
web conferencing, wikis, blogs etc.
word processing
data and financial analysis
presentation tools
flow-charting
content management systems (codify, organize, version control, document architectures)
Publication and distribution.

7.2 COLLABORATION

Collaboration is the process of sharing tacit knowledge and working together to accomplish stated goals and objectives. The following is a list of knowledge services widely available today, which, when properly implemented, can significantly improve the productivity of people by streamlining and improving the way they collaborate:

Shared calendars and tasks
Threaded discussions
Instant messaging
White-boarding
Video or teleconferencing
E-mail.

7.2.1 Communities

Communities are rapidly becoming the method of choice for groups of people spread across time zones and country boundaries to communicate, collaborate and share knowledge. These communities are typically facilitated through an online medium such as an intranet or extranet and the community often acts as the integration point for all knowledge services provided to its members. Well-run communities will typically elect a leader to manage and run the community and a group of subject matter experts to contribute and evaluate knowledge assets within the community. Examples of services and functions provided within the typical online community are:

Community portals
E-mail alias management
Focus groups
Intellectual property, best practice, work examples and template repository
Online events and net shows.

Successful communities often implement a reward and recognition programme for their members. Such a programme is a means to acknowledge and reward the contribution of valuable knowledge assets. These assets are submitted by members of the community and are evaluated by the community leader and elected subject matter experts. The author(s) are then recognized within the community and meaningfully rewarded in some fashion for their contribution. This is a highly effective way to encourage members to share their knowledge and move past the old paradigm that knowledge is power and job security and therefore needs to be hoarded. In addition, it is highly recommended that senior management actively participates in these communities to foster a culture and environment that rewards knowledge sharing and collaboration.

7.2.2 Workflow Management

Workflow management is another broad area of knowledge services that provides systemic support for managing knowledge assets through a predefined workflow or process. Many knowledge assets today go through a workflow process that creates, modifies, augments, informs, or approves aspects of the asset. For example, within the sphere of application management, a Request for Change (RFC) is a knowledge asset that moves through a workflow that creates it, modifies it, assesses it, estimates it, approves it and ultimately deploys it. Workflow applications provide the infrastructure and support necessary to implement a highly efficient process to accomplish these types of tasks. Typical workflow services provided, within this services category include:

Workflow design
Routing objects
Event services
Gate keeping at authorization checkpoints
State transition services.

7.3 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Many organizations have some form of Configuration Management in operation, but it is often paper-based. For large and complex infrastructures, Configuration Management will operate more effectively when supported by a software tool that is capable of maintaining a CMS. The CMS contains details about the attributes and the history of each Cl and details of the important relationships between CIs. Ideally, any CMDB should be linked to the DML. Often, several tools need to be integrated to provide the fully automated solution across platforms, e.g. federated CMDB.

The Configuration Management System should prevent changes from being made to the IT infrastructure or service configuration baseline without valid authorization via Change Management. The authorization record should automatically 'drive' the change. As far as possible, all changes should be recorded on the CMS at least by the time that the change is implemented. The status (e.g. 'live', 'archive', etc.) of each Cl affected by a change should be updated automatically if possible. Example ways in which this automatic recording of changes could be implemented include automatic updating of the CMS when software is moved between libraries (e.g. from 'acceptance test' to 'live', or from 'live' to an 'archive' library), when the service catalogue is changed, and when a release is distributed.

The Configuration Management System should, in addition, provide:

Sufficient security controls to limit access on a needto-know basis
Support for CIs of varying complexity, e.g. entire systems, releases, single hardware items, software modules
Hierarchic and networked relationships between CIs; by holding information on the relationships between CIs, Configuration Management tools facilitate the impact assessment of RFCs
Easy addition of new CIs and deletion of old CIs
Automatic validation of input data (e.g. are all Cl names unique?)
Automatic determination of all relationships that can be automatically established, when new Cis are added
Support for CIs with different model numbers, version numbers, and copy numbers
Automatic identification of other affected CIs when any CI is the subject of an incident report/record, problem record, known error record or RFC
Integration of problem management data within the CMS, or at least an interface from the Configuration Management System to any separate problem management databases that may exist
Automatic updating and recording of the version number of a Cl if the version number of any component Cl is changed
Maintenance of a history of all Cis (both a historical record of the current version - such as installation date, records of Changes, previous locations, etc. - and of previous versions)
Support for the management and use of configuration baselines (corresponding to definitive copies, versions
etc.), including support for reversion to trusted versions
Ease of interrogation of the CMS and good reporting facilities, including trend analysis (e.g. the ability to identify the number of RFCs affecting particular CIs)
Ease of reporting of the CI inventory so as to facilitate configuration audits
Flexible reporting tools to facilitate impact analyses
The ability to show graphically the configuration models and maps of interconnected CIs, and to input information about new Cis via such maps
The ability to show the hierarchy of relationships between 'parent' CIs and 'child' CIs.

For software, support tools should allow control to be maintained, for applications software, from the outset of systems analysis and design right through to live running. Ideally, organizations should use the same tool to control all stages of the lifecycle, although this may not be possible if all the platforms cannot be supported by one software tool. If this is not possible, then the ITSM infrastructure Configuration Management tool should at least allow Configuration Management information to be transferred from a software development Configuration Management System into the CMS without the need for re-keying.

These individual tools and solutions may be integrated with the main Service Management system or the Configuration Management System where the effort of integration is beneficial. Otherwise, the integration may be undertaken at the procedural or data level.

Automating the initial discovery and configuration audits significantly increases the efficiency and effectiveness of Configuration Management. These tools can determine what hardware and software is installed and how applications are mapped to the infrastructure.

This means a greater coverage of audited CIs with the resources available, and staff can focus on handling the exceptions rather than doing the audits. If the DML is not integrated with the CMDB it may be worth automating the comparison of the DML contents with the CMDB.