6 itil v3 service operation v1.8

Se rvice
De sig n
Se rvice
ITIL
Service
Strategy
SERVICE
OPERATION
Service
Design
Continual Service
Improvement
Service
Transition
ITIL V3 Core Framework - Service Operation
Service Operation
Day to day delivery and control
process activities for required
stable IT services.

Service Operation
 SO will manage a service through its production life of day-to-day
management.
Main Target Audience:
– Service owners, operational staff, vendors and service providers.
Main Influencers:
–Customers, end users, business and IT Management

Scope of Service Operation
 Execution & Ongoing Activities
– Provided Services
 Internal & External
– Service Management Processes
 Service Operation & Other Lifecycle Processes
– Technology
 Managing Technology
– People
 Consumers of Services
 Providers of Services

SO – Value to the Business
 Actual delivery of services
 Relationship with and satisfaction of customers is improved
 Provision of what is required by the business is provided and planned
for
 From customer viewpoint, it is where actual value is seen.

The Principles of SO
Balancing in Service Operation
It is necessary to achieve a balance between :
– Internal vs. External view
– Stability vs. Responsiveness
– Quality vs. Cost
– Reactive vs. Proactive

Service Operation Balances

Achieving Balance in SO
 Internal View
– Used by IT to Manage the Delivery of Services
– Functional Technological Segmentation
– Functional Focus in Maximizing Its Technology
 External View
– Services as Experienced by Users & Customers
– Little or No Appreciation of “Technological Elegance”
– Concerned with Quality of Service.

Balancing Stability vs. Responsiveness
 Stable & Available
– Technology
– Compliance
– Technology’s Gatekeeper
– As Long as it works with the Existing Technology
– Drives towards a “Steady State”
 Business Needs Change
– Demand Outpaces the Thought Process
– New projects Siphon Resources From Existing Services
– Technology “Grab Bag”
– Disproportionate Consumption of Resources
– Take Care of the Future – Don’t Worry About Today

Balancing QoS vs. CoS
 Good, Fast or Cheap
– Pick Any Two
 Cheap is Never the Least Expensive
 Over-Delivering Doesn’t Ensure Quality
 Balance is Optimization
– Bring Quality in Line With Value of the Service
Note: “Value” NOT “Cost”
– Quality Costs Less Early in the Lifecycle…..and More Later in the Lifecycle

Balancing Reactive vs. Proactive
 Reactive Organization – Waits for Stuff to happen
– Firefighting is a Way of Life
– Heroes Are Revered
 Proactive Organization – Constantly Looking for Improvement
– Fire Prevention is a way of Life
– Heroes Are Acknowledged
 Investigations Launched into What Went Wrong

The Process of Service Operation
 Incident Management
– Coordination of IT resources needed to restore an IT service
 Event Management
– Monitoring events throughout the IT Infrastructure
 Request Fulfillment
– Managing customer & user requests that are not the result of an incident.
 Problem Management
– Finding the root cause of events & incidents
 Access Management
– Granting authorized users the right to use a service.

The Process of Service Operation

Incident Management
Goal
– To restore normal service operation as quickly as possible with minimum disruption to the
business, thus ensuring that the best achievable levels of availability and service are
maintained
Scope
– Incident management includes any Event which disrupts, or which could disrupt a service.
 Eg. Hardware failure, Software error, Network faults, Performance issues, etc
– Incident reported ( or logged) by technical staff, tools, user(s), etc
Benefits
– Minimize the disruption and downtime for our users
– Maintain a record during the entire Incident life-cycle. (This allows any member of the service
team to obtain or provide an up-to-date progress report)
– Incidents are dealt with quickly, before they become severe.
– Building knowledgebase of known issues to allow quicker resolution of frequent Incidents

Incident Management – Key Concepts
 Incident : An unplanned interruption to an IT Service or a reduction in the
quality of an IT service
 Impact : A measure of the effect of an Incident, problem or Change on
Business Processes.
 Response Time : A measure of the time taken to complete an Operation
 Resolution Time : The time that elapses between acknowledged receipt of
an incident and incident resolution.
 Priority : A category used to identify the relative importance of an incident,
problem or change.
 Hierarchical Escalation: Informing or involving more senior levels of
management to assist in an escalation
 Functional Escalation: Transferring an incident, problem or change to a
technical team with a higher level of expertise to assist in an escalation.

Incident Lifecycle
The progression of an incident through a standard process flow.
The key stages in the flow are:
Incident Detecting and Recording
Initial Classifcation and Support
Investigation and Diagnosis
Resolution and Recovery
Closure

Incident Logging
 Sources of Incidents
– Users
– Operations
– Network management
– Systems Management Tools
 Record Incident Information
 Alert Other IT Domains
– Operations
– Network Management

Incident Categorization
 Gather additional Information
– Key Data Elements
 Classification Using
– Standard Coding Scheme
 Match to Knowledge Base
– Previous Incidents
– Problems
– Know Errors
 Assign Initial Priority
 Escalate if Necessary

Incident Categorization - Example

Incident Priority
 What Does It Do to the business?
– Business Impact
 How Quickly Does it Have to Be Fixed?
– Business Urgency
 Priority Assignment
– Function of Impact & Urgency
Priority = Urgency x Impact
Impact = Effort upon the Business
Urgency = Extent to which the resolution can bear delay.

Impact
 Impact is defined as the number of people affected by a service
outage.
 Low Impact: One customer affected, where no executive or
executive staff are involved.
 Medium Impact: Several customers are affected, or an executive or
executive staff are involved.
 High Impact: Whole organization, complete department or building
affected, or revenue/financial systems affected

Urgency
 Urgency is defined as the affect of the event on a customer’s ability
to work.
 Low Urgency: Ability not impaired, the customer is requesting extra
or additional functions or services (a service request).
 Medium Urgency: Abilities are partially impaired, and customers
cannot use certain functions or services.
 High Urgency: Abilities are completely impaired and customers
cannot work.

Priority
Priority is based on Impact and Urgency. The priority determines how
quickly the issue needs to be addressed.
 Low Priority: Work to be completed in 4 business days.
 Medium Priority: Work to be completed in 2 business days.
 High Priority: Work to be completed in 4 hours.
 Urgent Priority: Work to be completed in 2 hours.

Incident Priority
Priority = Urgency x Impact
Urgency = Extent to which the resolution can bear delay
Impact = Effort upon the Business
How quickly does it have to be fixed?
– Business Urgency
 What does it do to the business?
– Business Impact

Incident Class
Incident Class Description
Priority 1 (P1 Critical) Key production system/s failed or unavailable causing severe disruption to
primary business operations.
Priority 2 (P2 High) A critical system/s failed or unavailable causing disruption and impact to critical
business operations. No reasonable workaround available in terms of risk,
effort and customer impact.
Priority 3 (P3 Medium) Some production system/s and or functions are degraded causing medium
impact. A reasonable workaround is available but a permanent solution is
required.
Priority 4 (P4 Low) Some system functionality has failed or is unavailable with minimal
inconvenience to users. Business disruption is minimal and a workaround is
available. A permanent solution is required.

Response & Resolution times for Incidents
Response Time Resolution Time
Incident Priority
During regular
support hours
During on call
support hours
During regular
support hours*
During on call
support hours*
Priority 1 15 min. ½ hour 4 hours 4 hours
Priority 2 1 hour 4 hours 6 hours 8 hours
Priority 3 4 hours N/A 3 w/days N/A
Priority 4 1 w/day N/A As agreed N/A

Incident Priority - Example

Incident Diagnosis
 Coordinate Activities
– Investigation
– Diagnosis
 Escalation
– Functional
– Hierarchical
 Coordinate Development of a Workaround
 Iterative Process
– Keep User Informed

Incident Escalation
2nd
Line
Support
Team
3rd Line
Support
Team
Service Desk
Manager
Service
Desk
Support
Team
3rd
Line
Manager
2nd
Line
Manager
IT Service
Manager
Functional (competence)
Hierarchical(authority)
 Functional
– First Level to Second Level to
third level, Etc.
– Increased Requirements for
Technical Expertise
– Often Based on Elapsed Time to
avoid a Service Level Breach
 Hierarchical
– When Resolution is Not Likely in
Time to Avoid a Service Level
Breach
– Inform in Advance so Timely
Action can be taken
– Allows Time for Corrective Action

Escalation Process for Incident Management
Escalation level Name and Designation
Level 1 Service IT
Level 2 Chennai Messaging Team
Level 3 Manager
Level 4 Group Manager
Below chart shows the timelines for escalation for incidents after the defined
resolution time has expired.
Severity Level 1 Escalation Level 2 Escalation Level 3 Escalation Level 4
Escalation
Priority 1 (Critical) 0 Hour** 1/2 Hour 1 Hour 2 hours
Priority 2 (High) 1 Hour 4 Hours 8 Hours 2 w/days
Priority 3 (Medium) 1 w/day 2 w/days 5 w/days N/A
Priority 4 (Low) 3 w/days 5 w/days N/A N/A

Incident Resolution & Recovery
 Matches to Knowledge Base
– Problems
– Known Errors
 Clean Up / Restore Service
– Restore Files
– Boot Server
 Update Incident Record
 Raise RFC?

Incident Closure Activity
 Incident Review
– Review the Incident against Known Errors problem, solutions, planned changes or
knowledge base
 Final Classification
– Standard Coding Scheme
– Enables Quality Analysis
 Restricted Authority
– Reduced Temptation to “Edit History”

Incident Management – CSFs & KPIs
Critical Success Factors :
– Maintaining IT Service Quality
– Maintaining Customer Satisfaction
– Resolving Incidents within established Service Times
Key Performance Indicators:
Maintaining IT Service Quality
– Number of Severity 1 incidents (total and by category)
– Number of Severity 2 incidents (total and by category)
– Number of other incidents (total and by category)
– Number of incidents incorrectly escalated
– Number of incidents bypassing Service Desk
– Number of incidents not closed/resolved with workarounds
– Number of incidents reopened

Incident Management – CSFs & KPIs
 Maintaining Customer Satisfaction
– Number of User/Customer surveys sent
– Number of User/Customer surveys responded to
– Average User/Customer survey score (total and by question
category)
– Average queue time waiting for Incident response
 Resolving Incidents Within Established Service Times
– Number of incidents logged
– Number of incidents resolved by Service Desk
– Number of incidents escalated by Service Desk
– Average time to restore service from point of first call
– Average time to restore Severity 1 incidents
– Average time to restore Severity 2 incidents

Incident Management Reports
Incident Management reports may include:
– Size of current Incident backlog
– Number and percentage of Major Incidents
– Percentage of Incidents handled within agreed resolution time.
– Number and percentage of Incidents incorrectly assigned
– Number and percentage of Incidents incorrectly categorized.

Incident Management - Roles
 Incident Manager
– Manages Work of Incident Support Staff
 First Line Support
– Normally the Service Desk
 Second Line Support
– Generally Higher Technical Skills
 Third Line Support
– Internal Technical Support
– Third-party Support

Incident Management - Challenges
 Incident must be detected as early as possible
 Convince all staff that all Incidents must be logged
 Availability of information about Problems and Known Errors, workarounds.
 Integration into the Configuration Management System
 Integration into the Service Level management process

Event Management
Purpose:
– Provides the basis for Operational Monitoring & Control
Goal :
– Monitor all events to enable the achievement of normal operation.
Objectives :
– Detect, analyze & direct appropriate control actions.

Importance of Event Management
 The ability to monitor and decipher the continuous flow of information about
the status of service components is key.
 Formal Event Management detects fluctuations in component and service
performance, which can be tuned dynamically to suit each condition.
 Provides the ability to detect events, make sense of them
 Can be used as a basis for automating many Operations Mgt activities, e.g.
Executing scripts on remote devices, submitting jobs for processing
 Provides an entry point for execution of many Service Operation processes &
activities
 Provides:- monitoring of SLA’s; basis for Service Assurance & Reporting, and
Service Improvement

Event Management – Key Concepts
 Event - Any detectable occurrence in the IT infrastructure.
 Monitoring - Monitoring refers to the activity of observing a
situation to detect changes that happen over time
 Reporting - Reporting refers to the analysis , production
and distribution of the output of the monitoring activity
 Alert - A threshold has been exceeded
 Event correlation - To understand events they are
analyzed against other events and their configuration items
 Event filtering - Filtering decides if the event is
informational, warning or exception
– Event Information - no action required ( An IT user may
be logging on to a system)
– Warning - A threshold is soon to be reached or
unauthorized IT event has occurred (An IT user is using
unauthorized software)
– Exception - Typically a configuration item acting
abnormally or a new configuration item has been
implemented (An IT user is logged onto a system where
memory seems to be filling up too quickly)

Event Management – Desirable Tool Features
 Multi-environmental, open interface to allow monitoring across heterogeneous services
& entire IT infrastructure
 Easy to deploy, with minimum setup costs
 ‘Standard Agents’ to monitor most common components/systems
 Open interfaces to accept any standard e.g. SNMP event input
 Centralised routing of all events to a single location programmable to allow different
location(s) at various times.
 Support for design/test phases
 Programmable assessment and handling of alerts depending on symptoms & impact
 Ability to allow an operator to acknowledge an alert, or if no response then
automatically escalate
 Good reporting functionality to allow feedback into design & transition phases as well as
meaningful management info & and business user dashboard

Event Management Roles
 The Role of the Service desk
– Initial Support, Escalation, Communications
 Role of Technical and Application Management
– Define, Manage Events
– Deal with Incidents and Problems related to Event
 IT Operations Management
– Event Monitoring, provide initial response

Request Fulfillment
Purpose :
– Manage non-incident related customer or user requests
Goal :
– Facilitate the timely and accurate fulfillment of request for service
Objective :
– Deliver requested pre-approved standard services.

Request Fulfillment Roles
 Service Desk Staff
– Service Desk and Incident Management staff provides initial response and handles the request
 Staff in other appropriate functions
– Responsible for ensuring eventual fulfillment of the request.
 External Suppliers, as appropriate
– As per the request from the organizations, fulfill the Service Request.

Problem Management
Goal
– To minimize the adverse effect on the business of incidents and problems caused by errors in the infrastructure,
and to proactively prevent the occurrence of incidents, problems and errors
Scope
– Identify and resolve IT problems that affect IT services
 To minimize the impact of problems and incidents
– Pro-active problem management
 To reduce the overall number of IT incidents
– Maintain information about problems and the appropriate workarounds and resolutions
– To ensure that the right level and number of resources are resolving specific problems
– Maintaining relationships with third party suppliers
Benefits
– Identifies and escalates a problem to the highest priority.
– Ensures involvement by appropriate staff involved in providing any aspect of the service affected.
– Ensures that all possible causes are explored.
– Provides needed communication and follow up to ensure resolution.
– Learning from experience – the process provides historical data to identify trends, the means of preventing
failures and of reducing the impact of failures

Problem Management – Key Concepts
 Problem :
– “The unknown root cause of one or more Incidents”
 Workaround :
– “ A temporary way of overcoming technical difficulties (i.e., Incidents or problems”)
 Known Error
– “ Problem that has a documented Root Cause and a workaround”
 Known Error Database (KEDB)
– “Database containing all Known Error Records”

Problem Management
ProblemsIncidents
}
}
}
Known Errors Request for Change
}
}
}
• How well does IT respond to
incidents?
• How much does it cost?
• Are all incidents logged and
tracked?
• How is customer satisfaction?
• What % of incidents are
studied for root causes?
• How many FTE?
• How quickly is it done?
• How much does it cost?
• How good are we?
• How much does it cost to id
a root cause? How many
FTE?
• What % of problems have
identified root causes
• How many incidents were caused by
changes?
• How many changes of each type?
• How much do they cost?
• How many root causes were
eliminated and what % of incidents
does that represent?

Difference between Incident and Problem Management
 Incident Management
– Restores agreed levels of service
– Uses workarounds
 Incidents and Service Requests are formally managed through a staged process to conclusion.
This process is referred to as the "Incident Management Lifecycle".
 The objective of the Incident Management Lifecycle is to restore the service as quickly as possible
to meet Service Level Agreements.
 The process is primarily aimed at the user level.
– Diagnoses the root cause of incidents
– Identifies a permanent solution
– May take longer than Incident Management
 Problem Management deals with resolving the underlying cause of one or more Incidents. The
focus of Problem Management is to resolve the root cause of errors and to find permanent
solutions.
 Although every effort will be made to resolve the problem as quickly as possible this process is
focused on the resolution of the problem rather than the speed of the resolution.
 This process deals at the enterprise level.

Problem Management Activities
The main activities involved in Problem Management are:
 Problem Control
– Its responsible for logging and classifying problems to determine their causes and turn them
into known errors.
 Error Control
– records known errors and proposes solutions to them by means of RFCs which are
sent to Change Management. It also conducts Post-Implementation Review of
these changes in close collaboration with Change Management.
 Proactive Problem Management
– Analysis of trends from incident records provides view on potential problems before they occur

Problem Control
 The main objective of Problem Control is to turn problems into Known
Errors so that Error Control can propose the relevant solutions.
 Problem Control basically consists of three phases:
1. Identification and Logging
2. Classification and Allocation of Resources.
3. Analysis and Diagnosis: Known error

Problem Control
1. Identification and Logging
– One of the main tasks of Problem Management is to identify problems. The main sources of
information used are:
 The incident database
 Analysis of IT infrastructure
 Service Level Degradation
2. Classification and Allocation of Resources.
– Problems are classified according to their general characteristics, such as whether they are
hardware or software problems, the functional areas affected and details of the various
configuration items (CIs) involved.
3. Analysis and Diagnosis: Known error
– The main objectives of the process of analysis are:
 Determining the causes of the problem.
 Providing work-arounds for Incident Management to minimise the impact of the problem until the
necessary changes are made so as to resolve the problem definitively.

Error Control
 Once Problem Control has determined the causes of a problem, Error
Control is responsible for logging it as a known error.
– Error identification and recording
 faulty CI is detected, and known error status is assigned.
– Error assessment
 initial assessment of means required to solve the problem and raising of an RFC.
– Recording error resolution
 solution for each known error should be in the PM system, made available for incident
matching
– Error closure
 After successful implementation of the change, the error is closed together with all
associated Incident records.
– Monitoring problem and error resolution progress
 Change management is responsible for implementing RFCs, but error control is responsible
for monitoring progress in resolving known errors.

Proactive problem management
 Problem Management may be:
 Reactive: Analysing incidents that have occurred in order to discover their causes
and propose solutions to them.
 Proactive: Monitoring the quality of the IT infrastructure and analysing its
configuration in order to prevent incidents even before they happen.
 Proactive problem management activities are concerned with identifying and
resolving problems and known errors before Incidents occur
 Trend analysis
 identify “fragile” components and their reason. Requires availability of sufficient historical data.
– Targeting support action
 towards problem areas requiring most support time, or causing most impact to the business (volume of
incidents, number of users impacted, cost to the business).
– Providing information to organization
 Providing insight in effort and resources spent by organization in diagnosing and resolving problems and
known errors to management. Also information on workarounds, permanent fixes, and status information
should be given to Service Desk.

Problem Management - Reporting
 Items that can be reported to IT management
– Time spent on research and diagnosis
– Brief description of actions taken
– Planning unresolved problems with regard to use of people, use of tools, and costs
– Problems categorized into: status, service, impact, category, user group
– Turnaround time of closed problems
– Elapsed time and expected resolution period for unresolved problems
– Temporary corrective actions
 Items that are important for Service Level Management
– Number of problems categorized into: user group, category, impact, service
– Turnaround time of closed problems
– Expected solution period for unresolved problems
 Items that are important for Service Desk
– Status of problems
– Information on bypasses

Service Desk – IM – PM (PC) (EC) - CM
User
Incident
DB
Problem
DB
Known Error
DB
Business Case
to FIX
Raise
RFC
ERROR CONTROL
PROBLEMCONTROL
Known Error
One or More Incidents with
Unknown Underlying cause
Root Cause Known and Temp or Perm Fix found
STOP
NO
YES
Change Management
Incident
PM
PM
PM
SD/IM
IM

Problem Management CSFs & KPIs
Critical Success Factors
 Avoiding Repeated Incidents
 Minimizing Impact Of Problems
Key Performance Indicators
 Avoiding Repeated Incidents
– Number of repeat incidents
– Number of existing Problems
– Number of existing Known Errors
Minimizing Impact of Problems
– Average time for diagnosis of Problems
– Average time for resolution of Known Errors
– Number of open Problems
– Number of open Known Errors
– Number of repeat Problems
– Number of Major Incident/Problem reviews

Access Management
Goal :
– To grant authorized users the right to use a service, while preventing access to non-
authorized users.
Scope:
– Execute the policies & actions defined by Security & Availability.
Benefits

Access Management – Basic Concepts
 Access
– Refers to the level and extent of a Service’s functionality or data that a user is entitled to use.
 Identity
– Information about a user that distinguishes them as an Individual, and which verifies their status within the
organization. By definition, the Identity of a user is unique to that user.
 Rights ( or Privileges)
– Refers to the actual settings whereby a user is provided access to a Service or group of Services. Typical rights,
or levels of access include read, write, execute, change, delete.
 Service or Service Groups
– Ability to grant each user (or group of users) access to the whole set of Services tat they are entitled to use at
the same time.
 Directory Services
– A specific type of tool that is used to manage access and rights.

Access Management Activities
 Requesting Access
– Request for access could be a Request for Change (RFC) into the Change Management
System (Service Transition) or a Service Request from the Request Fulfillment System (Service
Operation).
– The Security policies will define which areas and departments may request access, and the
Access Management process will design the mechanisms to carry out that request.
 Verification
– The verification activity verifies a request for access to ensure that the user requesting the
access is who he/she says he/she is, and that the user has a legitimate requirement for the
service.
– Depending on the levels of risk to the organization, the Security policies may define different
levels of verifications to access different services.
 Providing Rights
– Once it has verified a user, Access Management provides the appropriate rights to him/her.
– The Security policy defines the rights that should be available to an individual, and Access
Management grants rights based on this information.

Access Management Activities (Cont)
 Monitoring Identity Status
– One of the problems with many manual Access Management systems in use today is that there
is no easy way to monitor when a user changes roles or Identity Status.
– Typical events that trigger a change in Identity Status are job changes, promotions or
demotions, transfers, resignation or death, retirement, disciplinary action, dismissals.
 Logging and Tracking Access
– All Technical and Application Management monitoring activities should include reviews of
Access rights and utilization to ensure that the rights are being properly used.
– The review should direct all exceptions to Incident Management for investigation
 Removing or Restricting Rights
– Users do not stay in the same jobs or roles forever, and neither should their access rights.
– This is another place to set up standard procedures and policies to more easily identify events
requiring the removal or restriction of rights.

Access Management Roles
 Information Security Managers
– Define and Maintain Policies for this process
 Service Desk Staff
– Handle the Requests
 Staff in other functions (e.g., Technical and Application management)
– Execution of the requests

Functions of Service Operations
 Service Desk
 Technical Management
 Application Management
 IT Operations Management

Service Desk
 Goal
– To act as the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) between the User and IT Service
Management
– To handle Incidents and request and provide an interface for other activities such
as
 Change Management
 Configuration Management
 Release Management
 Service Level Management
 IT Service Continuity Management
 Benefits
– Improved User service, perception and satisfaction
– Increased User accessibility via the single point of contact
– Improved quality and faster response to User requests
– More effective and efficient use of support resources
– Better management information to make decision on support

Service Desk - Objectives
 Logging ALL Incidents & Request
 First Line
– Investigation & Diagnosis
 Incident & Request Resolution
 Functional and Hierarchal Escalation
 Customer Communication
– Incident Progress
– Pending Changes ( Forward Schedule of Changes)
– Agreed Outages ( Projected Service Availability)
 Satisfaction Surveys

Service Desk
 Call Center
– To handle large volumes of telephone based transactions like telesales or order
processing
 Help Desk
– To manage and resolve incidents quickly and effectively, and to make sure all
requests are followed up
 Service Desk
– To extend beyond the range of services offered by the HD to allow business
processes to be integrated into Service Management infrastructure
– In addition to handling incidents, to provide an interface for managing changes,
SLM, maintenance issues, software licensing, IT Service Continuity Management,
Financial, Availability and Configuration Management
 All three organizations share these characteristics:
– They aim to achieve customer satisfaction
– They use technology, people and processes to provide a service to the business

Setting up a Service Desk
 Understand the business needs and requirements
 Define clear objectives
 Obtain support, budget and resources
 Advertise and sell benefits / communicate quick wins
 Involve and educate users / train support staff

Service Desk – Organizational Structures
 Local Service Desk
– Co-located with User Community
 Centralized Service Desk
– Consolidation of Fewer or Single Service Desk
 Virtual Service Desk
– Support Staff Geographically Dispersed
 Follow the Sun
– Two or More Geographically Dispersed Service Desks
 Specialized Service Desk Groups
– Direct Access to Technical Functional Specialist

Local Service Desks
 Designed to support local business needs
 Support is usually in the same location as the business it is supporting
 Practical for smaller organizations

Central Service Desk
 Designed to support multiple locations
 Service Desk is in a central location while the business is distributed
 Ideal for larger organization/economies of scale:
– Reduces operational costs
– Improves resource usage
 Could provide secondary support to local desks

Centralized Service Desk

Virtual Service Desk
 Location of Service Desk analysts is invisible to the customers
 Common processes and procedures should exist – single
incident log
 Common agreed language for data entry
 Single point of contact per customer
 On-site presence may still be needed for some functions
 “Workload partitioning” needed

Service Desk - Virtual

“Follow the Sun” Option
 Not a type of Service Desk but an option usually applied to two
or more Central Service Desks for global operations
 Where Service Desk support switches between two or more
desks to provide 24 hr global cover.
 Telephony switching needed
 Multilingual staff usually required
 Local conditions and cultural issues need to be considered
 Clear escalation channels needed

A Self-Service Strategy
 Gives some control to Customers, optionally:
– Log new incidents, change requests
– Self-help
– Order good or services
 Can reduce work load on Service Desk
 Particularly useful “out of hours” and for non-critical activities
 Dependant on a strong knowledge base

Outsourcing the Service Desk
 Potential Benefits
– Financial savings
– Economies of scale
– Access to large skill pool
– Improved staff and service cover
– Competitive marketplace
 Care Needed
– Viewing the Service Desk as an overload is damaging
– SD is the “window of service and professionalism”
– Intellectual capital should be protected
– Seek “vendor partnerships” and long-term relationships

Service Desk - Staffing
 Staffing Levels
– Based on Business Requirements
– Customer Service Expectations
 Skill Levels
– Interpersonal
– Business Awareness
– Communication
– Technical Awareness
 Training
– New Service Introduction
– Business Awareness
 Retention
– Learning Organization
– Team Building
 Support Users
– User Liaison to Filter Requests

Service Desk - Metrics
 First Line Resolution
 Average Time to Resolve
 Average Time to Escalate
 Cost Per Incident/Request
 Customer Updates Completed on Time
 Incident/Request Volumes
– Hour of Day
– Day of week
– Week of Month

Technical Management
Technical management is involved in all aspects of the Service Lifecycle.
Its activities include :
– Acquire and maintain require technical expertise
– Skills documentation
– Initial and on-going skills training
– Design and delivery of user training
– Standard definition
– Service Design
– Project Staffing
– Testing
– Service Transition (change, release & deployment)
– Continual Service Improvement
– Service Operation
– Diagnosis and recovery from technical failures.

Technical Management
 Role:
– Custodian of Technical Knowledge
– Support Resources to the ITSM Lifecycle
 Objectives
– Participate in Planning, Implementation & Maintaining a Stable Technical
Infrastructure.

Application Management
 Application management has the overall responsibility for managing
applications throughout their lifecycle.
 It may involve a number of different application development groups.
 Its objective is to design of cost-effective applications that meet the
needs of the business customer in support of their business process.
 Delivery of the required features and functionality needed to provide
the utility and warranty required.
 Maintenance of software applications is very important to the overall
quality of the services provided.

Application Management
 Role :
– Custodian of Application Management
– Support Resources to the ITSM Lifecycle
 Objective
– Well Designed, Resilient & Cost Effective Applications
– Deliver Required Functionality
– Demonstrate Technical Expertise in Maintenance

IT Operations Management
 Operations Management includes the functional groups involved in
day-to-day operational activities
 Operation Control oversees and monitors the operational activities in
the IT infrastructure
 Facilities Management manages the physical IT environment
 Its objective is to ensure IT service is achieved and maintained
 It is responsible for the optimization of support costs

 Role:
– IT Operations Control
 Maintain stability of day-to-day processes and activities
– Facilities Management
 Management of Physical IT environment, usually data centers or computer rooms.
 Objectives
– Achieves & Maintain Stability
– Improve Service & Reduce Costs
– Demonstrate Responsiveness to Operational Failures

IT Operation Management
IT Operation Control
 Console Management
 Job Scheduling
 Backup and Restore
 Print Na Output
 Maintenance activities
Facilities Management
 Data Centre
 Computer Rooms
 Recovery Sites
 Power and air conditioning
 Fire and security systems

Questions
 Questions

6 itil v3 service operation v1.8

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6 itil v3 service operation v1.8