The IT infrastructure of an enterprise is its skeleton and is of paramount importance in terms of business success. And these are obvious things, because success is impossible without effective construction of the company’s internal processes and availability of quality external communications with customers and suppliers.
Nowadays, businesses are regularly exposed to external influences, and projects and systems are becoming more and more complex, with shorter implementation times. To optimize a number of processes, there are different IT solutions for IT resource management, but many of them increase the demands on IT professionals. That’s why the process approach deserves special attention – it improves the quality of services while reducing company costs.
IT service and IT resource management is called ITSM (Information Technology Service Management). It is a management method that implies a service approach to the work of IT services: IT specialists provide services to other enterprise departments according to a service level agreement. The steps to be taken to organize an ITSM approach are described in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library – ITIL.
What are the ingredients for success in enterprise IT infrastructure management?
The ITIL library contains a set of documents that enable the implementation of ITSM principles. The very idea of creating ITIL originated back in 1980 at the suggestion of the British government. The first edition was released in 1992. On the basis of this library the international standard for management and maintenance of IT services ISO 20000 was developed.
Let’s list the processes that ITIL describes:
- Problem and incident management. Speaking of incidents, we mean any situation that requires a response (system failures, user requests, etc.). To make this process successful, a special service, Service Desk, is organized. Its task is to identify and eliminate problems within the enterprise, to minimize the risks of their occurrence;
- configuration management. This process provides up-to-date and accurate information about the IT infrastructure;
- change management. The task of this process is to allow only the necessary changes;
- release management. It is about implementing changes and controlling the preservation of the IT infrastructure when changes are implemented;
- service level management. The process is needed to identify the optimal level of service and prevent quality degradation of services, to eliminate poor quality services;
- financial management. It is a question of supporting financial business processes;
- capacity management. The task is to find the optimal capacity in order to implement the main tasks. When there is not enough capacity, the speed of implementation will be lacking, which, in turn, will slow down operations. But too much capacity is also bad, because if it is not used to 100%, we can talk about excessive costs of the company;
- continuity management. In the event of an emergency, your IT infrastructure must continue to operate uninterrupted. Neither fire, floods, nor power outages should disrupt your services;
- availability management. Availability must be high and stable – this has a direct impact on your service level.
The international standard ISO/IEC 20000 “Information Technology. Service Management”, organizes all processes into 5 key groups of IT resource management:
- Service provisioning (availability and continuity management, service level management, capacity management, information security management, cost accounting and budgeting).
- Interaction management (includes interaction with vendors, business, etc.).
- Resolution processes (this includes problem and incident management issues)
- Release management.
- Control (configuration management, change management).
Basic steps of building an ITSM system
There are several stages and directions of ITSM implementation for IT resource management:
- planning and management system audit (survey of company structure, IT processes, IT infrastructure). Successful solution of problems implies their identification, for which reason an ITSM project always begins with an audit. That is why at this stage an analysis of all processes is performed to identify their status at the time of the audit. The IT infrastructure is examined, the performance of all subsystems is analyzed, “bottlenecks” in business processes are identified, the software inventory is made, etc. In the course of the audit, all IT processes are evaluated from the viewpoint of their compliance with the organization’s needs. As a result, current and target maturity levels are determined for each process. Relevant conclusions are drawn, on the basis of which possible improvements in IT resource management are elaborated.
- Determination of the target model. This step is used to elaborate an individual concept of IT resources management development, describing the requirements each process should correspond to in the future. The procedure is labor-intensive, but it will form an integral IT management system, which allows to account for both business strategy and new opportunities. In addition, predicting the results will allow you to optimize your management processes.
As for the concept of development, it must take into account the processes and technology (we are talking about all their details, schemes, features), as well as the personnel who will participate in the overall work. The result will be a plan for improvement of services, which will allow to estimate costs and make the necessary decisions on the strategy of development of the IT-service of the company. - Fast elimination of incidents, solving user requests (both internal and external). At realization of this step the work of service of support of internal users and clients of the company (Service Desk) is organized. This service allows to regulate the processes of support, automatically process incoming requests, and evaluate the satisfaction of end users.
- Monitoring of the IT-infrastructure. Monitoring allows to ensure control over changes in the infrastructure, which is also important. It is realized by carrying out inventory of hardware and software and providing automated support of the actual information about the IT infrastructure. In addition, monitoring allows for rapid identification of failures, and the process of making changes to the IT infrastructure will be regulated. Another plus is the automatic preparation of reports on the operation of the process. As a result of this step, the enterprise management will constantly receive the information needed to improve services and company operations.
- Management of the processes of deployment, planning and delivery of IT services. The goal – the creation of a reliable foundation, the development of mutually beneficial relationships with customers, maintaining a high level of service.
Regardless of the IT resource management methodology you choose, its implementation within the company will have a positive impact on the company as a whole, and on the IT infrastructure in particular. Your specialists will do systematic work and concentrate on achieving the declared objectives, instead of systematically solving unexpected problems.
