Spring 2010 - Week 16: Getting IT Done - ITIL

ITIL - Internet Technology Infrastructure Library



The Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of recommendations for managing IT. While it's focus is on IT services it also covers IT development and operations.

The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, a part of the UK Government, created ITIL back in the 1980s. (As such, ITIL and IT Infrastructure Library are trademarks of the UK's Office of Coporate Governance, formerly the CCTA.) Originally a set of 40 manuals the ITIL has been updated twice: once into a set of 8 manuals for version 2.0 and again in 2007 with a set of five core manuals for version 3.0.

Each manual focuses on a particular aspect of IT which is then broken down into multiple sections. For example:

The Service Desk

With the prevalence of technology at home and in the work place many people have had to ask for help from a help desk or service desk before. ITIL recommends that the service desk handle requests using only one point of contact (at my place of employment we call it "one neck to choke"), one point of entry, and one point of exit.

It's easy to see how doing so accomplishes the next ITIL of making things easier for the customer: They only need to contact one person or department to get help. Instead of being told to contact a different department or to send the request in a different manner the person in contact with the customer is the one who routes it to the correct department. ITIL also recommends keeping the customer updated on progress instead of simply waiting until there is a resolution to communicate again with the customer.

There are also recommendations for data integrity and streamlining communications. Data integrity is necessary for databases. It's easier to maintain information if it is always referenced in the same way. At best time is simply wasted in multiple searches to get all of the relevant data but at worst the database end up completely unusable. Streamlining communications is important internally, to get requests moved and managed as easily as possible, and externally, in further aid of making things easier for the consumer.

As ITIL has become more and more popular as a standard for managing IT, more people have gone into the business of ITIL itself.

Consulting Firms

There are multiple consulting companies offering their expertise on the ITIL. One of these companies is The Drapeau Group, LLC.

The tagline on TDG’s site is, “Achieve ITIL Maturity, Avoid Broken Promises”. They claim that they stand apart from other firms by having consultants who are both IT process experts and technically adept, using a different charging model where they do not bill 8 hours a day, and only selling advice not hardware or software. They also focus on what they consider to be the most important parts of the Service Support and Service Delivery parts of the ITIL rather than trying to apply all of it as is.

TDG offers the following services:

• ITIL Maturity Assesment
• Service Support Implementation
• Service Delivery Implementation
• ITIL Training
• ITIL workshops
• ITSM for SME Business
• ITIL Tools Review
• Metrics Assessment

There are client testimonials on the site as well, the most well known likely being CheckFree(now Fiserv). If you’ve ever received or paid a bill online through your bank chances are good you were using their services. (You can run a search on just the state at the site in the link to see all the financial institutions that use Fiserv.) TDG worked with CheckFree to investigate ITIL and non-ITIL processes and, when CheckFree decided to use ITIL Service Management processes, helped them through the multi-phased deployment.

Software

ITIL Foundations maintains lists of programs related to ITIL in four different categories. In "Help Desk and Support Desk Software Tools" they recommend ServiceDesk Plus. ServiceDesk Plus is used to manage IT service requests from start to finish:

1. An end user who has an IT problem creates a 'ticket' requesting help
   The ticket can be created multiple ways: e-mail, phone, API, web, even a Network Failure can create a ticket
   
   
2. SDP then applies business rules to the ticket
   Rules can be added to have certain events or alerts occur based on the type of incident, SLA, etc.
   
   
3. The SLA is verified
   The Service Level Agreement in this case refers to the amount of time for the incident to be resolved.
   
   
4. The due date is set
   
   
5. The ticket is then sent to the appropriate group
   
   
6. A technician within that group works on the problem specified in the ticket
   
   
7. The end user is notified of the solution of the problem
   SDP can be set up to give the end user notifications in the mean time.
   

Spring 2010 - Week 4: Micrsoft Oslo

Before we get into this week's topic I am going to offer a few links for anyone who doesn't know what BPMN is. Last semester I decided to write this blog so that anyone who might stumble across it could read it and have some idea of what I was talking about. Since I'm going to make a comparison I need to explain what it is first.

BPMN stands for Business Process Modeling Notation and is used to describe business processes via a graphical flowchart. It was created so that people at every level of an organization could read and understand what a process is supposed to do and accomplish before it is implemented. (That flowchart at the end of week one's post is an example.)

BPMN is the standard for describing business processes.

Wikipedia page for BPMN
FAQ page by the Business Processes Managment Initiative

Which brings us to this week's topic, Microsoft Oslo.

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Turns out that "Oslo" is a codename for what Microsoft is currently calling SQL Server Modeling CTP (Community Technology Preview) and is part of a larger project called Dynamic IT. SQL Server Modeling will be included in the next edition of SQL Server. (ZDNet article about the Oslo announcement in November 2009 for the name change and it's inclusion in SQL Server)

Olso started as a larger project but is now comprised of a visual tool, code named Quadrant, for specifying views of the data, a language, code named M, for modeling data, and SQL Server Modeling Services, a database for shared, common domain models.

So while both BPMN and Olso are about modeling and have the same goal of speeding up development, Olso is about the data not the process. I'm not clear on whether they want all levels of an organization to be able to use the M language or not.

Here's three videos of SQL Server Modeling being used by Rockford Lhotka. In the first video he creates the object 'Customer' and uses the file describing that object to generate a form. The titles of the other two are good descriptions of what they're about but anyone who just wants to know what SQL Server Modeling should watch the first one.



This is kind of an aside but I question the neutrality of the Wikipedia article on Olso. It shouldn't say, "set of tools that make it easier", it should say, "set of tools intended to make it easier". Even if you put aside the need for neutrality they don't have any numbers to back that statement up with because it isn't available to the general public yet.

Spring 2010 - A Brief Introduction

We are a full week into the second semester of the Master of Internet Technology program.

A new semester means new classes: MIST 7530 Object Oriented Systems Analysis (with some Project Management thrown in) and MIST 7570 Internet Programming. I'll be blogging for 7530 though it's possible I'll discuss something relevant to the other class as well.

I hope the new semester finds everyone well after the Winter break. As for myself I did a lot more traveling and a lot less knitting than expected.

ETA: Oh, I finally switched this thing back to a template though I need to adjust the spacing in this thing. It's all scrunched; the posts are too close together.