Service Provider
IT Service Management can be considered introspective in the context of overall Management Information Systems, in that it concerns itself with IT thinking about the delivery of IT to the business. However, this in itself is a significant step towards IT becoming a true service provider. It can only be a good thing for business if IT is thinking in terms of managing a portfolio of products (services) that it is responsible for and accountable for delivery of to its paying customers (the business).
IT Governance
Only in thinking this way will IT be in lock-step with the needs of the business, its projects be well justified, and any form of cost transparency or self-sufficiency evolve. Did it do what it was meant to do, for whom it was supposed to do it for, for as long as it should have done it, for the cost we had established in the budget, and can you prove it? This is why Service Management is frequently cited as a primary enabler of IT governance. The open systems IT cave man has come into the light and is rapidly becoming a thoroughbred businessman.
Service Catalogue
It is with the IT service portfolio (or catalogue) that Union starts. Before a single infrastructure building block is put in place we shall have defined the services it must support. This ensures the infrastructure is service oriented and the purpose and place for any technology is well articulated and understood.
Quality of Service Measurement
Tools are put in place to support the processes the service policies require. These may include tools for the monitoring and reporting of quality of service delivery against defined thresholds that are then published to management and your customers. They may include quality of service management tools that ensure service levels are guaranteed, such as IOPS, bandwidth, and disk I/O availability. And they can include automation tools that mechanise operational run book processes in an ITIL compliant way.
We Do It
Service Management is part policy, part process, part technology. We help you speak to the business to define policy, we help you produce a service catalogue that establishes process, and we align infrastructure technology into appropriate classes to support service. It’s all fairly simple when you know how and have a proven methodology such as our Competitive Edge program.