ITIL - Supplier Management

Supplier Management deals with maintaining good relationship between suppliers and the partners to ensure quality IT services.

Supplier Manager is the process owner of this process.

Objectives

The following diagram shows several objectives of supplier management −

Supplier Management Process

The following diagram shows several activities included in Supplier Management −

Here are the activities involved in Supplier Management Process −

• Implantation and enforcement of the supplier policy
• Maintenance of an SCD
• Supplier and contract evaluation and selection
• Supplier and contract categorization and risk assessment
• Contract review, renewal and termination
• Development, negotiation and agreement of contracts
• Maintenance of standard contracts, terms and conditions
• Management of contractual dispute resolution
• Management of sub-contracted suppliers
• Agreement and implementation of service and supplier improvement plans

ITIL - Information Security Management

Information Security Management (ISM) ensures confidentiality, authenticity, non-repudiation, integrity, and availability of organization data and IT services. It also ensures reasonable use of organization’s information resources and appropriate management of information security risks.

Information Security Manager is the process owner of this process.

Information security is considered to be met when −

• Information is observed or disclosed on only authorized persons
• Information is complete, accurate and protected against unauthorized access (integrity)
• Information is available and usable when required, and the systems providing the information resist attack and recover from or prevent failures (availability)
• Business transaction as well information exchanges between enterprises, or with partners, can be trusted (authenticity and non-repudiation)

ISM Security Policy

It is required for ISM security policies cover all areas of security, be appropriate, meet the needs of business and should include the policies shown in the following diagram −

ISM Framework

ISM Process

The following diagram shows the entire process of Information Security Management (ISM) −

Key elements in ISM Framework

ISM framework involves the following key elements −

Control

The objective of Control element is to −

• Establish an organization structure to prepare, approve and implement the information security policy
• Allocate responsibilities
• Establish and control documentation

Plan

The purpose of this element is to devise and recommend the appropriate security measures, based on an understanding of the requirements of the organization.

Implement

This key element ensures that appropriate procedures, tools and controls are in place to underpin the security policy.

Evaluation

The objective of Evaluation element is to −

• Carry out regular audits of the technical security of IT systems
• Supervise and check compliance with security policy and security requirements in SLAs and OLAs

Maintain

The objective of Maintain element is to −

• Improve on security agreements as specified in, for example, SLAs and OLAs
• Improve the implementation of security measures and controls

Preventive

This key element ensures prevention from security incidents to occur. Measures such as control of access rights, authorization, identification, and authentication and access control are required for this preventive security measures to be effective.

Reductive

It deals with minimizing any possible damage that may occur.

Detective

It is important to detect any security incident as soon as possible.

Repressive

This measure is used to counteract any repetition of security incident.

Corrective

This measure ensures damage is repaired as far as possible.

ITIL - Service Continuity Management

ITSCM ensures continuity of IT service in time of any disaster. It also evaluates the level of insurance we need to protect service assets and a manuscript to recover from a disaster.

IT Service Continuity Manager is the process owner of this process.

Objective

The following diagram shows the several objectives of ITSCM −

ITSCM Process

ITSCM process comprises of four stages − Initiation, Requirements & strategy, Implementation, and Ongoing operation.

Initiation

It includes policy setting defining scope and terms of reference, project planning and resource allocation.

Requirements and strategy

It includes business impact analysis, risk assessment.

Implementation

It includes executing risk reduction measures, recovery option arrangements, testing and plans.

Ongoing operation

It includes education and awareness, change control of ITSCM plans, ongoing testing.

ITIL - Availability Management

Availability Management (AM) ensures that IT services meet agreed availability goals. It also ensures new or changed service meet availability goals and doesn’t affect the existing services.

Availability is expressed as −

(Agreed service time – Down time)/Agreed Service Time

Availability Manager is the process owner of this process.

Objectives

Here are the objectives of Availability Management −

Availability Management Process

Availability Management process is comprises of following key elements −

• Reactive activities
• Proactive activities

Reactive activities

Activities that are involved in operational roles are known as reactive activities. Activities such as monitoring, measuring, analysis and management of all events, incidents and problem involving unavailability come under reactive activities.

Proactive activities

Activities that are involved in design and planning roles are known as proactive activities. Activities such as proactive planning, design & improvement of availability come under proactive activities.

Availability Management process is completed at following two interconnected levels −

• Service availability
• Component availability

Service availability

It deals with availability and unavailability of service and also the impact of component availability and unavailability on service availability.

Component availability

It deals with component availability and unavailability.

Availability Management sub-processes

The following diagram shows sub-processes involved in Availability Management process −

Identifying vital business function (VBF)

VBF refers to business-critical elements that are supported by an IT service. It is important to document all VBFs to provide better business alignment and focus.

Designing for availability

Although additional costs are incurred in providing high availability solution to meet stringent high availability needs yet it is necessary to provide high availability of those services supporting to more critical VBFs.

Service Failure Analysis (SFA)

Service Failure Analysis is designed to −

• Provide structured approach to identifying causes of service interruption to the user.
• Assess where and why shortfalls in availability are occurring.
• Improve overall availability of IT services by producing a set of improvement for implementation or input to Activity Plan.

ITIL - Capacity Management

Capacity Management ensures proper utilization of available resources and makes future capacity requirement available in cost-effective and timely manner. Capacity Management is considered during Service Strategy and Service Design phases.

It also ensures that IT is sized in optimum and cost-effective manner by producing and regularly upgrading capacity plan.

Capacity Manager is the process owner of this process.

Capacity Management Activities

The following table describes several activities involved in Capacity Management Process −

Sr.No.	Capacity Management Activities
1	Producing capacity plans, enabling service provider to continue to provide services of quality defined in SLA.
2	Assistance with identification and resolution of any incident associated with any service or component performance.
3	Understanding customer’s current and future demands for IT resources and producing forecasts for future requirements
4	Monitoring Pattern of Business activity and service level plans through performance, utilization and throughput of IT services and the supporting infrastructure, environmental, data and applications components.
5	Influencing demand management in conjunction with Financial Management
6	Undertaking tuning activities to make the most efficient use of existing IT resources.
7	Proactive improvement of service or component performance

Objectives

Here are the several objectives of Capacity Management −

Sr.No.	Objectives
1	Produce and maintain an appropriate up-to-date capacity plan reflecting the current and future needs of the business.
2	Provide advice and guidance to all other areas of the business and IT on all capacity and performance related issues.
3	To manage performance and capacity of both services and resources.
4	Assisting with diagnosis and resolution of performance and capacity related incidents and problems.
5	Assess the impact of all changes on the capacity plan, and the performance and capacity of services and resources.
6	Ensure that proactive measures to improve the performance of services are implemented wherever it is cost justifiable to do so.

Capacity Management Elements

Capacity Management broadly includes three components: Business capacity management, Service capacity management, and Component capacity management as shown in the following diagram −

Business Capacity Management

This sub-process deals with forecasting and developing plans for future business needs. It is done by using existing data on current resource utilization by various services.

Service Capacity Management

This sub-process deals with understanding the functioning of IT service, resource usage and variation to ensure that appropriate service agreement can be designed.

Component Capacity Management

This sub-process ensures optimizing use of current IT resource components such as network capacity, bandwidth etc.

Capacity Management Information System (CMIS)

CMIS maintains updated database of resources, commodities etc. which is used by all sub-processes within Capacity management.

ITIL - Service Level Management

Overview

Service Level Management (SLM) deals with negotiating, agreeing and documenting existing services with some level of policies.

Service Level Manager is the process owner of this process.

SLM deals with following two kinds of agreements −

• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Operational Level Agreement (OLA)

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

It is agreed document assuring the warranty with regard to level of service quality delivered by the service provider. It is between service provider and the customer.

Operational Level Agreement (OLA)

Unlike SLA it is agreement within the organization.

SLM Activities

The following diagram describes activities involved in SLM process −

Service Level Requirement (SLR) is one of the earliest activities in Service design of Service Lifecycle. SLR needs to be drafted, once the service catalogue has been produced and SLA structure has been agreed

Objectives

Here are the objectives of SLM −

Sr.No.	Objectives
1	Define, document, agree, monitor, measure, report, and review the level of IT service provided.
2	Provide and improve the relationship and communication with the business and customers.
3	Ensure that specific and measurable targets are developed for all IT services.
4	Monitor and improve customer satisfaction with the quality of service delivered
5	Ensure that IT and customers have a clear and unambiguous expectation of the level of service to be delivered

ITIL - Service Catalogue Management

Service Catalogue

Service Catalogue contains information of specific services for which customer are willing to pay. It is a knowledge management tool which allows employees and consultants to route their request for and about services.

Service catalogue is subset of service portfolio and contains presently active services in service operation phase.

Service Catalogue Composition

Each service in the catalogue contains the following elements −

• A identification label for the service
• Description of services
• Related service request types
• Any supporting or underpinning services
• Service categorization or type that allows it to be grouped with other similar services
• Interfaces and dependencies between all services, and supporting components and configuration items (CIs) within the service catalogue and the CMS
• Clear ownership of and accountability for the service
• Associated costs
• How to request the service and how its delivery is fulfilled
• Escalation points and key contracts
• Service level agreement (SLA) data

Service Catalogue Aspects

Service catalogue has two aspects −

Business Service Catalogue

It contains all the IT services delivered to the customer, together with their relationship to the business units and the business process that rely on the IT services.

Technical Service Catalogue

It contains all the IT services delivered to the customer, together with their relationship with supporting services, shared services, components, and CIs necessary to support the provision of the service to the business.

Service catalogue management process is responsible for providing information regarding all agreed services to all authorized persons. This process also takes care of creation and maintenance of service catalogue with correct and updated information.

Service Catalogue Manager is the process owner of this process.

Any change to service portfolio or service catalogue is subject to Change Management process.

SCM Activities

Here are the key activities included in Service Catalogue Management −

• Agreeing and documenting a service definition with all relevant parties
• Interfacing and Service Portfolio Management to agree the contents of the Service Portfolio Management to agree the contents of the Service Portfolio and Service catalogue
• Interfacing with the business and IT Service Continuity Management on the dependencies of business units and their business processes with the supporting IT services contained within the Business Service Catalogue
• Producing and maintaining a Service Catalogue and its contents, in conjunction with service portfolio
• Interfacing with Business Relationship Management and Service Level Management to ensure that the information is aligned to the business and business process.