ITIL - Problem Management

Overview

In ITIL, Problem is defined as unknown cause of one or more incident.

Problem Management ensures identification of problems and performs Root Cause Analysis. It also ensures that recurring incidents are minimized and problems can be prevented.

Problem Manager is the process owner of this process.

Key Points −

• Problem Management comprises of activities required to diagnose the root cause of the incident and to determine the resolution to those problems
• When a problem is resolved after root cause analysis, it becomes known error
• Problem Management also records information regarding problems in a system called Known Error Database (KED)

Problem Management consists of following two processes −

• Reactive Problem Management is executed as part of service operation
• Proactive Problem Management initiated in service operation but generally driven as part of Continual Service Improvement

Problem Management Process

The following diagram describes activities involved in Problem Management −

Problem detection

Problem can be detected in following ways −

• Analysis of incident by technical support group
• Automated detection of an infrastructure or application fault, using alert tools automatically to raise an incident which may reveal the need for problem management
• A notification from supplier that a problem exists that has to be resolved

Problem logging

Problem should be fully logged and contains the following details −

• User details
• Service details
• Equipment details
• Priority and categorization details
• Date/time initially logged

Problem categorization

In order to trace true nature of Problem, It is must to categorize the Problems in same way as Incidents.

Problem Prioritization

Problems must be categorized in the same way as incidents to identify how serious the Problem is from an infrastructure perspective.

Workarounds

It is temporary way to overcome the difficulties. Details of workaround should always be documented within Problem record.

Raising a Known Error Record

Known error must be raised and placed in Known Error Database for future reference.

Problem Resolution

Once resolution is found, it must be applied and documented with the problem details.

Problem closure

At time of closure, a check should be performed to ensure that record contains full historical descriptions of all events.

Major Problem Review

A review of following things should be made −

• Those things that were done correctly
• Those things that were done wrong
• What could be done better in future
• How to prevent recurrence

Incident Management and Request Fulfillment

Overview

Incident is defined as any disruption in IT service. Incident can be reported either through the Service Desk or through an interface from event management to incident management tools.

Incident Management deals with handling incident and ensures to restore IT service soon as possible.

Incident Manager is the process owner of this process.

Incident Models

There are always some incidents which are not new. They may happen again over a period of time. Therefore it is best practice to have pre-defined model to handle such incidents.

An incident models should include −

• Steps that should be taken to handle the incident
• Chronological order these steps should be taken in, with any dependences or co-processing defined
• Responsibilities − who should do what
• Timescales and thresholds for completion of the actions
• Escalation procedures; who should be contacted and when
• Any necessary evidence-preservation activities

Incident Management Process

Following diagram shows several standard steps to be taken when an incident occurs −

Incident Logging

All incidents should be fully logged and date/time stamped.

Incident Categorization

It is important later when looking at incident types/frequencies to establish trends for use in Problem Management.

Incident Prioritization

It deals with severity of an incident − Low, Medium or High.

Incident Diagnosis

Service Desk analyst must carry out initial diagnosis while the user is on call and try to discover the full symptoms of the incident and to determine exactly what has gone wrong and how to correct it.

Incident Escalation

Function escalation

When it becomes clear that Service Desk is unable to resolve the incident or target time for Service Desk has been exceeded, the incident must be escalated immediately for further support.

Hierarchic escalation

Hierarchic escalation is done when either incident is serious in nature or ‘Investigation and Diagnosis’ is taking too long time.

Investigation and diagnosis

It includes the following activities −

• Understanding what exactly has gone wrong
• Understanding chronological order of the events
• Confirming the full impact of the incident
• Identifying any events that could have triggered the incident
• Searching for previous similar kind of incidents

Resolution and recovery

A potential resolution need to be identified, applied and tested.

Incident closure

Before closing an incident, Service desk should ask the user whether he is satisfied and agree to close the incident.

Request Fulfilment

Service Request refers to demand by the users. These requests can be regarding small changes, changing the password, installing additional software application, requesting information etc.

Incident is unplanned event but Service Request can be planned.

Key Points −

• Depending upon number of Service Requests, an organization usually has, a specialized teams can be formed to fulfil those requests.
• For frequently recurring requests, a predefined model can be devised to fulfil the requests.

ITIL - Event Management

Overview

Event is defined as detectable occurrence that has significance for the delivery of IT service. Events are created by Configuration Item (CI) or the monitoring tools.

Event Management ensures that all CIs are constantly monitored and define a process to categorize these events so that appropriate action can be taken if required.

IT Operation Manager is the process owner of this process.

Event Management can be applied on the following aspects −

• Configuration Items (CIs)
• Security
• Environment Conditions ( e.g. fire and smoke detections)
• Normal activity (e.g. tracking the use of an application or performance of a server)
• Software licence monitoring for usage to ensure legal licence utilization and allocation

There are two types of monitoring tools as described below −

• Active monitoring tools monitor CIs for their status and availability. Any deviation from normal operation is communicated the appropriate team for action
• Passive monitoring tools detect and correlate operational alerts or communications generated by CIs.

Event Management Process

The Event Management Process is self descriptive as shown in the following diagram −

Benefits

Here are the several benefits of Event Management −

• It helps to detect incidents at early stage. Thus incident can be assigned to appropriate team before any service outage occurs
• It removes need for expensive and resource intensive monitoring
• It can also be applied on some service management processes such as Availability management or capacity management. It automatically generates signal when status changes that allow appropriate team to perform early response
• Since it is automates, hence provides increased efficiency

ITIL - Service Operation Overview

Service operation ensures that services are being provided efficiently and effectively as per SLAs. It includes monitoring services, resolving incidents, fulfilling requests and carrying out operational tasks.

Key Points −

• Service Operation includes five process and four functions
• Service operation deals with day-to-day activities and infrastructure that are being used to deliver the services
• Service Operations is where all design and transition plans are executed and measured
• From customer point of view, Service Operation is where actual value is seen

Service Operation Processes

Service operations include total five processes as described in the following table −

Sr.No.	Process & Description
1	Event Management The objective of this process is to make sure all CIs are monitored constantly. It also filter and categorize the events in order to decide on appropriate actions.
2	Incident Management The purpose of Incident Management is to restore the service to the previous stage as early as possible.
3	Request Fulfillment This process deals with handling requests such as change password, create new user and create email id etc.
4	Access Management This process deals with granting rights to authorized user to use the service.
5	Problem Management This process deals with finding root cause of the problem and prevent incident to occur again.

Service Operation Functions

Service Operation comprises of four functions as shown in the following diagram

Service Desk

Service Desk is the first and single point of contact. It plays vital role in customer satisfaction. It coordinates activities between end user and IT service provider team. It also own the logged requests and ensures closure of these requests.

There are four types of Service Desk −

Central Service Desk

In this, there is only one central Service Desk.

Local or distributed Service Desk

It is costly but closer to the user. It’s difficult to manage and maintain.

Virtual Service Desk

It is very costly and result in fast processing.

Specialized Service Desk

It includes dedicated skilled staff for specific queries.

IT Operation Management

This function is responsible for managing organization’s day-to-day operational activities

Technical Management

Technical Management staff includes technical expertises that are responsible for management of overall IT infrastructure.

Application Management

Application Management is responsible for managing applications and software throughout the lifecycle of the service.

ITIL - Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management deals with gathering, storing, analyzing and sharing the knowledge within an organization. It helps to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge.

Knowledge Manager is the process owner of this process.

Objectives

The following diagram describes the several objectives of knowledge management process

Knowledge Management is a central process that receives input from all other processes and responsible for providing knowledge to service management processes as shown in the following diagram.

Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) is a central repository of data, information, and knowledge that the IT organization needs to manage lifecycle of its services.

ITIL - Service & Validation Testing

Overview

It is necessary to actively maintain test environments to ensure that the deployed releases meet the customer’s expectations, and to verify that IT operations are able to support the new services.

Test Manager is the process owner of this process.

The following diagram describes an example of service testing through the Service Transition stage of the lifecycle

ITIL - Release & Deployment Management

Release and Deployment Management includes planning, designing, building, testing and deploying new software and hardware components in the live environment. It is important to maintain integrity of live environment by deploying correct releases.

Release Manager is the process owner of this process.

Key Points −

• Release Unit refers to portion of IT infrastructure that should be released together.
• In Release package each of the software in the package depends on other software in the group for its performance.

Objectives

Release and Deployment management ensures that −

• Delivering change faster and at optimum cost and minimized risk
• Successful and on schedule deployment of release package.
• New or changed services are capable of delivering the agreed service requirements.
• There is knowledge transfer to enable the customers and users to optimize their use of service to support their business activities.
• Minimal unpredicted impact on the production services, operation and support organization.
• Customers, users and service management staff are satisfied with service transition practices and outputs.

It is important to define appropriate release package type for a given type of release. The following diagram illustrates an example of a release package

Release and Deployment Management Process

Here the activities included in Release and Deployment Management process −

Release Management Support

It provides guidelines and support for the deployment of releases.

Release Planning

The objective of this process is to assign authorized changes to release packages. It also defines the scope of releases.

Release Build

This process deals with building releases and ensures all components are ready to enter the testing phase.

Release Deployment

The objective of this process is to deploy new release in the live environment and also arrange training for end users and operating staff.

Early Life Support

The purpose of this process is to resolve operational issues during initial period after release deployment.

Release Closure

This process deals with closing a release after verifying if activity logs and CMS contents are up to date.