Functions and Processes In Service Design P3

Capacity Management
Introduction

• The goal of capacity management is to ensure that cost-justifiable IT capacity in all areas of IT always exists and is matched to the current and future agreed needs of the business in timely manner.

• Capacity management is supported initially in Service Strategy where the decisions and analysis of business requirements and customer outcomes influence the development of Patterns of Business Activity (PBA), Lines of Service (LOS) and Service Level Packages (SLP).

• Provides the predictive and ongoing capacity indicators needs to align capacity to demand.

• The objectivesof capacity management are:

• Creating and maintaining an up-to-date capacity plan that reflects the current and future needs of the customer.

• Internal and external consulting on services in terms of capacity and performance.

• Ensuring that the services provided comply with the defined objectives by managing both the performance and the capacity of services.

• The objectivesof capacity management are:

• Contributing to diagnosis of performance and capacity-related incidents and problems.

• Investigating the impact of all changes to the capacity plan.

• Taking proactive measures to improve performance.

• Value for the business

• Capacity management is responsible for planning and scheduling IT resources to provide a consistent service level that matches the current and future requirements of the customer.

• Capacity management delivers a capacity plan in consultation with the customer.

• The plan specifies the IT and financial resources that are necessary to support the business, including a cost justification of expenditure.

• Value for the business

• Capacity management process involves balancing cost against resources needed and balancing supply-against demand.

• Capacity management processes and planning must be involved in every phase of the Service Lifecycle, from strategy and design through Transition and Operation to Continual Service Improvement.

Capacity management process




Activities, methods and techniques

• Capacity management is an extremely technical, complex and demanding process that comprises three sub-processes:

• Business Capacity Management (BCM)

• Service capacity management

• Component Capacity Management (CCM)

• Information management and the capacity management information system

• The aim of the Capacity Management Information System (CMIS) is to provide relevant information on the capacity and performance of services and infrastructure in order to support the capacity management process.

• This information system is one of the most important elements in the capacity management process.

• All of the capacity management sub-processes analyze the information stored.

• Contains business information on the current and future needs of the customer.

• Also contains data on services, such as response times, information on component usage (e.g. server traffic), and financial data (such as the costs involved in updates).

Input

• Business information from the organizations business strategy, plans and financial plans, and information on their current and future requirements.

• Service and IT information from strategy and plans.

• Component performance and capacity information.

• Service performance issues from incident and problem management.

• Financial information.

• Change and performance information.

• CMIS.

• Workload information from Operations team.

Output

• Capacity Management Information System (CMIS).

• Capacity plan with information on current usage of services and components as well as plans to meet the growth in services and new services.

• Service performance information and reports.

• Forecasts and predictive reports.

• Thresholds, alerts and events.

Metrics

• To evaluate efficiency and effectiveness activities should include:

• Percentage accuracy of forecasts of business trends.

• Production of workload forecasts on time.

• Increased ability to monitor performance and throughput of services and components.

• Timely justification and implementation of new technology.

• Reduction in use of old technology.

• Reduction in Incidents and Problems related to inadequate capacity.

Implementation

• Critical success factors include:

• Accuracy of business predictions.

• Knowledge of current and future technologies.

• Ability to demonstrate cost effectiveness.

• Ability to plan and implement the appropriate IT capacity to meet business needs.

• The risksinclude:

• Lack of commitment from the business.

• Lack of accurate information on the strategy and organization plans.

• The creation of bureaucratic or manually intensive processes.