Service Operations

Objectives

Service Operation is about fulfilling all activities required to provide and support services at the agreed service levels. These include:

• The services
• The service management processes
• The technology
• The people

Different views of IT services

• The External IT view is about the way users and customers experience services
• The Internal IT view is about how the IT Staff manages IT components and systems to provide services
• The view that IT is part of IT services (the external business view) is the opposite of the idea that IT is a series of technological components (the internal IT view)

Balance between External and Internal Views

• Both views are necessary to provide service
• Focus on business requirements without thinking about how they provide services will eventually only make promise they are unable to live up
• Focus on internal system without thinking about which service they will support, will eventually support expensive service that are of little value
• How about:
  Stability versus responsiveness ?

Stability VERSUS Responsiveness

• Service Operations must ensure that the IT Infrastructure is stable and available. At the same time, it must recognize that business and IT requirements change
• Some changes can take place gradually and can be planned
• The platform functionality, performance and architecture will change over number of years

Achieve stability and response balance

• To achieve balance between stability and responsive in an IT organization,
• Invest in adaptable technologies and processes
• Build a strong service level management process that is active from the Service Design phase to the continual service Improvement phase of the IT service management Lifecycle
• Encourage integration between service level management and the other service design processes so that business requirement match the operational IT activities and components of the IT infrastructure
• Involve service operation team as soon as possible in the change process in case of business changes

Service Operation Processes
Key processes of Service Operation:

• Event management
• Incident management
• Problem management
• Request fulfillment
• Access management
• Monitoring and control (activity)
• IT operations (function)

Additionally , there are other process that will be executed or supported during Service Operation:

• Change management
• Capacity management
• Availability management
• Financial management
• Knowledge management
• IT Service Continuity Management
• Service Reporting and Measurement

Event Management

• An event is an occurrence that affects the IT infrastructure management or the provision of an IT Service
• Events are notifications created by an IT service, configuration item or monitoring tools
• Event management surveys all events that occurs in the IT infrastructure in order to monitor the regular performance, and which can be automated to trace and escalate unforeseen circumstances

Event Management Activities
The most important activities of the event management process are:

• Event occurs
• Event notification
• Event detection
• Event filtering
• The event significance
• Event correlation
• Trigger
• Response selection
• Action assessment
• Close event

Incident Management

• Incident management focuses on restoring failure of service as quickly as possible for customer, so that it has a minimal impact on the business
• Incident management includes any event that interrupts or can interrupt a service and events report by customers

Incident Management Process
The incident management process consist of the following steps:

• Identifying
• Recording/logging
• Categorizing
• Prioritizing
• Initial diagnosing
• Escalating
• Investigating and diagnosing
• Resolving and restoring
• Closing

Request Fulfillment
The goals of the request fulfillment process are :

• Offering users a channel where they can request and receive standard services; there must be an agreed approval and qualification process for this
• Providing information to customers about the availability of services and the procedure to obtain them
• Providing the standard services components
• Assisting with general information, complaints or remarks

Request Fulfillment Activities
Request fulfillment consists of the following activities:

• Menu selection
• Financial approval
• Other approval
• Fulfillment
• Closure

Problem Management

• Problem management is responsible for analyzing and resolving the causes of incidents
• Includes all activities that are needed for diagnosis of the underlying cause of incidents and to determine a resolution for those problem

Reactive Problem Management Activities
Reactive activities consists of:

• Detection
• Logging
• Categorizing
• Prioritizing
• Investigating and diagnosing
• Determining workaround
• Identifying a known error
• Finding a resolution
• Closing
• Review major problem
• Mistakes in development environment

Access Management

• Access management is the process of allowing authorized users access to use a service, while access of unauthorized users is limited
• Access management help ensure that this access is always available at agreed time

Access Management Activities
Access management consist of:

• Requesting access
• Verification
• Assigning rights
• Monitoring of the identity status
• Logging and tracking access
• Removing or restricting rights

Monitor and Control

• Service Monitoring and Control is based on a continual cycle of monitoring, reporting and undertaking action
• This cycle is crucial to providing, supporting and improving services

IT Operations
IT Operations activities refer to the day-to-day operational activities that are needed to manage the IT infrastructure:

• Console management/ operations bridge
• Job scheduling
• Backup and restore

IT Operations
IT Operations activities refer to the day-to-day operational activities that are needed to manage the IT infrastructure:

• Console management/ operations bridge
• Job scheduling
• Backup and restore

Console Management/Operation bridge

• The operation bridge is a central coordination point that control various events and routine operational activities
• It detect incident and reports the performance status of technological components

Job scheduling
IT Operation perform the standard routines, queries or reports that technical management and application management teams have transferred as part of the service or as part of routine day-to-day maintenance tasks

Backup and restore

• Backup and restore is essentially a component of well planned continuity
• Service Design must help to ensure that there are good backup strategies for each service
• Service Transition must help to ensure that they are tested correctly
• The only point of taking backup is to ensure that information can be restored

Service Desk

• A service desk is a functional unit with a number of staff members who deal with a variety of service events
• The prime contact point for IT users, and it processes all incidents and service request
• Often staff use software tools to record and manage events

A Service Desk Example



Service Desk Objectives
The principal goal of the service desk is to restore the “normal service” for users as soon as possible. This could entail resolving a technical error, fulfilling a service request or answering a question
It supports

• Local service desk
• Centralized service desk
• Virtual service desk
• Follow the sun - “24/7” service
• Specialized service desk groups

Advantage of Service Desk
Service desk provides the following advantages:

• Improve customer service, improve customer perception of the service and increased customer satisfaction
• Increase accessibility due to a single point of contact, communication and information
• Customer and user request are resolved better and faster
• Improve cooperation and communication
• Improve focus on service and a proactive service approach
• Reduce negative business impact
• Improve infrastructure management and control
• Improve use of resources for IT support
• More meaningful management information for decision support

Critical success factors for Service Operation

• Management support
• Business support
• Hiring & retaining staff
• Service management training
• Measuring and reporting

Management Support

• It is crucial to obtain finance and resources
• It is necessary to get support from middle management for all IT service management activities and process
• Senior management must also offer visible support during the launch of new service operation initiatives

Business Support

• Regular communication with the business is crucial to building a good relationship and to ensuring support, this will be better placed to understand the aspirations and concerns of the business
• Additionally, the business can provide feedback on the efforts of service operation to satisfy the business needs

Hiring and retaining staff

• The correct number of staff with the correct skills is critical for successful Service Operation

Service Management training

• Good training and awareness can provide great advantages
• Service operation staff must be aware of the consequences of their actions for the organization

Measuring and reporting

• Clear agreements are necessary regarding the way in which things are measured and reported
• All staff will have clear targets to aim for, and IT and business manager will be able to evaluate quickly and simply whether progress is being made and which areas deserve extra attention

Risks
Service loss:

• Loss of essential IT services with adverse impact on staff, customers and finances
• In extreme cases, loss may occur to life and health, when IT services are used for essential health and security purpose

Risk to successful service operation:

• Insufficient financing and resource
• Loss of momentum
• Loss of important staff
• Resistance to change
• Lack of management support
• If the design fails the requirements, successful implementation will never deliver the required result
• Service management could be viewed with suspicion by staff; service management must be clear for all stakeholders

Source: OGC