ITIL and ITSM, and Car Racing
Here's my CW article and here is the follow up because I couldn't stop writing - so this report on our site (it's free) is the complete ITIL/ITSM thing.
Basically, I wanted to have you understand what the stuff is, why it's important (for reasons other than what ITIL/ITSM folks say), and where it falls short. Let me know what you think.
Finally, I survived my first race track driving experience. Barely. In my "novice" class of 6, Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer was one us. I'm a way better driver than him. When I asked him why he didn't bring his white Lambo Gallardo spider, he said "track soot". Track soot? Does he not realize there are probably lots and lots of groupies that would wash his car, or anything else for that matter, hoping to get it turned into an MTV video? Silly drummer.
It was one of the more terrifying, yet thrilling, experiences of my life. I did not destroy my car, which is nice.
Steve,
A different spin on ITIL, ITSM, SOA and ILM.
We have been discussing this at:
"ILM and ITIL: The Perfect Storm"
http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=527
I have been trying to reconcile Enterprise Architecture with Information Architecture. Hence my interest in ILM mapping to ITIL or SOA.
Here are some of Jeff Tash's comments on ILM, ITIL, IT Service Management and SOA from a dialog I have had with him on his Blog over several months. Jeff's Blog is at: http://itscout.blogspot.com/
They helped organize my confusion. HTH
Technology Architecture organizes, classifies, and categorizes the products that make up an organization's technology portfolio.
Technology Architecture is different than ITIL.
ITIL is a collection of best practice processes (generally published as text within books).
IT Service Management is the combination of a repository and a set of management tools that support ITIL-like processes. IT Service Management automates ITIL processes, especially by sharing informaction across tasks, roles, and tools, by using a Change and Configuration Management Database.
SOA is very different still. SOA is a type of application architecture that specifies how components can be partitioned and integrated. It's an instance of an Application Architecture. An Application Architecture's role is to specify how different components comprising an application are able to communicate -- both synchronously and asynchronously.
Even SMBs can benefit from Technology Architecture, ITIL, IT Service Management, and SOA.
I am not aware of any ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) to ITIL map.
I'm not sure what such a map might look like from an industry perspective. On the other hand, it would make great sense to map out an individual enterprise's "Storage Infrastructure". This map could show strategic direction -- including as-is and to-be temporal information. A related tactical map could show actual layouts of storage farms right down to the details of information stored.
Flashmap's ITatlas product would be helpful for communicating the information related to maps in exactly the same way that people use ITatlas to communicate information about enterprise architecture models.
ITatlas enables architects to provide context so that people don't inadvertently compare "apples" and "oranges". It can help different people share common definitions and descriptions so that they don't confuse terms such as ITIL, IT
Service Management, and SOA.
Note that ITatlas is not a modeling tool per se. The "expert" needs to define the model and then populate it with data. The ITatlas product is a tool that helps to convey the information inside the model(s) to a group of untrained individuals who have an interest in accessing the information contained in the
models. Different people may want to see different views of the information. There may be differences between business units. People with different jobs might need access to different information.
Where ITIL is important is in terms of the actual change management process itself. ITIL is all about process.
ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) describes the model(s). It includes all kinds of possible data, including specific products and vendors, geographic locations, as well as hosts of documentation such as backup and recovery procedures, disaster recovery procedures, etc.
Considering all the information pertaining to the ILM models, and all the information related to processes, you can imagine that communicating the right information to the right people at the right time is a huge challenge. That's the space where ITatlas helps out. It can assist the team responsible for the
ILM (the models) and the ITIL (the processes) to communicate the right information to the right people at the right time, and make access to that information simple and easy without any need to explicit training by those accessing the information.
Just two of the many possible Blog references:
http://itscout.blogspot.com/2006/05/american-itil.html
http://itscout.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-flashmap-systems-helps-architects.html
Posted by: Robert Pearson | August 23, 2006 at 03:37 AM