MIDTERM ITSM

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

It is considered the most popular framework centered on delivering IT services. It aims to provide guidance on how services must be defined, developed, built, and operated.

process

It is a structured set of activities made to accomplish specified objectives and takes different inputs to turn them into defined outputs.

function

It is described as a team or group of people and the tools and resources they use to conduct processes or activities.

Practice

It can be considered an extension of a process as it not only defines the activities but also brings various capabilities and tools together to accomplish a set of objectives.

ITIL Principles

A set of recommendations for ITSM that help organizations make smart decisions and take actions aligned with their goals.

Focus on Value (ITIL Principles)

Everything the organization does must always bring value to its stakeholders, specifically the customers. The services should be designed with a customer’s satisfaction in mind.

Start Where You Are (ITIL Principles)

This does not mean resetting everything from the start. This means focusing on what is already available and improving that existing system.

Progress Iteratively with Feedback (ITIL Principles)

This reminds the people involved not to accomplish everything at once, as it can be overwhelming. Divide tasks into smaller parts and focus on each step to assess the value it can provide.

Collaborate and Promote Visibility (ITIL Principles)

This aims to take advantage of the different sets of strengths and weaknesses that each member of the IT team has through delivering collaborative efforts.

Think and Work Holistically (ITIL Principles)

To create the best service, it all must be connected, as no service, practice, process, or function stands alone. All activities should align with the same focus on the delivery of value.

Keep it Simple and Practical (ITIL Principles)

This is a reminder to not over-complicate anything to be done. Complicating any process increases the risks of going wrong and having more errors.

Optimize and Automate (ITIL Principles)

Optimization makes things functional, so automation of any activity should be optimized first to utilize the resources to the best of their limits.

DevOps

It is the combination of development and operation teams to deliver an objective. It brings people together from across disciplines to collaborate as a unit with an open mind and to remove inefficiencies.

blameless culture

It acknowledges the fact that humans make mistakes.

People (Elements of DevOps)

It is the heart of DevOps, which is composed of a DevOps team consisting of a pool of tooling professionals.

Process (Elements of DevOps)

The CI/CD pipeline consisting of Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Deployment is used for effective DevOps Methodology. This is a set of DevOps best practices to help teams deliver software faster and more efficiently.

Technology (Elements of DevOps)

It is often regarded as the most important of processes.

Continuous Integration

It provides a central repository for developers to use throughout a project. This automates anything in the central repository to reduce errors and compile artifacts into organized builds to perform initial tests.

Continuous Delivery

It delivers the builds into the test environment and then needs human intervention to deploy the tested builds into production.

Continuous Deployment

It performs beyond Continuous Delivery and deploys automatically to production. This is viewed as a build on the established practices of Continuous Delivery, but this focuses more on a complete end-to-end automated approach, while Continuous Delivery requires human intervention.

CVCS

It has a server-client relationship to store and retrieve the code, and the developer is required to first check out the existing code, make changes, and check it back in.

DVCS

Each developer has the entire code on their computer that requires no check-out and check-in, allowing multiple developers to work seamlessly.

Culture (DevOps Principles)

It cannot be changed in an instant as it is embedded into human behavior and would require an overhaul to do so.

Automation (DevOps Principles)

An enabler of faster delivery and crucial for providing rapid feedback.

Lean (DevOps Principles)

It is about keeping things simple and not overcomplicating them. This allows the teams to focus and work on things that are easy to comprehend and simple to work with.

Measurement (DevOps Principles)

The only way to find out whether the outcome is favorable is by measuring it. This principle provides direction about the measures to implement and keep tabs to feel the reception of the overall software delivery.

Sharing (DevOps Principles)

This is the need for collaboration and knowledge sharing between people. The shared knowledge, experience, ideas, and thoughts can help others in making them better and more profound.

ServiceNow

IT is a software company that has its service management called ServiceNow IT Service Management.

ServiceNow IT Service Management

It is a modern, cloud-based, and silo-busting ITSM solution that promises to consolidate on premises legacy tools into a single cloud platform. It uses AI and machine learning capabilities with virtual agent chatbots to help IT staff and boost overall productivity by 30%.

Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT)

It is a framework for organizations that want to implement, monitor, and improve the best IT management practices.

Measuring Performance (Benefits of IT Governance)

It dictates where measuring points of the performance should be located within the IT organization.

Budgetary Matters (Benefits of IT Governance)

A system should be set up to monitor IT spending to ensure that it is justified in proportion to the business’s needs for its services.

Disaster Planning (Benefits of IT Governance)

IT governance should establish clear damage control whenever the worst-case scenarios happen, such as a security and service failure.

Reputation (Benefits of IT Governance)

IT governance is also used to help an organization define and position itself.

KPI 1: Number of Implemented Preventative Measures (Security KPIs)

This charts the number of security measures that have been implemented based on perceived vulnerability or a known or successful intrusion attempt.

KPI 2: Implementation Duration (Security KPIs)

This tracks the time between the point a justified security concern is identified and the point in time when a resolution is placed.

KPI 3: Number of High-Risk Security Incidents (Security KPIs)

This tracks the number of security incidents and them with a specific severity level.

KPI 4: Number of Security-Related Downtimes (Security KPIs)

This tracks the number of downtimes that prevented service from being available to customers due to security concerns.

KPI 5: Number of Security Tests (Security KPIs)

This tracks the number of proactive steps taken that measure existing data security, such as tests and training.

KPI 6: Number of Identified Shortcomings During Security Tests (Security KPIs)

This takes the measurements in KPI 5 and plots them against the identified shortcomings during the tests.