Practical IT Service Management, 2nd Edition

Practical IT Service Management, 2nd Edition

Released February 2014
Publisher(s): IT Governance Publishing
ISBN: 9781849285469

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

How can you ensure that IT problems do not damage your business?

IT is integral to modern organisations, and the way you manage it can make or break your business.

IT service management - not just for the IT director

It is not enough for the IT manager to understand the latest technical developments. For your company to succeed, everyone in the IT department must also understand their role in achieving overall business goals.

IT service management questions answered

Written in a friendly question-and-answer format, Practical ITSM explains how to set up a technical service management structure, using the best practice framework established by the latest version of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL® 2011).

ITIL framework for structured ITSM

The ITIL system is the most widely adopted approach to technical IT service management worldwide. It shows technical support staff how to provide the efficient IT services that are vital to your company’s success. Learn how ITIL can help you to:

  • Protect your company’s reputation 

    If you system goes down for any length of time, you might not be able to process an order or honour a contract. ITSM helps your business meet customer deadlines and expectations.

  • Safeguard vital information and recover from IT setbacks 

    Without adequate IT service management you could risk losing vital information, like payroll, billing and sales data.

  • Retain momentum

    With a structured IT service management in place, routine maintenance issues can be quickly resolved, minimising delays and improving productivity.

    • Read this book to see how ITIL can help your IT function support business goals.

    About the author

    Thejendra BS is the IT manager for a software development firm in Bangalore, and has over 20 years of experience in IT. Besides working in India, his career has also taken him to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain and Australia. He has dealt with customers in many different areas of business, and has written many articles for websites such as techrepublic.com and drj.com. Visit www.thejendra.com for details of his other books and articles.

    Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Title
    3. Copyright
    4. Preface
    5. About the Author
    6. Contents
    7. Introduction
    8. Chapter 1: Introduction to IT Service Management
      1. What is IT?
      2. What are IT services?
      3. What is IT service management?
      4. What problematic issues do IT departments commonly face?
      5. What issues do businesses face through heavy dependence on IT?
      6. How can professional IT service management help?
    9. Chapter 2: Overview of ITIL 2011
      1. What is ITIL?
      2. What are the main benefits of using a framework, such as ITIL?
      3. How many departments are needed to implement IT service management or ITIL?
      4. How did ITIL start and evolve?
      5. What were the main processes of ITIL Version 2?
      6. What was ITIL Version 3?
      7. What is ITIL 2011?
    10. Chapter 3: The ITIL Lifecycle
      1. What is Service Strategy?
      2. What departments or staff are required for service strategy?
      3. What is Service Design?
      4. What are the sub-processes of service design?
      5. What departments or staff are required for service design?
      6. What is Service Operation?
      7. What are the sub-processes of service operation?
      8. What departments or staff are required for service operations?
      9. What is Service Transition?
      10. What are the sub-processes of service transition?
      11. What departments or staff are required for service transition?
      12. What is Continual Service Improvement?
      13. What are the sub-processes of continual service improvement?
      14. What departments or staff are required for continual service improvement?
    11. Chapter 4: Service Desk Function
      1. What is a service desk?
      2. Why do you need a service desk?
      3. What are the responsibilities of a service desk?
      4. What are the different types of service desk?
      5. What options should be provided to contact your service desk?
      6. What tools and equipment do service desk personnel need?
      7. Are there any ITIL-compliant software or hardware?
      8. What job roles are needed in a service desk department?
      9. Some tips and advice for a responsive service desk
    12. Chapter 5: Incident Management
      1. What is an incident?
      2. Isn’t an incident the same as a problem?
      3. What is incident management?
      4. What are the responsibilities of incident management?
      5. Why is incident management necessary?
      6. What is incident priority?
      7. What is a business impact?
      8. What is an incident category?
      9. How can IT services reduce the number of incidents?
      10. What is classification matching?
      11. What is incident routing?
      12. What is incident escalation?
      13. What is an incident lifecycle?
      14. What are the sub-processes of incident management?
    13. Chapter 6: Problem Management
      1. What is a problem?
      2. What is problem management?
      3. Why is problem management necessary?
      4. What are the responsibilities of problem management?
      5. What are the sub-processes of problem management?
      6. What is a known error database?
      7. Examples of management reports
    14. Chapter 7: Change Management
      1. What is change?
      2. What is change management?
      3. Why is change management important?
      4. What are the responsibilities of change management?
      5. What will an RFC usually consist of?
      6. Is RFC and CAB approval required for every change?
      7. Examples of change management reports
    15. Chapter 8: Release and Deployment Management
      1. What is a release?
      2. What is release management?
      3. What is a deployment?
      4. What is release and deployment management?
      5. Why should there be a R&D management team?
      6. What are the responsibilities of R&D management?
      7. What is a DML?
      8. What is release building?
      9. What are the different types of releases?
      10. What is service validation and testing?
      11. What is meant by withdrawal of service?
      12. What are the sub-processes of release management?
    16. Chapter 9: Service Asset and Configuration Management
      1. What is a service asset?
      2. What is configuration management?
      3. Is configuration management the same as managing IT inventory?
      4. Why is configuration management important?
      5. What is service asset and configuration management?
      6. What is a configuration item?
      7. What is a CI attribute?
      8. What is a CI relationship?
      9. What is the configuration management database?
      10. What are the responsibilities of configuration management?
      11. How are CMDBs managed?
      12. What is a configuration baseline?
      13. What is a baseline analyser?
      14. What is CMDB updating?
      15. What is software licensing?
      16. What are the sub-processes of configuration management?
    17. Chapter 10: Service Level Management
      1. What is service level management?
      2. What is a service level agreement?
      3. Why should there be an SLA?
      4. What are the responsibilities of SLM?
      5. What are the sub-processes of service level management?
    18. Chapter 11: Service Catalogue Management
      1. What is a service catalogue?
      2. How do you differentiate the IT service portfolio from the service catalogue?
      3. What is service catalogue management?
      4. Why is a service catalogue needed?
      5. What should a catalogue contain?
      6. Some tips and advice for a service catalogue
    19. Chapter 12: Capacity Management
      1. What is capacity management?
      2. Why is capacity management necessary?
      3. What are the responsibilities of capacity management?
      4. What is meant by an IT staff ratio?
      5. Some tips and advice for capacity management
    20. Chapter 13: Demand Management
      1. What is demand?
      2. What is demand management?
      3. What are the responsibilities of demand management?
      4. Some tips and advice for demand management
    21. Chapter 14: Availability Management
      1. What is availability management?
      2. Why is availability management important?
      3. What are the main responsibilities of availability management?
      4. Some tips and advice for availability management
      5. What are the sub-processes of availability management?
    22. Chapter 15: Information Security Management
      1. What are the various ways in which information security can be compromised?
      2. What safeguards are available to protect information?
      3. Some tips and advice for information security management
      4. What are the sub-processes of information security?
    23. Chapter 16: Access Management
      1. What are the responsibilities of access management?
      2. What are the sub-processes of access management?
    24. Chapter 17: IT Service Continuity Management
      1. What is a disaster?
      2. What is disaster recovery?
      3. What is business continuity?
      4. What is crisis management?
      5. Why is service continuity important?
      6. What are the main responsibilities of SCM?
      7. What is a business impact analysis?
      8. What options are available for service continuity?
      9. Who can invoke service continuity?
      10. How can IT services be aware of risks?
    25. Chapter 18: Financial Management for IT Services
      1. Why is financial management important?
      2. What are the responsibilities of IT financial management?
      3. Some tips and advice for financial management
      4. What are the sub-processes of financial management for IT services?
    26. Chapter 19: Supplier Management
      1. Why are suppliers critical?
      2. What is supplier management?
      3. Is it necessary to have contracts with suppliers?
      4. What are the key elements of a maintenance contract or a service agreement?
      5. Some tips and advice for supplier management
      6. What are the sub-processes of supplier management?
    27. Chapter 20: IT Operations Management Function
      1. What are the main responsibilities of IT operations management?
      2. Some best practices for IT operations
    28. Chapter 21: General Tips and Advice for IT Service Management
    29. Appendix 1: Sample SLA Between IT Services and Rocksolid Business Managers
    30. Appendix 2: Sample OLA between IT Department and the Electrical Department
    31. Appendix 3: Sample UC between RockSolid IT Services and ABC Computer Corp
    32. Appendix 4: A Simple IT Service Management Flow with Interactions among Different Processes
    33. Appendix 5: The ITIL Glossary
    34. Appendix 6: ITSM Books and other Resources
    35. ITG Resources

    Product information

    • Title: Practical IT Service Management, 2nd Edition
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: February 2014
    • Publisher(s): IT Governance Publishing
    • ISBN: 9781849285469