ITIL® Foundation Certification Notes
: Service Design : Processes
4.8 Processes
4.8.1 Service Level Management
(SLM)
Service level management principles form the basis
on how to contribute to an ITSM culture to ensure that
the right services with the appropriate quality are
delivered, at the right cost to end users.
A) Purpose of Service Level Management Process
1) Ensure all current / planned services are
delivered to agreed achievable targets
2) Accomplished through a constant cycle of negotiating,
agreeing, monitoring, reporting on and reviewing
IT service targets and achievements, and through
instigation of actions to correct or improve the
level of service delivered
B) Objectives of Service Level Management Process
1) Define, document, agree, monitor, measure,
report and review the level of IT services provided;
instigate corrective measures whenever appropriate
2) Provide and improve a relationship / communication
with the business and customers in conjunction with
business relationship management
3) Ensure specific and measurable targets are
developed for all IT services
4) Monitor and improve customer satisfaction
with quality of service delivered
5) Ensure IT and customers have a clear expectation
of service levels to be delivered
6) Ensure that even when all agreed targets met,
the levels of service delivered are subject to proactive,
cost-effective continual improvement.
C) Scope of Service Level Management Process
1) Establishing service level requirements
2) Establishing Service level agreements
3) Monitoring service performance.
4) Measuring customer satisfaction.
5) Reporting on service performance and customer
satisfaction.
6) Maintaining customer relationships.
D) Key Activities of Service Level Management Process
1) Identify IT services and service requirements
2) Define, build and manage the IT Service Catalog
3) Define, build and negotiate Service Level
Agreements (SLAs)
4) Define, build and negotiate Operational Level
Agreements (OLAs)
5) Identify Underpinning Contract service requirements
(UCs)
6) Monitor and manage SLAs, OLAs and UCs
7) Initiate service improvement actions
8) Provide management information about Service
Level Management quality and operations
4.8.2 Service Catalogue Management
(SCM)
A service catalogue is a database or structured document
with information about all live IT services, including those
available for deployment. The service catalogue is part of the
service portfolio and contains information about two types of
IT service: customer-facing services that are visible to the
business and supporting services required by the service provider
to deliver customer-facing services.
Service Catalogue Management is a process responsible for
providing and maintaining the service catalogue and for ensuring
that it is available to those who are authorized to access it.
The service catalogue has different views for different people
(users, IT, etc.)
a) Two-view (business service/technical service)
b) Three-view (wholesale customer, retail customer and
supporting services).
A) Purpose of Service Catalogue Management Process
1) Provide and maintain a single source of consistent
information on all operational / ready-to-deploy services,
used by customers and IT, essential to service management
2) Ensure that it is widely available to those authorized
to access it
B) Objectives of Service Catalogue Management Process
1) The production and maintenance of the service catalogue.
2) Documenting the details of the service, status, interfaces
and dependencies (obtained from Configuration Management
System), often in service packages (solution)
3) Ensure the service catalogue is made available to
those approved to access it in a way that supports their
effective and efficient use of service catalogue information
C) Scope of Service Catalogue Management Process
1) Contribution to the definition of services and service
packages
2) Development and maintenance of service and service
package descriptions appropriate for the service catalogue
3) Production and maintenance of an accurate service
catalogue
4) Interfaces, dependencies / consistency between the
catalogue and service portfolio
5) Interfaces and dependencies between all services and
supporting services within the service catalogue and the
CMS
D) Key Activities of Service Catalogue Management Process
1) Documenting the definition of the service
2) Production and maintenance of an accurate service
catalogue
3) Interfaces, dependencies and consistency between the
service catalogue and service portfolio
4) Interfaces and dependencies between all services and
supporting services within the service catalogue and the
CMS
5) Interfaces and dependencies between all services,
and supporting components and Configuration Items (CIs)
within the Service Catalogue and the CMS
4.8.3 Availability Management
Availability management is a process responsible for ensuring
IT services meet current and future availability needs of the
business in a cost-effective and timely manner.
A) Purpose of Availability Management Process
The purpose of Availability Management is to provide
a focal point and management responsibility for all availability-related
activities in respect of both resources and services
B) Objectives of Availability Management process
1) To prepare and maintain the Availability Plan.
2) To monitor availability levels and the status of resources
and services to identify potential and actual availability
issues and prevent or minimize any consequent business interruptions.
3) To manage the availability of services and resources
to meet agreed service levels.
4) To assist with the investigation and resolution of
availability-related Incidents and Problems.
5) To assess the impact of changes on availability levels
and plans.
6) To proactively improve availability where the cost
is justified.
C) Scope of Availability Management process
1) Covers the design, implementation, measurement, management,
testing and improvement of IT service and component availability
(reduce availability issues throughout the service lifecycle)
2) Ensure that availability is duly considered in service
design
3) Should be applied to all operational services and
technology, particularly those covered by SLAs.
4) Monitor and measure availability according to SLA
(if available)
5) Include both reactive (monitoring by event management,
investigating downtime incidences) and proactive (identifying
and managing risks) activities.
6) All information is recorded in the availability management
information system. An ongoing process, finishing only when
the IT service is decommissioned or retired
D) Key Activities of Availability Management Process
1) Proactive activities:
a) Ensure that appropriate design and planning of
availability takes place for all new services
b) Planning, design and improvement of availability
c) Providing cost effective availability improvements
that can deliver business and customer benefits
d) Ensuring agreed level of availability is provided
e) Produce and maintain an availability plan
2) Reactive activities:
a) Monitoring, measuring, analysis and management
of all events, incidents and problems involving unavailability
b) Continually optimize and improve availability
of IT infrastructure services
c) Assisting security and ITSCM in the assessment
and management of risk
d) Attending CAB as required
3) Determining availability requirements: the Availability
Manager can determine the availability requirements.
4) Determining Vital Business Functions (VBF's): IT systems
that support VBFs should have higher availability expectations
and the appropriate systems and support to achieve and sustain
these higher levels at critical times which have been agreed
and documented in the SLA.
5) Business Impact analysis: A formal analysis of the
affect on the business, if a specific set of IT services
are not available.
E) Key Indicators of Availability Management
1) Reliability: A measure of how long a service, component
or CI can perform its agreed function without Interruption.
It is measured as the mean time between service incidents
(MTBSI) or mean time between failures (MTBF).
2) Maintainability: A measure of how quickly and effectively
a service, component or CI can be restored to normal working
after a failure. It is measured as the mean time to restore
service (MTRS).
3) Serviceability: Ability of a third-party supplier
to meet the terms of its contract. This contract will include
agreed levels of availability, reliability and/or maintainability
for a supporting service.
4) Resilience: A measure of freedom from operational
failure and a method of keeping services reliable. It minimizes
the consequences of component failure; one popular method
of resilience is redundancy.
5) Security: Security refers to the confidentiality,
integrity, and availability of that data.
