Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax.

972-97442444

ITIL – IT Infrastructure Library

Round Table Review Summary –

Salient points arising in the discussion, February 2007

Foreword

Those participating in the review were Chief Information Officers, managers of the
Office of the CIO, and representatives of the manufacturing division, along with
managers of the projects management, support and infrastructures departments in
organizations from various sectors. The object of the review - to hear from
participants what are the best practices for the management of IT services, to hear
how these organizations cope with the management of incidents, problems,
modifications and configuration in the organization.

Following ongoing pressure to reduce IT costs, and given the rising level of
complexity of the IT systems, many IT organizations are currently in search of
structured managerial methodologies to enable them to meet such requirements and
provide the organizations with added value. As of the present time, however, only a
small percentage of IT organizations have applied any formal measures to improve IT
processes; but those that have done so have gained real and substantial added value.
This was achieved by streamlining the effectiveness of the internal IT process. These
organizations are contriving to improve the level of effectiveness in order to adapt to
the organization’s changing demands, and thereby improve quality of service to their
customers.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is fast becoming a standard methodological

framework for IT services management. ITIL can be defined as a collection of best
practises for the requisite process management and for the effective management of
support and provision of IT services. Each of the processes defined in ITIL is
supposed to set in motion a different commercial function.

Service Support – is the core of the ITIL, and the principal motivating force for its
adoption by the organizations. The great majority of organizations are looking for
four key processes: Incident Management, Problem Management, Change
Management, and Configuration Management.

The commercial implications of the processes are:

Service Desk – the sole function of the ITIL. The pivotal point in the contact between
users and IT service management. The object of the Service Desk is to provide high-
quality support and to improve the level of customer satisfaction.
1 Incident management – the object of this process is to handle the user’s
incident as quickly as possible and to enable him to resume routine work
This report constitutes the opinion of STKI – a consultancy firm providing its clients with
strategic and tactical information based on its research in Israel’s IT market and also on
research by international firms such as Cutter, Experture, Datamonitor and Butler.

Moshav Bnei Tzion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel

Tel: (972)-9-7444474 Fax: ( 972)-9-7442444
 Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444

without further incidents (in conjunction with SLA).

2 Problem management – This function minimizes the negative effects of

systemic and infrastructure incidents, and takes proactive measures to
prevent them. Generally speaking, problem management may be
considered to be a root analysis of the problem, and it is the key to the
success of the process, even though the process itself is not so simple. The
process is based on an examination of the causes resulting in the incident,
prevention of their reoccurrence, and the facilitating of the rapid
resumption of routine work by the customer. Firstly, therefore, an
immediate solution must be provided so as to enable the HD to help the
customer return to work. Secondly, one needs to decipher what must be
done to ensure that the incident does not recur – tracing the cause of the
incident, finding a long term solution and implementing the changes.
Customers recommend viewing incident management and problem
management as two separate processes.

3 Change management – a central ITIL component which probes to ensure

that a systemic change will not cause a new incident. Any change in IT
components – hardware, software and services, must be managed, but it is
not a single change that needs managing but rather a whole system of
changes: - what needs to be changed, when, and to what effects are such
changes liable to give rise.

4 Configuration management – configuration management deals with the

management of IT assets: hardware, software and the links between them.
This does not mean just a dry itemization of work stations but also an
itemization of the server to which each station is connected. This means
that in case the server crashes, configuration management will enable us to
promptly identify which additional systems are connected to this server,
facilitating prioritization of the order in which the problems are dealt with.
Everything that is included in IT infrastructures should be managed under
a CMDB (Configuration Management Data Base). In addition, it is
important to understand that any change in CMDB must be implemented
through change management so that even in the event of a crash of
systems it will be possible to determine exactly what has happened and
where.

This report constitutes the opinion of STKI – a consultancy firm providing its clients with
strategic and tactical information based on its research in Israel’s IT market and also on
research by international firms such as Cutter, Experture, Datamonitor and Butler.

Moshav Bnei Tzion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel

Tel: (972)-9-7444474 Fax: ( 972)-9-7442444
 Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444

The key points emerging from the discussion were:

Current state of affairs in organizations in Israel

o Organizations are currently seeking to build a better relationship with

the business; to start speaking business language rather than computer
language. Therefore, they seek structured management methodologies
such as ITIL.

o Following their work of assessment together with outside consultants,

most organizations saw that processes that were taking place
unsatisfactorily were processes belonging to the world of Service
Support and SLA, and they decided to introduce CMDB
(Configuration Management Data Base) into IT. The CMDB system
will serve as a basis for mapping all components of IT and the links
between them.

o ITIL consultants – consultants that have written assessment and gap

analysis papers and who are recommended by the organizations:
Sabena Galant, Benny Kamin, Dr. Arthur Lampert.

o Change management – this will be undertaken following the process

of mapping and the introduction of a central CMBD into the
organization. Where the organization already has a configuration map,
a system will identify every change in the IT components and will
generate a changes report, indicating what changes were made in
which component, when and by whom.

o Today’s real challenge is to obtain a true business snapshot of the links

between an application incident and adverse impact on a particular
commercial service. IT needs to be able to know, for example, the real
cost of failure to provide a business with services. Correct to the
present, what is known is the link between an incident and a particular
service and between it and a specific communication line; but the link
to an adversely affected commercial service is not known.

o Companies report that what is important is not to enter into all ITIL
processes, or to be ITIL compliant, but to reinforce processes in the
service world, where properly regulated processes had hitherto been
lacking, and to enter into configuration management in the context of
business processes. Organizations expressed their hope that the use of
an ITIL methodology framework will improve their ability to keep the
business entity informed as regards the implications of activity and the
This report constitutes the opinion of STKI – a consultancy firm providing its clients with
strategic and tactical information based on its research in Israel’s IT market and also on
research by international firms such as Cutter, Experture, Datamonitor and Butler.

Moshav Bnei Tzion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel

Tel: (972)-9-7444474 Fax: ( 972)-9-7442444
 Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444

availability of IT for specific business processes, and that they will

enjoy greater control in managing changes. The problem is, of course,
that the connection between any change made in IT and a business
process is not mono-monovalent and that is why the mapping of the IT
components and their influence on business processes is so complex.

o By embedding the processes in accordance with an ITIL methodology

framework, organizations expect to achieve a separation between
maintenance and routine activity on the one hand, and the work of
development and infrastructure building on the other.

o Companies that have embedded a number of ITIL processes in a part

of the organizations as a pilot project, perceived the move as a great
success. They felt that the work is now being better performed, in a
more structured and orderly manner, especially following the
separation and the measurement of the various services.

o There are also those that have been exposed to the ITIL world through
Service Desk systems they have acquired. Suppliers prided themselves
on their ITIL compliant systems, it sounded good; and now they are
leveraging the system’s capability for learning the method and
adopting processes.

o It is important to note that even if this or that managerial methodology

already exists in the organization, such as ISO, CMMI, SOX, RUB or
the like, this does not prevent the organization from also adopting the
ITIL methodology framework, since no duplication is involved. ITIL
is designed to provide a response to non-regularized processes in the
service management world.

Help Desk Best Practises

• Following a gap analysis, a number of companies merged two service

centres that they had into just one – the SPOC (Single Point of
Contact) call-in centre for all types of calls concerning automation,
which operates as a single logical call in centre with remote takeover
capability. The generally accepted model for support consists of three
service lines. The first line is for obtaining the response and attempting
an immediate solution. Eighty percent of calls are handled by this line.
The second line is the “expert line” which provides support for
problems calling for in-depth expertise on the field referred to by the
call. The third line may provide support at the customer’s site, an
external factor under warranty, a supplier, or, a most extreme example.
This report constitutes the opinion of STKI – a consultancy firm providing its clients with
strategic and tactical information based on its research in Israel’s IT market and also on
research by international firms such as Cutter, Experture, Datamonitor and Butler.

Moshav Bnei Tzion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel

Tel: (972)-9-7444474 Fax: ( 972)-9-7442444
 Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444

The call-in centre constitutes the sole liaison between customers and
the IT, and activates the requisite elements as needed. The IT has
internal service agreements with customers, and control indices, and
the call in centre maintains routine follow up and reports to customers
on compliance with SLA in accordance with the agreements.

• Incidents opened in HD are catalogued in accordance with type of

incident (which are statistically sampled – the three most critical
incidents, the three most frequent incidents, and so on and so forth).
HD identifies the recurrent incidents by classification. It also defines
whether the incident is an ordinary one or a systemic one, which is to
be addressed immediately. On the basis of the reports generated by the
SD systems, the ten principal types of incidents can be determined. A
check is run and the types of incidents and the quantity of calls by user
is monitored. If a user has been recently been making too frequent
applications, a technician will be sent directly to check out the
problem, even in case of non-similar incidents.

• Proactive service management - incidents are ascribed to categories

found in the incidents catalogue. Incidents are monitored and examined
to determine whether an incident derived from lack of know-how on
the part of the user, or whether it is a technical malfunction. Where it
is clear that incidents from a particular category derive from know-how
problems, training will be provided on the problematic subject. This
process is a most effective one for the organization. In addition, users
contacting the HD can channel the call directly to the relevant
technicians by means of IVR, thus streamlining the treatment of the
incident.

• It is a good idea to enable the user to keep track of the status of the
incident in the system, and for a history per user to be outlined.

• Organizations with a number of Monitoring and Control systems

spread over a number of teams wish to introduce a single central M&C
system more suitable for use by managers.

• A satisfaction survey carried out following the conclusion of the

treatment of an incident (via Internet and telephone) obtains a high
rate of response of some 25% - 30%, constituting part of a regularized
process of deriving object lessons and being indicative of the caring
attitude of the HD.

This report constitutes the opinion of STKI – a consultancy firm providing its clients with
strategic and tactical information based on its research in Israel’s IT market and also on
research by international firms such as Cutter, Experture, Datamonitor and Butler.

Moshav Bnei Tzion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel

Tel: (972)-9-7444474 Fax: ( 972)-9-7442444
 Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444

• Requests for modifications in various applications pass via a rotation

of signatures and approvals from managers at various echelons until
the request for modification is properly approved.

• A production forum may be convened about three times a week to

discuss the making of modifications in applications, the replacement of
software packages, the introduction of new versions and any other
change in the manufacturing environment.

• Our customers recommend that an organization, prior to entering into

ITIL processes, should hold joint workshops with Business in order
to more clearly define the processes. It, together with the internal
customers, constructs a work plan, analyses gaps and defines goals for
improvement. Such a process takes about three months, participants
including key members of the organization, IT managers and
department representatives.

• Processes that have brought about a significant improvement in

service quality are the introduction of Self Service and Asset
Management.

• It is a good idea to currently check how well every system will

interface in future with CMDB.

• It is important to prevent users from applying directly to programmers.

It is a good idea to have correct and full documentation of incidents in
the HD system without bypassing Line 1 and vacate time for the
programmers to handle recurrent problems and undertake proactive
activity.

This report constitutes the opinion of STKI – a consultancy firm providing its clients with
strategic and tactical information based on its research in Israel’s IT market and also on
research by international firms such as Cutter, Experture, Datamonitor and Butler.

Moshav Bnei Tzion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel

Tel: (972)-9-7444474 Fax: ( 972)-9-7442444