The processes listed in paragraph 2.4.5 are discussed in detail in this chapter. As a reference, the overall structure is briefly described here and then each of the processes is described in more detail later in the chapter. Please note that the roles for each process and the tools used for each process are described in Chapters 6 and 7 respectively.
Event Management is the process that monitors all events that occur through the IT Infrastructure to allow for normal operation and also to detect and escalate exception conditions.
Incident Management concentrates on restoring the service to users as quickly as possible, in order to minimize business impact.
Problem Management involves root-cause analysis to determine and resolve the cause of events and incidents, proactive activities to detect and prevent future problems/incidents and a Known Error sub-process to allow quicker diagnosis and resolution if further incidents do occur.
NOTE: Without this distinction between incidents and problems, and keeping separate Incident and Problem Records, there is a danger that either:
· Incidents will be closed too early in the overall support cycle and there will be no actions taken to prevent recurrence – so the same incidents will have to be fixed over and over again, or
· Incidents will be kept open so that root cause analysis can be done and visibility will be lost of when the user’s service was actually restored – so SLA targets may not be met even though the service has been restored within users’ expectations. This often results in a large number of open incidents, many of which will never be closed unless a periodic ‘purge’ is undertaken. This can be very de-motivating and can prevent effective visibility of current issues.
Request Fulfilment involves the management of customer or user requests that are not generated as an incident from an unexpected service delay or disruption. Some organizations may choose to handle such requests as a ‘category’ of incidents and manage the information through an Incident Management system – but others may choose (because of high volumes or business priority of such requests) to facilitate the provision of Request Fulfilment capabilities separately via the Request Fulfilment process. It has become popular practice to use a formal Request Fulfilment process to manage customer and user requests for all types of requests which include facilities, moves and supplies as well as those specific to IT services. These requests are not generally tied to the same SLA measures and separating the records and the process flow is emerging as best practice in many organizations.
Access Management: this is the process of granting authorized users the right to use a service, while restricting access to non-authorized users. It is based on being able accurately to identify authorized users and then manage their ability to access services as required during different stages of their human resources (HR) or contractual lifecycle. Access Management has also been called Identity or Rights Management in some organizations.
In addition, there are several other processes that will be executed or supported during Service Operation, but which are driven during other phases of the Service Management Lifecycle. The operational aspects of these processes will be discussed in the final part of this chapter and include:
Change Management, a major process which should be closely linked to Configuration Management and Release Management. These topics are primarily covered in the Service Transition Publication.
Capacity and Availability Management, the operational aspects of which are covered in this publication, but which are covered in more detail in the Service Design publication.
Financial Management, which is covered in the Service Strategy publication.
Knowledge Management, which is covered in the Service Transition publication.
IT Service Continuity, which is covered in the Service Design publication.
Service Reporting and Measurement, which are covered in the Continual Service Improvement publication
