The role of Operations Management is to execute the ongoing activities and procedures required to manage and maintain the IT Infrastructure so as to deliver and support IT Services at the agreed levels. These have already been described in section 5, but are summarized here for completeness:
Operations Control, which oversees the execution and monitoring of the operational activities and events in the IT Infrastructure. This can be done with the assistance of an Operations Bridge or Network Operations Centre. In addition to executing routine tasks from all technical areas, Operations Control also performs the following specific tasks:
Console Management, which refers to defining central observation and monitoring capability and then using those consoles to exercise monitoring and control activities
Job Scheduling, or the management of routine batch jobs or scripts
BackupandRestore on behalf of all Technical and Application Management teams and departments and often on behalf of users
Print and Output managementfor the collation and distribution of all centralized printing or electronic output
Performance of maintenance activities on behalf of Technical or Application Management teams or departments.
Facilities Management, which refers to the management of the physical IT environment, typically a Data Centre or computer rooms and recovery sites together with all the power and cooling equipment. Facilities Management also includes the coordination of large-scale consolidation projects, e.g. Data Centre consolidation or server consolidation projects. In some cases the management of a data centre is outsourced, in which case Facilities Management refers to the management of the outsourcingcontract.
As with many IT Service Management processes and functions, IT Operations Management plays a dual role.
IT Operations Management is responsible for executing the activities and performancestandards defined during Service Design and tested during Service Transition. In this sense IT Operations’ role is primarily to maintain the status quo. The stability of the IT Infrastructure and consistency of IT services is a primary concern of IT Operations. Even operational improvements are aimed at finding simpler and better ways of doing the same thing.
At the same time, IT Operations is part of the process of adding value to the different lines of business and to support the value network (see the ITIL Service Strategy publication). The ability of the business to meet its objectives and to remain competitive depends on the output and reliability of the day-to-day operation of IT. As such, IT Operations Management must be able to continually adapt to business requirements and demand. The Business does not care that IT Operations complied with a standard procedure or that a server performed optimally. As business demand and requirements change, IT Operations Management must be able to keep pace with them, often challenging the status quo.
IT Operations must achieve a balance between these roles, which will require the following:
An understanding of how technology is used to provide IT services
An understanding of the relative importance and impact of those services on the business
Procedures and manuals that outline the role of IT Operations in both the management of technology and the delivery of IT services
A clearly differentiated set of metrics to report to the business on the achievement of Service objectives; and to report to IT managers on the efficiency and effectiveness of IT Operations
All IT Operations staff understand exactly how the performance of the technology affects the delivery of IT services
A coststrategy aimed at balancing the requirements of different business units with the cost savings available through optimization of existing technology or investment in new technology
A value, rather than cost, based Return on Investment strategy.
