ITSM - what is it and where to start implementation
Yesterday we published a selection of materials on Habré for those who would like to deal with ITSM - to study trends and tools. Today we continue to talk about how to integrate ITSM into the company's business processes, and what cloud tools can help with this. / PxHere / PD
The traditional approach to managing IT departments is called the "resource". In simple words, it implies a focus on working with servers, networks and other hardware - “IT resources”. Guided by such a model, the IT department often overlooks what other departments are doing, and does not rely on their "user" requirements and the needs of the company's customers, but on the reverse side, from resources.
An alternative to this approach to IT management is ITSM (IT Service Management). This is a service method that offers to concentrate not on technologies and hardware, but on users (which can be both employees of the organization and customers) and their needs.
The ITSM methodology makes the IT department a service provider for other parts of the organization. It ceases to be an auxiliary element responsible for maintaining the health of the IT infrastructure: individual servers, networks and applications.
The company formalizes the services that it wants to receive from the IT department, and switches to work according to the “customer - supplier” model. As a result, the business begins to present its requirements for services, formulating the problems and tasks that users face. And the IT department already decides with what technical means to satisfy these needs.
/ José Alejandro Cuffia / Unsplash
In general, the company's infrastructure is divided into separate services that automate certain business tasks. To manage these services, specialized software platforms are used. The most famous in the ITSM market is the ServiceNow cloud system. For several years in a row, she has been ranked first in the Gartner Quadrant.
We at IT Guilds integrate ServiceNow solutions.
We’ll tell you how to approach the integration of ITSM in a company. We present several business processes whose automation allows us to optimize the work of IT departments. We will also talk about the tools of the ServiceNow platform that help to do this.
Asset Management (ITAM, IT Asset Management) . This is the process that is responsible for accounting for IT assets throughout their life cycle: from acquisition or development to decommissioning. In this case, IT assets include various kinds of software and hardware: PCs, laptops, servers, office equipment, Internet resources. Automation of asset management allows the company to spend resources more efficiently and forecast needs.
Two ServiceNow applications, Discovery and Mapping Service, can help solve this problem. The first automatically finds and identifies new assets (for example, servers connected to the corporate network) and stores information about them in a special database (called CMDB ).
The second - defines the relationship between services and infrastructure elements on which these services are built. As a result, all processes in the IT department and the company become more transparent.
We talked about how to implement asset management and work with these two applications in the corporate blog - there is a detailed practical guide ( one and two ). In it, we touched on all stages of implementation: from planning to audit.
Financial Management (ITFM, IT Financial management) . This is a process, part of which is the optimization of IT services from an economic point of view. The IT department and organization need to collect financial information to understand the overall picture of costs and revenues.
The ServiceNow Financial Management module can help with the collection of this information. It is a single control panel where IT department employees can plan budgets, keep track of costs for various activities and bill for services (both to other departments of the organization and its customers). You can see how this looks in our review of the ServiceNow Financial Management tool. We also prepared a short guide on the implementation of financial management processes - in it we analyze the main stages.
Management and monitoring of data centers (ITOM, IT Operations Management) . The goal of this process is to monitor IT infrastructure components and load balancing. IT department specialists must understand how changes in server or network switch performance will affect the quality of services provided.
The ServiceWatch portal can help with this task. It collects infrastructure information using the aforementioned Discovery module and automatically builds dependencies between business services and IT services. How to collect data on IT-systems using Discovery, we talked about in a corporate blog . Even prepared a video on the topic .
Self-Service Portal (the Service Portal) . Such portals give users the opportunity to independently solve their problems with software or hardware, without the help of technical support specialists. There are several options for building such portals - static knowledge bases, FAQs or dynamic pages with the ability to receive applications.
We told more about the types of portals in one of the previous materials on Habré .
Create such a Service Portal helps the eponymous tool from ServiceNow. The appearance of the portal is configured by additional pages or widgets, as well as using the development tools AngularJS, SCSS and JavaScript.
/ PxHere / PD
Development Management (Agile Development) . This is a process based on agile development methodologies. They have many advantages (continuous development and change, iteration), but the fragmentation of small groups of developers, each of which is involved in its own project, does not always give management a vision of the overall situation and progress.
ServiceNow Agile Development tool solves the problem and gives centralized control over the development process. This approach facilitates the process of collaboration and control over the entire life cycle of software creation: from planning to supporting the finished system. How to start working with the Agile Development tool we talked about in this article .
Of course, these are not all processes that can be standardized and automated using ITSM and ServiceNow. We talk about other features of the platform on our website - there is also the opportunity to ask questions to our experts.
Related materials from our corporate blog:
What do you want from this
The traditional approach to managing IT departments is called the "resource". In simple words, it implies a focus on working with servers, networks and other hardware - “IT resources”. Guided by such a model, the IT department often overlooks what other departments are doing, and does not rely on their "user" requirements and the needs of the company's customers, but on the reverse side, from resources.
An alternative to this approach to IT management is ITSM (IT Service Management). This is a service method that offers to concentrate not on technologies and hardware, but on users (which can be both employees of the organization and customers) and their needs.
How to say the representatives of IBM, this approach makes it possible to reduce operating costs and improve the quality of services IT-department.
What gives ITSM in practice
The ITSM methodology makes the IT department a service provider for other parts of the organization. It ceases to be an auxiliary element responsible for maintaining the health of the IT infrastructure: individual servers, networks and applications.
The company formalizes the services that it wants to receive from the IT department, and switches to work according to the “customer - supplier” model. As a result, the business begins to present its requirements for services, formulating the problems and tasks that users face. And the IT department already decides with what technical means to satisfy these needs.
/ José Alejandro Cuffia / Unsplash
In general, the company's infrastructure is divided into separate services that automate certain business tasks. To manage these services, specialized software platforms are used. The most famous in the ITSM market is the ServiceNow cloud system. For several years in a row, she has been ranked first in the Gartner Quadrant.
We at IT Guilds integrate ServiceNow solutions.
We’ll tell you how to approach the integration of ITSM in a company. We present several business processes whose automation allows us to optimize the work of IT departments. We will also talk about the tools of the ServiceNow platform that help to do this.
Where to start and what tools are available
Asset Management (ITAM, IT Asset Management) . This is the process that is responsible for accounting for IT assets throughout their life cycle: from acquisition or development to decommissioning. In this case, IT assets include various kinds of software and hardware: PCs, laptops, servers, office equipment, Internet resources. Automation of asset management allows the company to spend resources more efficiently and forecast needs.
Two ServiceNow applications, Discovery and Mapping Service, can help solve this problem. The first automatically finds and identifies new assets (for example, servers connected to the corporate network) and stores information about them in a special database (called CMDB ).
The second - defines the relationship between services and infrastructure elements on which these services are built. As a result, all processes in the IT department and the company become more transparent.
We talked about how to implement asset management and work with these two applications in the corporate blog - there is a detailed practical guide ( one and two ). In it, we touched on all stages of implementation: from planning to audit.
Financial Management (ITFM, IT Financial management) . This is a process, part of which is the optimization of IT services from an economic point of view. The IT department and organization need to collect financial information to understand the overall picture of costs and revenues.
The ServiceNow Financial Management module can help with the collection of this information. It is a single control panel where IT department employees can plan budgets, keep track of costs for various activities and bill for services (both to other departments of the organization and its customers). You can see how this looks in our review of the ServiceNow Financial Management tool. We also prepared a short guide on the implementation of financial management processes - in it we analyze the main stages.
Management and monitoring of data centers (ITOM, IT Operations Management) . The goal of this process is to monitor IT infrastructure components and load balancing. IT department specialists must understand how changes in server or network switch performance will affect the quality of services provided.
The ServiceWatch portal can help with this task. It collects infrastructure information using the aforementioned Discovery module and automatically builds dependencies between business services and IT services. How to collect data on IT-systems using Discovery, we talked about in a corporate blog . Even prepared a video on the topic .
Self-Service Portal (the Service Portal) . Such portals give users the opportunity to independently solve their problems with software or hardware, without the help of technical support specialists. There are several options for building such portals - static knowledge bases, FAQs or dynamic pages with the ability to receive applications.
We told more about the types of portals in one of the previous materials on Habré .
Create such a Service Portal helps the eponymous tool from ServiceNow. The appearance of the portal is configured by additional pages or widgets, as well as using the development tools AngularJS, SCSS and JavaScript.
/ PxHere / PD
Development Management (Agile Development) . This is a process based on agile development methodologies. They have many advantages (continuous development and change, iteration), but the fragmentation of small groups of developers, each of which is involved in its own project, does not always give management a vision of the overall situation and progress.
ServiceNow Agile Development tool solves the problem and gives centralized control over the development process. This approach facilitates the process of collaboration and control over the entire life cycle of software creation: from planning to supporting the finished system. How to start working with the Agile Development tool we talked about in this article .
Of course, these are not all processes that can be standardized and automated using ITSM and ServiceNow. We talk about other features of the platform on our website - there is also the opportunity to ask questions to our experts.
Related materials from our corporate blog: