I have been teaching some network implementation courses from vendors like Cisco, Juniper, and CompTIA for a while now, from the scope of Routing-Switching, Collaboration (Voice and Video over IP), Network Security, Service Provider, Data Center, and actually got into Network Design

Some student said…”because Network right now viewed as a SERVICE like another IT scope (Application as a service, Infrastructure as a service, and so on), do we have a specialized knowledge about managing IT as a service, not just a network?”

Well…there ARE some…a guideline of best practices (most of practitioner call it…a Framework)

  • ISO 20000 for IT Service Management
  • ISO 27001 for IT Security
  • COBIT
  • COSO
  • ITIL

In fact…here’s the chart that those topics cover

So you see my reason why I choose ITIL for learning IT as a Service, because IT IS talk about how to manage IT Services and pretty much cover all aspect too (although not in specific…just in general terms)

And here’s my journey to ITSM (IT Service Management) called ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)…Formed by OGC (Open of Government Commerce) from UK

Right now the certification is handled by EXIN (its own “PearsonVUE” for exam), which is approved from AXELOS (Government of UK and Capita – a management company, joint venture)

Hope this article (and more coming) will be informative for you guys…

(untuk bahasa2 inggris yang terlalu panjang maknanya nanti ada translate-nya, dengan gaya gw sendiri tentunya)

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ITIL in a Nutshell

ITIL has been out for quite a while now that it reaches version 3 (ITILv3) which focused on Service Lifecycle (v1 focused about service mainframe, v2 talks about framework more)

Lifecycle? Yes…you know PPDIOO (the one that Cisco create for Designing Network Services) right? a lifecycle…a continuous service improvement

For example, Cisco can’t offer selling Router forever right? There’s gotta be some improvement…like Cisco bought company called Catalyst for their switches and Celcius for their Collaboration products

For what? In the marketplace, especially modern one…no one can MONOPOLIZE (monopoly) the market, so you see their reason why they choose to diversify (and getting strong on the router brand also)

Because there are competitions!!!…if you can’t move forward…you’ll be left behind…simple as that

As a part of ITSM, ITIL provide practitioners and student insight how should IT services works

Because ITSM is…how IT can provide value to customer
(customer here is not limited to buyers…internal users can be customer because they USE that services that IT provides to them)

So what is this term called Service? I know…it like this pic below right?

It called serves Son….please don’t go full retard…

Service in IT is how (by means) to deliver the value (from provider) to customer by facilitating outcome that the customer want to achieve without the ownership of cost and
risk (ITIL Service Strategy book page 13)

Indonesian Translate: Service didalam IT itu intinya bagaimana cara kita (sebagai IT provider, entah itu outsource atau IT internal department) mendeliver sebuah pelayanan yang konsumen butuhkan tanpa harus mikirin resiko dan biaya sehingga pelayanan itu ada nilainya/harganya…alias patut dipertahankan

Case A: XYZ Company offer to customer some 4G services

They certainly be asking “is it worth it? Our traffic is currently no more than 512 kbps? Why we must use this excessive 100 mbps (4G speed is more than 100mbps) with GREAT COST? What value (benefit) added to us by using this?

Case B: XYZ Company want to replace 1841 router (ISR G1) to 1941 router (ISR G2), they CERTAINLY will be asking…

“why we must replace the working, stable, and almost bug-free router (1841 is badass, I must say) and take the risk of making our networks down?!”

Is the Network Service offered by 1941 good enough for them?!? Now you get what I mean SERVICE

Who handle the service delivered to customer? Service Owner…a person or units (a group of person) that handled that service

Service owner in case A: telecommunication service provider, because they provide that 4G services

Service owner in case B: IT Solution Vendor, because they provide maintaining the Company network infrastructure (changing, maintaining, removing, etc.)

In order to change something, we must know why we must change it or the reason why we must maintain it orsome parameters of why we change it

That parameter is called Baseline

Example A: we must change bandwidth limitation of HTTP traffic to 1mbps from 512 kbps because its getting laggy (performance baseline)

Example B: all network in branch XYZ must use 192.168.1.0 ip addressing scheme (configuration baseline)

And sure…why we must maintain a service, change a service, expanding/advancing the service, or even remove a service…because there ARE some business case (like benefit, cost, risk or potential problem)

And nearly all the business case justification is MONEY, we certainly want to advance…but often blocked by the invisible wall…called BUDGET

(Imagine Jessy J singing Price tag, okaaay…sing along with me!!!)

Because ITIL Foundation is mainly talk about service offered to customer, sure enough that customer will ask about what function it can do, what task that can be performed by this services, and what process can be helped by it

The ability to carry out certain task (both function and process) in ITIL is called Capabilities

And because Capabilities is consist of function and process, what is these in ITIL?

Function is to define what activities that team of people (Service Desks, IT Supports, etc.) and tools (software/hardware) can do

And Process is a structured set of activities designed to accomplish a SPECIFIC objective. A process takes one or more defined inputs and turn them into defined outputs (Service Strategy book page 20)

My Translate: Process is a set of activities that those FUNCTION performing, more like coordinated activities…that we hope to produce something from that process…which is “VALUE”

The person that responsible for making sure that process doing what is supposed to do is called Process Owner, pretty sure this person must be accountable too (the right person to do the right thing)

And the person that making sure that process is able to perform the operation is called Process Manager
(this person must report to process owner)

There is 4 attributes that define what a called process:

  • Trigger – what start the process (what causing the process to start)
  • Activity itself
  • Dependency – what components that require before process is running
  • Sequence – what step should we do for continuing the process to accomplish objective

3 key for a good process:

  • Can measured – with decimal or percentage (success rate of execution of problem for example)
  • Specific result – not in general, but specific (computer must connect to network, anything else like Media Player such music and video can be ignored)
  • Meet expectation – expect repairing network under 10 minutes

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Example: Service Desk (Function) will perform maintain computer network connectivity and perform as IT first level help desk before delegating to higher level officer (Process)

The Process of Service Desk of IT Support:

  1. Trigger – Trouble Ticket from user/customer
  2. Activity – perform general computer checkup
  3. Dependency – the IP address must be correct (if we want to resolve the problem remotely)
  4. Sequence – perform documentation for Fault Management (avoid the same problem occurring again because we have the database of the fault)

What can we get from IT Support Help Desk Process

  1. Measured – the success rate of computer repair is 80%
  2. Specific Result – all repaired computer can connect to the network
  3. Meet Expectation – all repairing computer done under 10 minutes

Is it good? The answer may vary…depends on company’s IT policy

Like IT Support (perform activities like repairing computer service, Process Manager) must report to IT Manager (the one who responsible for making sure repairing computer is taking right amount of time, Process Owner)

In ITIL Capabilities is defined as Intangible Assets, where Resources like Infrastructure (Data Center, Router, Switch), Human (can be Intangible too), or even Money is defined as Tangible Asset

What is an Asset? Asset is anything that provide value to Company. Asset divided by 2:

  • Tangible Assets: Router, Switch, Data Center, or anything that can be purchased (including Human)
  • Intangible Assets: can’t be purchased but can be developed, such as Human Capital (we can train them!!!), Social Media (Customer Brand Awareness

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ITIL Service Lifecycle

ITIL is mainly talking about:

  • Service Strategy (what can we say about our current company prospect, what should we do to our current state)
  • Service Design (now we know what to do, lets plan something)
  • Service Transition (how to properly migrate our planning into operational state)
  • Service Operation (how to keep our service operational on AGREED level, usually customer satisfaction)
  • Continuous Service Improvement (what can we do to make our 4 service above keep running and improving)

ITIL foundation cover most of them (including its sub-topics), but if you want to have a detailed knowledge

Please buy these books @150 dollar each…haha

And in the next article..lets hop into Service Strategy (if I have time and not lazy enough to write hahaha)

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Reference

Cbt Nuggets ITIL Foundation video by Chris Ward

http://its.yale.edu/news/itil-foundations-what-service

http://blog.social-advantage.com/2007/11/examples-of-intangible-capability.html

and Nanda Noviza Rachman as my ITIL Mentor…thanks bro