The Service Management Soapbox

As many of you have heard by now, EMC acquired Voyence last week. Voyence is a leader in the network compliance, configuration and change management market. I’ve been a long-time fan of Voyence, so I’m delighted to have them in the EMC family now.

I promise this blog will not become a podium for EMC marketing, but occasionally EMC will do something worthy of commentary here. The Voyence acquisition is one of these events. Not only is it an important step for both EMC and Voyence, it is also a notable step in the relentless (and necessary) consolidation in our market.

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Every decision we make in IT, indeed every decision we make in life, is based upon accurate information. There are no exceptions to this basic law of nature. Think about examples of decisions big and small, both in and out of the IT domain. None can be made with any confidence unless the right information exists.

This sums up the whole notion of configuration management. It is the process and the system of technologies that ensure the right information exists to make decisions, both automated and manual. For this reason, configuration management is the most important of all the ITIL processes. One can effectively argue that change management is equally important, as the two form the nucleus of every function we perform. If I had to choose one over the other, however, configuration gets the edge.

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As I write this, I am on the long flight home from São Paulo to Washington (and delayed, so I’ll most likely miss my connection home … again!). I was just in Brasil (their spelling) for the national itSMF conference. As always, my visit was wonderful! The Brazilians are such warm and wonderful people, and our EMC team there is second to none. They are always gracious hosts!

This is my second year speaking at the itSMF Brasil conference and there are a few observations I must note. First, the event felt a bit smaller this year than in 2006, which is contrary to what one would think, since ITIL adoption and itSMF membership are on the rise. We shall see what the numbers tell us. I heard one report of 500 attendees. This is very respectable, since the U.S. conference the prior month drew 2000.

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The FCAPS model has been a big part of network management for well over a decade. For those unfamiliar with FCAPS, the letters stand for Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security, the basic functions envisioned for network management that were then formalized by the ITU in 1997. I can recall FCAPS discussion long before 1997. It became a near-biblical reference in networking circles, as we all struggled to deal with the management of this new bit of complexity. All networking decisions came to include FCAPS in the process.

Times change, and so has the focus on such operational best practices. ITIL is now the model in vogue, so FCAPS has waned in importance. Both are viable perspectives of service management, but ITIL’s broader appeal and widespread development have propelled it over FCAPS.

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As I travel the globe talking to people about IT Service Management, I get a common question about practical ITIL rollouts. The question usually goes something like this, “I like what I hear about ITIL, but it’s all so overwhelming. Where do I start?”

Admittedly, ITIL is daunting to the uninitiated. To the typical IT organization, taking on ITIL can be stressful. There is so much detail to the definitions and it will undoubtedly require changes to behaviors and to the organization itself. To make matters even more confusing, we have a new version of ITIL (ITIL v3) that convolutes plans for operational refinement.

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