The Service Management Soapbox

In early 2004, I published a META Group paper entitled The Expanding Operational Maturity Gap wherein I formally introduced the term punitive outsourcing. It has become one of my favorite wakeup calls to IT because it taps into that visceral paranoia invoked by any phrase containing the word outsourcing. Punitive outsourcing is self explanatory and almost always elicits a sober chuckle of resignation. It seems a lot of people reluctantly concur that their future is in peril unless something changes.

Fear is an effective incentive to improve. While outsourcing is an expletive to some, the only true reason to fear outsourcing is when it is used as an alternative to the internal IT organization’s ineptitude. This is punitive outsourcing. If you can’t deliver, business leaders will seek someone who can.

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One aspect of IT management automation that has frustrated me for years is the relative lackluster progress we’ve made in the area of performance. With all the other wonderful innovations we’ve made, I’m confounded that performance remains largely in the dark ages. This need not be. This must not be. We are finally beginning to see welcome changes in both available software solutions and more importantly, attitudes toward performance. If we hope to attain true service management, this must be a priority.

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Management tool integration has long been the bane of IT Operations organizations. Getting one tool to communicate with another has always been difficult because there are far too many incompatible data definitions that are used to integrate data from one tool to another. Each vendor has its own data model and various APIs to exchange data. Standards appeared in various forms from such bodies at the DMTF and OASIS as an attempt to address this issue. Despite their clarity and noble ambitions, adoption has proven lackluster.

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One of the most commonly sought concepts in IT service management over the past decade has been service level management (SLM). Prior to widespread adoption of ITIL, SLM was most commonly associated with performance metrics for infrastructure elements (e.g., network devices, servers). Unfortunately, this perspective of SLM is wrong … well, it’s usually wrong.

What was (and often still is) wrong with this interpretation of SLM is that the ‘S’ was not defined according to the general interests of the service’s consumer. In fact, the service was usually arbitrary and related to infrastructure, not the consumer’s true desired service. This is akin to trying to measure the “nuts and bolts” of the service, not the service itself. Such an ill conceived perspective is wrought with all sorts of problems. As providers of the service, we must define the service according to what the consumer needs.

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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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