Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (Internal Facing) - Request Fulfillment

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 17

Request fulfillment is the process responsible for fulfilling service requests. Such requests are simply provisioned. These requests does not go through a formal change approval cycle.

But in cloud environment, the requests for addition, modification or deletion/removal of the existing capacity or resource has to be done in real time. Such requests are raised by the customer and provisioned without any change approval cycle. The request fulfillment team has to ensure that such requests are received in a complete manner and all required approvals, if any, from the customer side is provided along with the request.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (Internal Facing) - Financial Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 16

With cloud computing the 'Unit' of charging has to be defined as charging is based on resource utilization, transactions, etc. Cost has to be properly allocated to different customers to ensure effective accounting and charge-back. Also, effective budgeting process would be required as all investments has to be strongly justified. The process has to be capable to provide details on return on investment (RoI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) of cloud services.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (Internal Facing) - Capacity Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 15

In the previous post I had discussed about the sudden surge in demand. The sudden surge in demand has to be fulfilled. Thus, the service provider has to ensure the availability of sufficient capacity. Not only that they have to maintain a balance between the utilized and excess capacity. Excess capacity would mean wastage of investment while the over utilized capacity reflects a potential threat for performance degradation. So capacity management and forecasting becomes a very complex and critical activity.

Capacity management has to be tightly integrated with supplier management process.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (Internal Facing) - Demand Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 14

In a cloud environment there can be a sudden surge in demand. The probability of the surge will be much higher in public cloud. The provider has to be ready to provision such demands. Thus, effective mapping of demand trend and patterns of business activity (PBA) for every customer is required. The analysis of PBA and trend analysis will help in addressing the change in demand pattern. Also, this will help in identifying the ways to influence demand. A close linkage with capacity management and financial management is needed.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (Internal Facing) - Service Asset & Configuration Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 13

Friends, first of all I am extremely sorry for being 'offline' for a considerable amount of time. I am continuing this series from where I had left.

SACM can be said to be the "heart" of ITSM. Any IT organization is dependent on accurate CMDB and Configuration Management System (CMS) for information. Each IT component of a cloud infrastructure has to be registered in the CMDB along with a well defined relationship. These IT components would be responsible for supporting many customers of the Cloud service Provider. So a failure of a single component has the potential to have a severe impact on many customers and thus the service provider.

Cloud Computing - A new name to 'Outsourcing'

I had been troubled by a question – Why cloud computing is suddenly getting so much of importance?

Technologies which form the building blocks of cloud computing existed for quiet some time now. Even cloud as a concept has been there for couple of years. Then why suddenly there is so much of hype? Today every IT organization is talking about cloud. Every IT service provider wants to embrace cloud mania and become a cloud service provider.

I feel that there definitely has to be something more than technology. One of my friend said that it is because of cost saving. I do agree that there could be significant cost savings but that would have always been there. If cost of components used for setting up an IT infrastructure or provisioning IT services has come down; it has come down for both the customer as well as service provider. So I do not agree that the sudden shift to cloud computing is because of the cost saving.

The cloud computing is gaining all the attention post the recent economic recession. Then, what could be the reason other than cost savings? If you have notices the economic and political scenario during and post recession, there has been huge hue and cry against off-shoring and outsourcing. Number of countries or states across Europe and America has taken up steps to come up with a legislation to ban the same. The focus on cloud has gained since then.

The answer to all these comes to my mind in form of a question – Is cloud computing another way of outsourcing that could be used to bypass the political or legislative stance of various governments?

Cloud computing is meant for real time provisioning of a cloud service to a customer without having the customer own the specific costs and risks. The customer is not aware of where the infrastructure is based. This fact further strengthens my belief.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (External Facing) - Supplier Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 12

As Cloud Computing is all about real time provisioning, the supplier management becomes a very critical process for a cloud service provider. This is not only in terms of getting a good deal or price from their supplier but also in terms of having an excellent relationship so that they can fall back on their supplier as and when needed.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (External Facing) - Financial Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 11

From the service provider, Customers needs information related to the details of their utilization for which the service provider has billed them and would also prefer to get information that could help them in billing their internal customers. Thus, Service provider need to have a well defined and implemented process for Financial Management, supported by a good tool.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (External Facing) - Service Catalog Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 10

Entire service offering along with the relevant details for the offered services is part of a service catalog. Entire business of a cloud service provider would depend on their service catalog. Thus, it is one of the key processes.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (External Facing) - Service Portfolio Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 9

Management of service portfolio has becomes very important in cloud computing. Number of cloud service providers are there in the market. Every one would always want to be a first to provide a new service. Thus, the entire process right from identifying the market feasibility of a service to deciding on the actual deployment of that service has to be very efficient. This is where service portfolio management becomes very important.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Service Provider Perspective (External Facing) - Service Level Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 8

With Cloud computing, SLM will become even more important. Customers are concerned with the service levels that would be or is being delivered to them. They are not concerned with how the service provider will deliver the same. In cloud environment, a well defined SLA will gain prime importance. Service provider will have to have a very effective OLAs and UCs so as to be able to commit to and meet the customer's service requirements. Hence there has to be a very effective coordination between SLM and supplier management.

Customers would be interested in knowing how the service provider can meet their service requirements. Customers would evaluate the service levels that the service provider has been delivering. So one of the first steps towards decision on selecting a service provider would be the detailed analysis and evaluation of the service levels that they guarantee to provide.

Thus, a service provider will need in place a very matured Service Level Management process along with an experience Service Level Manager. This would be very important to gain customer's confidence.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Customer Perspective - Release & Deployment Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 7

As in cloud environment customer could only be concerned about their hosted services or applications and not the cloud infrastructure, any release and deployment would be done remotely. In case of private cloud the release policy would not be drastically different to the one in traditional ITSM environment.

But in case of Public cloud the Release & Deployment process, policy and plan would be significantly influenced by the service provider. The customer would have to ensure that their interests are taken care of. They also have to ensure that the criteria for emergency releases are agreed upon with the Service provider.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Customer Perspective - Change Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 6

Every IT service has to go through a change at one point of time or other during its life cycle. Change to the hosted services or applications can be controlled by the customer organization following their organizational change policy.

But the concern starts when the customer is using public cloud, and even more so when the cloud infrastructure itself needs a change. These changes, specifically the ones related to cloud infrastructure, are controlled by the service provider and would be based on their change policy. Thus, for a customer it is very important to analyse the impact of such changes on their services, the associated risks and mitigation options.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Customer Perspective - Incident Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 5

When an IT service is hosted in a cloud environment, then the incidents that can trouble an organization could occur because of:

Error in application/service:

These are the incidents that occur because of error in the services or applications hosted by the organization. These incidents have to be resolved by the customers themselves. But a proper monitoring and recording of such events/errors should be done. It has to be integrated with the customers ticketing and incident management tool.

Error in the cloud infrastructure:

The responsibility to resolve such incidents is that of service provider. Customer should ensure that the defined SLA is inline with their organizational requirements. Also, this is again a case where Service Continuity Management is critical.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Customer Perspective - Service Continuity Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 4

In case the customer is having their own private cloud (within their premises) then their existing service continuity policy still holds good. But when they are availing the cloud services from a service provider then this becomes another critical process for them.

Since the services are hosted with the cloud service provider, it is very important to evaluate the service continuity process and policy offered by the service provider. This then should be analyzed to understand its relevance to organizational service continuity and business continuity policy. If need be then the offered service continuity process, policy and plan should be negotiated upon to address the organizations needs and concerns.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing: Customer Perspective - Security Management

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 3

One of the key concern for any organization that wants to move their services to cloud is how secure their data and services would be. This is even more true if one wants to move their services to a Public cloud. This makes Security Management as one of the key processes that customers are concerned with.

It needs to be ensured that the IT security is integrated with the business security. Thus, a organization seeking cloud services has to ensure that their overall corporate and IT security governance framework is not compromised upon while moving their IT services to a cloud environment.

Initially moving the services, which has a high  security risk, to cloud should be avoided. These services should only be moved when all the concerned security risks are adequately addressed.

If the private cloud is set up internally then Security Management will not be of any concern as the services are still hosted internally. But the above discussion holds true if private cloud is provided by any vendor (in this case services are not hosted within the organizations own premises) or for a public cloud.

Key ITIL Processes For Cloud Computing

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 2

With cloud computing, the only difference that is going to be in ITIL world would be that the ITIL processes could no longer be ignored. In my experience, today in many organizations ITIL processes exist in silos. Key processes like configuration management are ignored. In most of the processes, an option to bypass the process exists, i.e. the process adherence and its compliance with best practices are significantly low.

But with cloud computing ITIL processes can no longer be neglected. Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) process will become utmost important along with the IT security and demand management processes. To highlight the key processes in cloud computing environment, I would prefer to list 5 key processes from customer's and service providers’ perspective in the order of their importance.

Customer perspective:

1) Security Management

2) Service Continuity Management

3) Incident Management

4) Change Management

5) Release & Deployment Management

This perspective is important for a customer while finalising a vendor. These are the processes which concerns a customer the most.

Service provider perspective – External Facing

1) Service Level Management

2) Service Portfolio Management

3) Service Catalog Management

4) Financial Management

5) Supplier Management

These are the key processes which the service provider needs to focus on while approaching a customer.

Service provider perspective – Internal Facing

1) Service Asset & Configuration Management

2) Demand Management

3) Financial Management

4) Request Fulfillment

5) Capacity Management

These processes are important for a cloud service provider for their internal organization in order to provision customers’ requests.

The subsequent post will highlight the importance of above processes in cloud computing environment.

ITIL V3 or ITIL V4?

Sometime back words put forth by a very senior guy "ITIL V4 will be released next year. It will cover ITIL for cloud offerings" caught me off-guard. Being an ITIL expert, a senior consultant, I should have known the upcoming things or new releases for my domain. My experience said ITIL V4 is not possible as of now. ITIL V3 itself has not reached a maturity level. We are still in the process of phasing out ITIL V2. How can then we be talking about a new ITIL version altogether? Otganisations have started investing to upgrade their system to ITIL V3. How will their investments be justified? Is ITIL V3 a failure?

All these questions were troubling me. They should definitely be as the words on ITIL V4 have come from a guy much senior to me, with a consulting profile much stronger than me. What acted as a salt to my bruises further enhancing my agony was his claim of being part of OGC's ITIL V4 initiative. 

I was even told that ITIL V4 is covering all aspects of Cloud Computing. This triggered another question in my  mind - Why and how should ITIL best practices change for Cloud Computing?

I started my research moment I was free the things that had been keeping me busy. I got my clarity. I was correct. There was no ITIL V4. OGC was coming up with a new release or rather I should say probably a new revamped edition of ITIL V3 core volumes. The website clearly articulated that "there is no ITIL V4" and that "A new release of ITIL V3 (new edition of the publications) would be released next year".

Official News From OGC on ITIL V4

ITIL Mandate For Change - An Update To Core Publications 

If we revisit the ITIL V3 core volumes, one can easily make out that its quality reflected that it was a hush-hush release just like the OS releases from Microsoft. It looked as if the delivery targets were being missed so something was delivered to the customer (ITIL Community in this case). It was lacking on quality parameters in every sense, when we compare it to the two core volumes of ITIL V2. It definitely needed an update. And the OGC's initiative to revamp the core volumes should be appreciated.

ITIL and Cloud Computing

ITIL and Cloud Computing Series - Part 1

I had heard about Cloud Computing which is also often referred to as Cloud. I was aware that it is the 'next big thing'. I was not very sure what it covered and how ITIL would impact it or how it would impact ITIL.

Recently I got an opportunity to work for a cloud initiative. I realised it is a old wine in a new bottle. The technology existed. Lot of things which we perceived as an IT service earlier was now a cloud offering. A simplest of examples could be the hosting services.

Cloud computing is an internet based computing which shares resources, hardware and/or software and provisions the same on demand. The concept originates from virtualization technology, which could be either software or hardware virtualization, meant towards optimising the utilisation of computing power and/or storage. It covers dynamic on demand provisioning of scalable resources over the internet or intranet.

Types of Cloud:

1. Private Cloud – Cloud infrastructure is owned by the organization itself.
2. Public Cloud – Cloud infrastructure is owned by a Third Party.
3. Hybrid Cloud – This uses both Public and Private Clouds, i.e for an organization a portion of its services which are critical or sensitive are hosted on internal infrastructure or Private Cloud and the portion which is non-critical or non-sensitive is hosted on external infrastructure or Public Cloud.

With cloud computing the importance of service delivery processes changes. The focus shifts to “Service”. Earlier, various components of IT infrastructure as a CI were important. For cloud computing Service as a CI has become utmost important. Thus, Service reliability has become important for the customer from cloud perspective.

Now coming back to my other confusion on ITIL and cloud computing. I do not see any impact on fundamentals of ITIL from cloud computing or vice versa. ITIL will now gain even more importance as efficient service management will be the key to success of any cloud initiative. Like any IT infrastructure which is benefited by ITIL implementation, cloud would also be benefited by implementing ITIL framework. We do not need to define a new version of ITIL for cloud. ITIL V3 framework is well laid to manage the challenges arising out of the cloud buzz word.

...To be continued...