Capacity Management Handbook: Monitor, Analyze, Tune, Manage Demand and Plan Your Organization's IT Capacity Demands Best Practices Handbook - Ready to use bringing Theory into Action
Notice of Rights: Copyright © The Art Of Service. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Notice of Liability: The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the products described in it. Trademarks: Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book. ITIL® is a Registered Community Trade Mark of OGC (Office of Government Commerce, London, UK), and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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Capacity Management Workbook
Table of Contents 1
INTRODUCTION ROADMAP ................................................................................................... 5
2
CAPACITY MANAGEMENT ..................................................................................................... 9
3
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS ................................................................................................ 39
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9
OBJECTIVES AND GOALS........................................................................................................... 41 TYPICAL CONTENTS OF A RECOVERY PLAN ............................................................................ 45 POLICIES, OBJECTIVES & SCOPE ............................................................................................. 49 BUSINESS JUSTIFICATION DOCUMENT ..................................................................................... 53 BUSINESS AND IT SERVICE MAPPING ....................................................................................... 59 ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES...................................................................................................... 75 REPORTS, KPIS AND OTHER METRICS ..................................................................................... 77 COMMUNICATION PLAN.............................................................................................................. 83 CAPACITY MANAGEMENT PROCESS MANAGER ....................................................................... 89
4
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN – PROJECT PLAN................................................................... 93
5
FURTHER INFORMATION ................................................................................................... 103
3
Also from Emereo Publishing:
ITIL Practitioner Plan and Improve (IPPI) All-in-One Exam Guide and Certification Work Book: IT Service Management with Availability Management, Capacity Management and Disaster Recovery, IT Service Continuity Management Thorough coverage of all ITIL Practitioner Plan and Improve (IPPI) exam domains including Availability and Capacity Management, Disaster Recovery, learning objectives, exam tips, practice questions and in-depth explanations, fully revised for the latest exam release.
Capacity Management Workbook
1
INTRODUCTION ROADMAP
Many organizations are looking to implement a Capacity Management as a way to improve the structure and quality of the business. This document describes the contents of the Capacity Management Workbook. The information found within the book is based on the ITIL Version 3 framework, specifically the Service Design phase which incorporates the updated ITIL version 3 Capacity Management process.
The Workbook is designed to answer a lot of the questions that Capacity Management process raises and provides you with useful guides and templates.
The supporting documents will help you identify the areas within your organization that require the most activity in terms of change and improvement.
Presentations can be used to educate or be used as the basis for management presentations or when making business cases for Capacity Management implementation.
The additional information and bonus resources will enable you to improve your organizations methodology knowledge base.
The Workbook serves to act as a starting point. It will give you a clear path to travel. It is designed to be a valuable source of information and activities.
The Capacity Management Workbook:
Flows logically, Is scalable, Provides presentations, templates and documents, Saves you time.
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Step 1
Start by reviewing the PowerPoint presentation: •
Capacity Management
This presentation provides a detailed and comprehensive overview of Capacity Management in the specialist areas of ITIL Version3. It will give you a good knowledge and understanding of all the terms, activities and concepts required within the Capacity Management process. It can also be used as the basis for management presentations or when making a formal business case for Capacity Management implementation. Make sure you pay close attention to the notes pages, as well as the slides, as references to further documents and resources are highlighted here.
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Step 2
If you did not look at the supporting documents and resources when prompted during the PowerPoint presentation, do this now.
Below is an itemized list of the supporting documents and resources for easy reference. You can use these documents and resources within your own organization or as a template to help you in prepare your own bespoke documentation. •
ITIL V3 Capacity Management Presentation
•
Objectives and Goals
•
Typical Contents of a Capacity Plan
•
Policies, Objectives and Scope
•
Business Justification Document
•
Business and IT Service Mapping
•
Roles and Responsibilities
•
Reports, KPIs and other Metrics
•
Communication Plan
•
Capacity Management Process Manager
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Step 3
Alternatively, continue by working through the Capacity Management Implementation & Project Plan with the focus on your organization. This will help you ascertain the Capacity Management maturity for your organization. You will able to identify gaps and areas of attention and/or improvement.
The supporting documents and bonus resources found within the book will help you fill these gaps by giving you a focused, practical and user-friendly approach to Capacity Management.
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2
CAPACITY MANAGEMENT
Capacity Management is a process that extends across the Service Lifecycle. A key success factor in managing capacity is ensuring it is considered during the design stage.
An Objectives and Goals document can be found on page 41.
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Essentially it is a balancing act of cost against capacity, (ensuring cost effective purchases for business capacity needs).
The scope of Capacity Management encompasses operational and development environments including ALL: •
Hardware
•
Software
•
Peripherals
•
Scheduling of HR, Staffing level, skill levels and capability levels are included in scope of Capacity Management.
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The purpose of Capacity Management is to provide a point of focus and management for all capacity and performance related issues, relating to both services and resources.
Typical Contents of a Capacity Plan can be found on page 45.
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Capacity Management should also consider space planning and environmental system capacity as well as certain aspects of human resources, but only where a lack of human resources could result in a breach of SLA and OLA targets, a delay in the end-to-end performance or service response time, or an inability to meet future commitments and plans.
There is a Policies, Objectives and Scope document available on page 49.
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In conjunction with the business and their plans, Capacity Management provides a Capacity Plan that outline the IT resources and funding needed to support the business plan, together with a cost justification of that expenditure.
For more information on value, there is a Business Justification Document available on page 53.
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Capacity Management is essentially a balancing act: •
Balancing cost against resources needed: the need to ensure that processing capacity that is purchased is cost-justifiable in terms of business need, and the need to make the most efficient use of those resources.
•
Balancing supply against demand: the need to ensure that the available supply of IT processing power matches the demands made on it by the business, both now and in the future. It may also be necessary to manage or influence the demand for a particular resource.
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Capacity Management has 3 sub-processes:
Business Capacity Management: •
Manage Capacity to meet future business requirements for IT
•
services
•
Plan and implement sufficient capacity in an appropriate timescale
•
Should be included in Change Management and Project management
•
activities
Service Capacity Management •
Focus on managing ongoing service performance as
•
detailed in SLA or SLR
•
Establish baselines and profiles of use of Services
Component Capacity Management •
Identify and manage each of the components of the IT Infrastructure
•
E.g. CPU, memory, disks, network bandwidth
•
Evaluates NEW technology
•
Load balances across resources
•
All 3 components collate their data and report to SLM.
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continued…
More information on Business and IT Service Mapping can be found on page 59.
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Capacity Management Information System: a virtual repository of all Capacity Management data, usually stored in multiple physical locations, holds business, service, technical, financial, and utilisation data. Used for reports, forecasts etc.
Capacity Planning: Analysing the current situation and predicting the future use of the IT infrastructure and resources needed to meet the expected demand for IT Services.
Forecast & Predictive Reports: These will be used by all areas to analyse, predict and forecast particular business and IT scenarios and their potential IT solutions.
Performance Monitoring: Measuring, monitoring, and tuning the performance of IT Infrastructure components.
Exception Reports: Reports that show management and technical staff when the capacity and performance of a particular component or service becomes unacceptable are also a required form of analysis of capacity data.
Tuning: Identify areas of IT infrastructure that could be better utilized
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continued…
Baselining: First stage of Modelling is to create a baseline model that reflects accurately the performance that is being achieved. This can then be used at a later point for an accurate comparison.
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This graph represents the consequences of reactive behavior in managing capacity.
Diagonal solid line represents the typical capacity needs of an organization over time.
The dotted line represents the Ideal management of capacity to meet the organization’s needs.
The Horizontal lines depicts the reactive approach, whereby $$ are put into resolving capacity issues, only when it becomes an issue. This goes well until the next major incident, and more reactive $$ are injected to try and “fix” the capacity issues, rather than addressing the issue in a proactive manner.
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Capacity Management consists of 7 main activities. •
Performance Monitoring - Measuring, monitoring, and tuning the performance of IT Infrastructure components.
•
Demand Management - Aims to influence the demand on capacity. It is about moving demand. Capacity Management has a close relationship with the SS phase, especially with Demand Management.
•
Application Sizing - Determining the hardware or network capacity to support new or modified applications and the predicted workload
•
Modeling - Used to forecast the behaviour of the infrastructure.
•
Storage of Capacity Management Data
•
Capacity Planning
•
Reporting
More information on Roles and Responsibilities can be found on page 75.
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Typical monitored date would include: •
Processor utilization
•
Memory utilization
•
% processor per transaction type
•
I O rates
•
Queue lengths
•
Disk utilization
•
Transaction rates
•
Response times
•
Database usage
•
Index usage
•
Hit rates
•
Concurrent user numbers
•
Network traffic rates.
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In some cases, a combination of a number of systems may be used. The monitoring of response times is a complex process even if it is an in-house service running on a private network. If this is an external internet service, the process is much more complex because of the sheer number of different organizations and technologies involved.
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Also the data can be used to predict future resource usage, or to monitor actual business growth against predicted growth.
Analysis of the data may identify issues such as: •
‘Bottlenecks’ or ‘hot spots’ within the infrastructure
•
Inappropriate distribution of workload across available resources
•
Inappropriate database indexing
•
Inefficiencies in the application design
•
Unexpected increase in workloads or transaction rates
•
Inefficient scheduling or memory usage.
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Tuning techniques that are of assistance include: •
Balancing workloads and traffic
•
Balancing disc traffic
•
Definition of an affective locking strategy that specifies when locks are necessary and the appropriate level.
•
Efficient use of memory.
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However, care must be taken when setting thresholds, because many thresholds are dependent on the work being run on the particular component.
The management and control of service and component thresholds is fundamental to the effective delivery of services to meet their agreed service levels. It ensures that all service and component thresholds are maintained at the appropriate levels and are continuously, automatically monitored, and alerts and warnings generated when breaches occur. Whenever monitored thresholds are breached or threatened, then alarms are raised and breaches, warnings and exception reports are produced.
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The influence on services that are running could be exercised by: •
Physical constraints
•
Financial constraints
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Different types of modeling range from making estimates base on experience and current resource utilization information, to pilot studies, prototypes and full-scale benchmarks. With all types of modeling, similar level of accuracy can be obtained, but all are totally dependent on the skill of the person constructing the model and the information used to create it.
The first stage of modeling is to create a baseline model that reflects accurately the performance that is being achieved.
Trend analysis can be done on the resource utilization and service performance information that had been collected b y the Capacity Management process.
Analytical models are representation of behavior of computer systems mathematical techniques, This technique requires less time and effort than simulation modeling, but is typically less accurate.
Simulation modeling involves modeling of discrete events e.g. transaction arrival rates, against a given hardware configuration. This type of modeling can be very accurate in sizing new applications, but can be time consuming and therefore costly.
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The primary objective of application sizing is to estimate the resource requirements to support a proposed change to an existing service or the implementation of a new service, to ensure that it meets its required service levels. To achieve this, application sizing has to be an integral part of the Service Lifecycle.
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The Capacity Management Information System (CMIS) is key to the success of the process and is a logical database (NOT necessarily ONE physical DB)
The CMIS contains much more than just technical data:
Business Data: Used to forecast and validate how changes in business drivers affect performance and capacity
Service Data: Gathered from resources and provides data on performance and capacity of services.
Technical Data: Performance and capacity data at the IT component level includes threshold alerts.
Financial Data: For doing cost-benefit analysis of upgrade proposals, RFCs and Capacity Planning.
Utilization Data: Utilization of IT components by time periods (e.g. second, minute, hour, day, etc) Setting up a hierarchical structure for utilization data allows for data consolidation, refinement and archiving.
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The outputs of Capacity Management are used with all other parts of the process, by many other processes and by other parts of the organization. Often this information is supplied as electronic reports or displays on shared areas, or as pages on intranet servers, to ensure that the most up to date information is available and used.
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Some of the Key Performance Indicators and metrics can be used to judge the effectiveness and efficiency of the Capacity Management activities.
More information on Reports, KPIs and other Metrics can be found on page 77.
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Point one – particularly true in outsourced situations where there may be commercial or confidential reasons why this data cannot be shared. Even if the data on the strategic business plan is available, there may be issues with regard to the quality or accuracy of the data contained within the business plans with regard to Business Capacity Management.
Point two – particularly challenging when the information from the different technologies is provided by different tools in differing formats. Often the quality of component information on the performance of the technology is variable in both its quality and accuracy.
Point three – this is a huge job and the analysis of this information is difficult to achieve. The people and the processes need to focus on the key resources and their usage, whilst not ignoring other areas.
A Communication Plan can be found on page 83.
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In addition, further risk can be added if the Service Capacity Management and the Component Capacity Management activities are performed in isolation because Business Capacity Management is difficult, or there is a lack of appropriate and accurate business information. Furthermore, if reports and information that is provided are too bulky or too technical and do not give the information required or appropriate to the customer and the business.
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More information on the roles and responsibilities of the Capacity Manager Process Manager can be found on page 89.
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Capacity Management is critical for ensuring effective and efficient capacity and performance IT Services and IT components in line with business requirements and overall IT strategic objectives.
Capacity Management utilizes information from and provides information to all phases of the Service Lifecycle.
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3
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS
Through the documents, look for text surrounded by > these are indicators for you to create some specific text.
Watch also for highlighted text which provides further guidance and instructions.
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3.1
Objectives and Goals
IT Services Detailed Objectives/Goals Process: Capacity Management
Status:
In draft Under Review Sent for Approval Approved Rejected
Version:
Release Date:
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Detailed Objectives/Goals for Capacity Management The document is not to be considered an extensive statement as its topics have to be generic enough to suit any reader for any organization. However, the reader will certainly be reminded of the key topics that have to be considered. The detailed objectives for Capacity Management should include the following salient points: Objective To ensure the right level of Capacity for the Business, IT Services and the supporting infrastructure through a constant cycle of optimization, predication, and influence. Capacity Management will provide a cost effective approach to managing capacity that is aligned with needs and objectives of the business.
Notes Met/Exceeded/Shortfall ☺ Dates/names/role titles
Minimize the adverse affects on the IT Infrastructure and the Business by designing for Capacity. Once developed a Capacity Management process can be used to plan for the right capacity for the business before preventing loss of service that can cause significant harm to the business. To establish efficient assessment guidelines that cover the business, technical and financial aspects of Capacity Management and the supporting infrastructure. Generally this will involve different people so the challenge is designing a process that minimizes the time taken. To develop a variety of activities to accommodate for the required Capacity of the IT Infrastructure. For example, there are a wide variety of potential impacts that loss of service due to capacity may have on the environment. If we can categorize and target these areas, then we can pre-build models for dealing with them. We call this Modeling. To establish ground rules that distinguish between Business Capacity Management, Service Capacity
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Management, and Resource Capacity Management. Develop working relationships with all other process areas. The Capacity Management process should be considered a proactive one requiring input from other process areas. Obvious links include Service Level Management (to help gather requirements), and Network Management tools (to identify potential threats to service to the IT Infrastructure). Develop a sound Capacity Management process and look for continuous improvement.
Use these objectives to generate discussion about others that may be more appropriate to list than those provided.
Refer also to the Communication Plan document, found on page 83, for ideas on how to communicate the benefits of Capacity Management.
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3.2
Typical Contents of a Recovery Plan
Introduction
This section should briefly describe the background to this issue of the Capacity Plan, how it was produced and what it contains. For example: •
The current services and technology and resources
•
The organization’s current levels of capacity
•
Problems being experienced or envisaged due to over- or under-capacity
•
The degree to which service levels are being achieved
•
What has changed since the last issue of the plan
Management Summary
Much of the Capacity Plan, by necessity, contains technical detail that is not of interest to all readers of the plan. Main issues, options, recommendations and costs should be highlighted in the management summary. It may be necessary to produce a separate executive summary document that contains the main points from each of the sections of the main plan.
Business Scenarios
It is necessary to put the plan into the context of the current and envisaged business environment. It is important then, the mention explicitly all known business forecasts so that readers can determine what is within and what is outside the scope of the plan. This should include the anticipated growth in existing services, the potential new services and existing services scheduled for closure.
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Scope and Terms of Reference of the Plan
Ideally, the Capacity Plan should encompass all IT resources. This section should explicitly name those elements of the IT infrastructure that are included and those that may be excluded.
Methods Used
The Capacity Plan uses information gathered by the sub-processes. Details of how and when this information was obtained should be contained in this sub-section. This may include business forecasts obtained from business plans, workload forecasts obtained from customers or service level forecasts obtained by the use of modeling tools.
Assumptions Made
Any assumptions made, particularly those concerning the business drivers for IT Capacity, must be highlighted early on in the plan. If they are cornerstones on which more detailed calculations are built, then it is critical that this is understood by all concerned parties.
Service Summary
The service summary section should include: •
Current and recent service provision: for each service that is delivered, provide a service profile. This should include throughput rates and the resulting resource utilization – for example, of memory, storage, space, transfer rates, processor usage and network usage. Short-, medium- and long-term trends should be presented here
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•
Service Forecasts: the business plans should provide Capacity Management with details of the new services planned and the growth or contraction in the use of existing services. This sub-section should report on new services and the demise of legacy systems.
Resource Summary
The resource summary section should include: •
Current and recent resource usage: this sub-section concentrates on the resulting resource usage by the service. It reports, again, on the short-, medium- and long-term trends in resource usage, broken down by hardware platform. This information has been gathered and analyzed by the subprocesses of Service Capacity Management and Component Capacity Management and so should be readily available
•
Resource forecasts: this should forecast the likely resource usage resulting from the service forecasts. Each business scenario mentioned above should be addressed here.
Options for Service Improvement
This section outlines the possible options for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Service Delivery, building on the results of the previous section. It could contain options for merging different services on a single processor, upgrading the network to take advantage of technological advances, tuning the use of resource or service performance, rewriting legacy systems, purchasing new hardware or software etc.
Costs Forecast
The costs associated with these options should be documented here. In addition, the current and forecasted cost of providing IT services should be included. In practice,
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Capacity Management obtains much of this information from the Financial Management process and the IT Financial Plan.
Recommendations
The final section of the plan should contain a summary of the recommendations made in the previous plan and their status – for example, rejected, planned, implemented and any variances from the plan. Any new recommendations should be made here, i.e. which of the options mentioned in the plan is preferred, and the implications if the plan and its recommendations are not implemented should also be included.
The recommendations should be quantified in terms of the: •
Business benefits to be expected
•
Potential impact of carrying out the recommendations
•
Risks involved
•
Resources required
•
Cost, both set-up and ongoing
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3.3
Policies, Objectives & Scope
IT Services Policies, Objectives and Scope Process: Capacity Management
Status:
In draft Under Review Sent for Approval Approved Rejected
Version:
Release Date:
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Policies, Objectives and Scope for Capacity Management The document is not to be considered an extensive statement as its topics have to be generic enough to suit any reader for any organization. However, the reader will certainly be reminded of the key topics that have to be considered. Policy Statement A course of action, guiding principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous Use this text box to answer the “SENSE OF URGENCY” question regarding this process. Why is effort being put into this process? Not simply because someone thinks it’s a good idea. That won’t do. The reason has to be based in business benefits. You must be able to concisely document the reason behind starting or improving this process. Is it because of legal requirements or competitive advantage? Perhaps the business has suffered major problems or user satisfaction ratings are at the point where outsourcing is being considered. A policy statement any bigger than this text box, may be too lengthy to read, lose the intended audience with detail, not be clearly focused on answering the WHY question for this process.
The above Policy Statement was; Prepared by: On:
And accepted by: On:
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Objectives Statement
Something worked toward or striven for; a goal Use this text box to answer the “WHERE ARE WE GOING” question regarding this process. What will be the end result of this process and how will we know when we have reached the end result? Will we know because we will establish a few key metrics or measurements or will it be a more subjective decision, based on instinct? A generic sample statement on the “objective” for Capacity Management is: The object of Capacity Management is to provide the right capacity, for the right customer, at the right location, for the right costs. This will help ensure that the capability of the IT Services and the supporting Infrastructure can be delivered in line with the Business Objectives. In addition to this, Capacity Management will perform iterative optimization activities to ensure constant improvements and alignment. Note the keywords in the statement. For the statement on Capacity Management they are “cost effective” and “right customer, right location”. These are definite areas that we can set metrics for and therefore measure progress. An objective statement any bigger than this text box, may be too lengthy to read, lose the intended audience with detail, not be clearly focused on answering the WHERE question for this process.
The above Objective Statement was; Prepared by: On:
And accepted by: On:
Refer to the Reports KPI's & other metrics document, found on page 77, for further information on metrics, KPI’s for Capacity Management.
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Scope Statement
The area covered by a given activity or subject Use this text box to answer the “WHAT” question regarding this process. What are the boundaries for this process? What does the information flow look like into this process and from this process to other processes and functional areas? A generic sample statement on the “scope” for Capacity Management is: The Capacity Management process will be responsible for monitoring and modeling the right amount of capacity for the following: • Hardware • Software • System Software • Etc Capacity Management will not be responsible for those components that exist under the banner of Applications Development. Capacity issues will be reported to the Service Desk, via the Incident Management process.
A scope statement any bigger than this text box, may be too lengthy to read, lose the intended audience with detail, not be clearly focused on answering the WHAT question for this process.
The above Scope Statement was; Prepared by: On:
And accepted by: On:
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3.4
Business Justification Document
IT Services Business Justification Process: Capacity Management
Status:
In draft Under Review Sent for Approval Approved Rejected
Version:
Release Date:
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Business Justification Document for Capacity Management The document is not to be considered an extensive statement as its topics have to be generic enough to suit any reader for any organization. However, the reader will certainly be reminded of the key topics that have to be considered. This document serves as a reference for HOW TO APPROACH THE TASK OF SEEKING FUNDS for the implementation of the Capacity Management process. This document provides a basis for completion within your own organization.
This document was; Prepared by: On:
And accepted by: On:
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Capacity Management Business Justification A strong enough business case will ensure progress and funds are made available for any IT initiative. This may sound like a bold statement but it is true. As IT professionals we have (for too long) assumed that we miss out on funds while other functional areas (e.g. Human resources and other shared services) seem to get all that they want. However, the problem is not with them, it’s with US. We are typically poor salespeople when it comes to putting our case forward. We try to impress with technical descriptions, rather than talking in a language that a business person understands. For example: We say
We should say
We have to increase IT security controls, with the implementation of a new firewall.
Two weeks ago our biggest competitor lost information that is now rumoured to be available on the internet.
The network bandwidth is our biggest bottleneck and we have to go to a switched local environment.
The e-mail you send to the other national managers will take 4 to 6 hours to be delivered. It used to be 2 to 3 minutes, but we are now using our computers for many more tasks.
Changes to the environment are scheduled We are making the changes on Sunday afternoon. There will be less people for a period of time when we expect there working then. to be minimal business impact.
Doesn’t that sound familiar? To help reinforce this point even further, consider the situation of buying a new fridge. What if the technically savvy sales person wants to explain “the intricacies of the tubing structure used to super cool the high pressure gases, which flow in an anti-clockwise direction in the Southern hemisphere”.
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Wouldn’t you say “too much information, who cares – does it make things cold?” Well IT managers need to stop trying to tell business managers about the tubing structure and just tell them what they are interested in. So let’s know look at some benefits of Capacity Management. Remember that the comments here are generic, as they have to apply to any organization. Benefits
Notes/Comments/Relevance
Through a properly controlled and structured Capacity Management process we will be able to more effectively help in the alignment of the delivery of IT service to the business requirements. This is achieved through the nature of the process by understanding such things as Business Capacity, Service Capacity and Component Capacity and the true needs of the business. A structured approach to monitoring, defining and influencing capacity use will therefore allow IT to spend more time on aligning the IT Services with the needs of the Business. A heightened visibility and increased communication related to Capacity of Services for both business and IT support staff. The reader should be able to draw upon experience regarding the overall negative impact on the business when IT departments have been concerned with supplying the wrong levels of capacity for services that are critical to the business. Organizations and therefore IT environments are becoming increasingly complex and continually facing new challenges. The ability to meet these challenges is dependent on the speed and flexibility of the organization. The ability to cope with more changes at the business level will be directly impacted by how well IT Departments can reduce “loss of service time” due to poor Capacity Management planning. (Reader, here you can describe a missed opportunity, due to bad Capacity Management or a process dragged down by bureaucracy)
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Noticeable increases in the potential productivity of end users and key personnel through reduced interruption times, higher levels of availability because the right capacity has been planned for and implemented. The goal statement of Capacity Management is to provide the right capacity, for the right customer, at the right location, against the right costs. By the very nature of this statement we can expect to start seeing a reduction in the cost of Capacity, which can be funneled in other areas that will help improve the delivery of the IT Services, for example:, Availability Management. Whether end users and staff take advantage of this reduced down-time is not an issue for IT professionals to monitor. Knowing that we have made more working time available is what we need to publish – NOT productivity rates. An ITIL Capacity Management process will guide you towards understanding the financial implications of capacity requirements needed in the IT infrastructure. This has real benefits as it may prevent an organization from spending money on areas of the IT Infrastructure where there really isn’t a need for building high capacity services for the business. With a sound Capacity Management process we can expect an overall improvement in the level of service as better planning can occur under a structured, repeatable process. Any ITIL process has the potential to increase the credibility of the IT group, as they offer a higher quality of service, combined with an overall professionalism that can be lacking in ad-hoc activities.
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3.5
Business and IT Service Mapping
IT Services Business and IT Service Mapping
Status:
In draft Under Review Sent for Approval Approved Rejected
Version:
Release Date:
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Capacity Management Workbook
Document Control Author Prepared by
Document Source This document is located on the LAN under the path: I:/IT Services/Service Delivery/Business and IT Service Mapping/
Document Approval This document has been approved for use by the following: ♦
, IT Services Manager
♦
, IT Service Delivery Manager
♦
, National IT Help Desk Manager
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Distribution List When this procedure is updated the following copyholders must be advised through email that an updated copy is available on the intranet site:
Stakeholders
Business Unit IT
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Introduction Purpose The purpose of this document is to provide relevant IT departments with an understanding of how the IT Services provided map to the organization’s business processes. Scope This document describes the following: details of each Business Process and the corresponding IT Service provided by the IT departments within the Organization: description of business process description of service business contacts service contacts Note: It is assumed for each Business Process and IT Service described in this document that the supporting back-end technology is already in place and operational. Audience This document is relevant to all staff in Ownership IT Services has ownership of this document in conjunction with nominated Business Representatives. Related Documentation The following documents may help you to complete or understand the purpose of this document: Relevant SLA and procedural documents Relevant IT Services Catalogue Relevant Technical Specification documentation Relevant Functional Specification documentation Relevant User Guides and Procedures 61
Capacity Management Workbook
Executive Overview
In the past organization’s IT Services have generally grown and developed into large complex environments. Unfortunately this growth has not always been as structured and pre-planned as it needs to be.
This has resulted in the IT department not having a very clear picture of all the services they currently provide with no accurate profile of the actual customers for each of these services.
Therefore it has become imperative for the IT department to establish an accurate picture of the services it provides.
This document describes an approach for mapping IT Services to the Business Process.
Mapping Business Process and IT Service: An approach
Most organizations now understand the benefits of having Information Technology (IT) throughout their structure. Few realize the potential of truly aligning the IT department’s objectives with the business objectives. However, more and more organizations are beginning to recognize IT as being a crucial delivery mechanism of services to their customers.
When the IT services are so critical, steps must be in place to ensure that the IT group adds value and delivers consistently.
In line with this concept, the first step in mapping IT Services to the needs of the business is to understand the Organization.
An organization starts with a Mission Statement. The Mission Statement for an Organization defines its reason for being. Once we capture the Mission Statement, the next thing to look at is the Vision Statement. 62
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The Vision Statement defines where it is that the organization wants to go. By understanding where the organization wishes to position itself within its market space, then we can start looking at how its short term and long term objectives align with this.
At this point we now need to start capturing the “objectives and strategy” of the Organization. By having this information, IT departments are more likely to be aware of the pressing business issues and needs that may impact on the services that they provide. For example, the organization may have an objective of expanding its business into new markets within the next 12 months, requiring additional offices and staff. The direct impact on IT departments would be the successful planning of capacity of new IT Services, the successful planning of how to change our current services to meet the demands of the business, and being flexible enough to meet these demands.
However, an objective is not sufficient enough to determine how IT departments should be delivering its services. The Organization will meet these objectives by changing, enhancing or creating new business processes. For example, Admin staff may need additional resources, a new ordering package may be required, or perhaps a new billing process needs to be implemented to meet these objectives.
Therefore, after capturing the Organizational objectives, we need to understand how these map to current business process, if the current business processes are changing or becoming defunct and if there will be any new business processes.
This is where the IT departments need to capture the Business Processes being used by the Organization.
Once the IT departments have a clear view of each of the business units involved in the business process, we need to capture the fact that the business processes need one or more IT services (e.g. CRM application, e-mail, word processing, financial tools) to function.
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Each of these IT services runs on IT infrastructure. This is where IT departments now map the IT Services to those Business Processes listed above.
With this information IT Departments will now be able to clearly see how their IT Infrastructure / IT Services supports the business. This allows IT to better deliver IT aligned Services to the Organization.
A simple model for this approach is illustrated below. •
What are the Objectives of the Organization? What are its Mission and Vision?
•
What Business Processes are in place or will be in place to meet these needs?
•
What IT Services are needed or in place to service the Business Processes?
Business Objectives
Business Processes
IT Services
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Mission Statement
A mission statement describes the reason for the organization’s being. Without an understanding of the mission statement of an organization, it becomes hard to define what it is that the organization is trying to achieve.
In this section of the document capture the mission statement of the organization. It is important to show that the IT department is aware of the business.
Vision Statement
In this section, document the Vision statement for the Organization.
Below is a text example of what may be included in this section.
