ITIL and its implementation steps

ITIL and its implementation steps

Four Wood

Before discussing ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), let's listen to a little story first.

In the evening of Friday, an ISP technical Support Center operator constantly received inquiries from different customers: Some customers did not receive e-mail, some received messages to others, and others were unable to send any messages. In short, everything went wrong, and angry customers started complaining. Obviously, the ISP's system is out of the question.

Exactly where the problem is. is the system compromised by computer hackers? The safety department of the company began to investigate carefully. It turns out that the problem was caused by a Java program that was installed on the same day by another business unit, which was meant to make it easier for customers to send and receive e-mail over the network, but unfortunately, this Java program has errors, And the developers of this Java program did not inform the IT department's top executives about this change in time. When asked about the matter, he called it a "whim".

Worse, no one has informed the Technical Support Center of this change, allowing the operator to tell the customer, or to post detailed business interruption information on the corporate web site. While this unknown business interruption lasted only a few hours, it had a very bad impact on the customer.

For those administrators who are responsible for managing IT systems at night, these situations are an emergency that can be encountered on a daily basis. However, this is entirely avoidable if the company has a set of tested and validated common-sense guidelines and requires that every employee in each session comply with this guideline. This is the problem that the information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) should address.

What is ITIL.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of best practice guidelines for IT service management issued by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Management Center (CCTA) of the UK government in the early 1990s. After this, CCTA also in the HP, IBM, BMC, CA, Peregrine and other mainstream IT resource management software manufacturers in recent years to make a series of practice and explore the foundation, summed up the IT service best practice experience, formed a series of workflow based approach to standardize IT service level, The new ITIL V2.0 version was introduced from 2000 to 2003, which is the current ITIL standard.

ITIL provides an objective, rigorous, quantifiable standard and specification for enterprise IT service management practices, where enterprise IT departments and end users can define the different service levels they require according to their capabilities and requirements, and reference ITIL to plan and develop their IT infrastructure and service management. This ensures that IT service management provides better support for the business operations of the enterprise. For the enterprise, the biggest significance of implementing ITIL is to combine it with the business closely, so that the enterprise's IT investment return to maximize.

In fact, ITIL is not only suitable for enterprise internal IT service management, but also suitable for IDC data hosting center. In the past, it is difficult to quantify and evaluate the IT service level provided by IDC for each user, and the users can not determine whether they have obtained the service of the contract promise, and the implementation of ITIL provides an objective basis and standard for the IT service level of IDC.

Currently, ITIL has been widely recognized and supported in global IT service management, with four of the leading IT management solution providers announcing the strategy: IBM Tivoli has launched the Business Impact management solution, HP advocates "IT Service Management", and CA company emphasizes " Management on-demand computing environment, BMC Company launched the "Business Service Management" concept. In fact, no matter how different the company's ideas and solutions are, the goals are the same: combine it with the business, build and manage IT systems at the core of the business.

Why ITIL has been widely recognized and strongly supported by manufacturers and customers in recent years. "is because we have entered the ' Technology profit triangle '", Malcolm Fry, a world-renowned ITIL expert, said in an interview: "Many businesses now have to rely on technical means to complete, such as seizing new markets, working from a distance, recommending products to customers around the world." "In this case, we have largely shifted the control of the technology to the customer," the company said. In UK retailing, for example, if an online store is closed, the desk must first report the CEO, and five years ago the CEO probably didn't know there was a desk. It is not difficult to see that in the current market situation, the quality of customer service is directly affected by IT systems, IT service management has become an indispensable part of the business operation process.

Implementation steps for ITIL

Although ITIL has become standard in the the 1990s, the understanding of domestic enterprises is just beginning. In response to this situation, Mr. Malcolm Fry gave his advice.

First, you should read ITIL data, understand ITIL guidelines, and develop ITIL experts. ITIL is not a product, but a set of processes and guidelines that must be fully understood before they can be successfully implemented. For domestic enterprises, the current face of a major problem is the Chinese ITIL data is seriously deficient, all the books on ITIL are in English, and there is no Chinese translation. Malcolm Fry suggested that the domestic relevant departments can refer to Germany, France and other countries, the practice of organizing college students to translate ITIL books. At the same time, it is necessary to train the relevant personnel of the enterprise to cultivate a group of technical experts to understand ITIL. At present, the ITIL certification is divided into three levels, the basic level of the students on ITIL process and the understanding of ITIL vocabulary, examination time is one hours; the second layer is to investigate the practical ability of students; the third level is an expert examination, which requires students to comment on IT management of an enterprise. and finish a paper. Some foreign enterprises have trained a large number of ITIL talent, for example, Microsoft has more than 3,000 people passed the exam, the company has more than 1000 people through the BMC also has more than 400 people through. Domestic situation is not optimistic about ITIL training certification has not been carried out, although many enterprises concerned about ITIL, but the real implementation is not much.

The second is to establish a scientific and reasonable process. Malcolm Fry that in the practice of ITIL, processes are the most important, because processes are the foundation of IT management: in the process of IT management, the specific implementation steps for the same problem may be different, but the process will not change. Let's take a look at a simple example: In the morning, you find your computer is not working properly, what will you do. You might do the following: Check the cable, ask the system administrator to check the machine, report the boss, and so on. Soon, the fault was found and the problem was solved. If we do not follow the process, but at random, then look for a glitch can be spent all day long.

The third is to select the appropriate software products. Enterprise management of IT systems is achieved through IT management software, so choosing the right software is critical to achieving ITIL's goals successfully. At present, some major manufacturers of software products are in line with ITIL requirements, including IBM Tivoli, CA Unicenter, HP Openview, BMC Patrol and so on.

(Computer World Newspaper, Phase 24th B8)