IT2312

IT Service Systems for Enterprises

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) (Advised Skills, 2023)
Diving deeper into Information Service Systems Enterprises or ITIL, it is significant to highlight where and how
IT Service Management (ITSM) differs from ITIL.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is considered the most popular framework centered on
delivering IT services. It has become the standard for organizations to use as it aims to provide guidance on
how services must be defined, developed, built, and operated. Microsoft, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard
Enterprise are known to be using ITIL for their internal operating guidelines.

ITIL Processes
In V3, it is said that ITIL is made up of processes and functions. A process is a structured set of activities made
to accomplish specified objectives and takes different inputs to turn them into defined outputs. It can be
envisioned as a set of activities performed one after the other to achieve something.

Such as in cooking, some steps need to be followed to get the desired dish. The main aspect of the process is
the interconnectivity between these individual steps, without interchanging, in working toward a common
goal.

ITIL Functions
In ITIL V3, a function is described as a team or group of people and the tools and resources they use to conduct
processes or activities. These teams could be the networking team, the Java team, the web development team,
or any group of people that are selected based on their depth of knowledge on a specific specialty.

In ITIL, there are 26 processes and only four (4) functions. Processes do not run by themselves and need people
to perform the individual process activities that come from functions. Simply put, functions give the resources
needed by the processes to complete their objectives.

ITIL Practices
But in ITIL 4, processes and functions are replaced by practices. A process takes in inputs and when the trigger
kicks in, an output is achieved. Practice can be considered an extension of a process as it not only defines the
activities but also brings various capabilities and tools together to accomplish a set of objectives.

ITIL 4 fused functions with processes to produce the concept of practices. For instance, a problem
management team in an organization is considered a function in ITIL 3, and they work on problem
management processes to meet their objectives. In ITIL 4, it becomes problem management practice which is
a system whose objective is to deliver all problem management outputs. This is changed in ITIL 4 to collaborate
better and to deliver value efficiently.

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ITIL Principles
ITIL has seven (7) guiding principles which are a set of recommendations for ITSM that help organizations make
smart decisions and take actions aligned with their goals.
• Focus on Value: Everything the organization does must always bring value to its stakeholders,
specifically the customers. The services should be designed with a customer’s satisfaction in mind.
It is key to determine what the customers want to precisely match it with a value they will
appreciate. But this is something that changes over time that can benefit an organization to grow
with their customers.

• Start Where You Are: This does not mean resetting everything from the start. This means focusing
on what is already available and improving that existing system. Existing systems already have
value on their own, so it is best to assess their strength and use that as the starting point. Focus
on optimization and improvement as much as possible.

• Progress Iteratively with Feedback: This reminds the people involved not to accomplish
everything at once, as it can be overwhelming. Divide tasks into smaller parts and focus on each
step to assess the value it can provide. Getting feedback after every step is also advised to ensure
problems are solved, and oversights are reworked before it is too late. Progressing iteratively with
sustained evaluation assures results are useful, tangible, and completed promptly.

• Collaborate and Promote Visibility: This aims to take advantage of the different sets of strengths
and weaknesses that each member of the IT team has through delivering collaborative efforts. It
is best to prioritize honesty and visibility to collaborate effectively. Communicate each progress,
whether good or bad and allow to be open to whatever feedback others might give.

• Think and Work Holistically: To create the best service, it all must be connected, as no service,
practice, process, or function stands alone. All activities should align with the same focus on the
delivery of value. This is critical when working in a collaborative environment to ensure that the
work does not affect any part of the organization and create any hindrance or disruption.

• Keep it Simple and Practical: This is a reminder to not over-complicate anything to be done.
Complicating any process increases the risks of going wrong and having more errors. Continuously
assess the work and ensure that only the necessary steps are involved. Eliminate any process,
step, or action that does not add value to the organization or the customer.

• Optimize and Automate: Optimization makes things functional, so automation of any activity
should be optimized first to utilize the resources to the best of their limits. Automation relieves
the work on frequent and repetitive tasks. The human resources that could have been working on
those tasks can be put into more complex tasks that contribute to the value.

The organization cannot only choose one or two principles to apply but must consider the relevance of all
principles and how they can be applied together in their ITSM practices. This involves reviewing and updating
existing processes, training employees on the principles, and using the principles to guide better decision-
making and action-taking.

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DevOps (Kaiser, 2023)

In the IT industry, ITIL and DevOps are often pitted against each other, and one must only choose between the
two, but they are not mutually exclusive. They can be complementary approaches with their benefits.

DevOps is the combination of development and operation teams to deliver an objective. It brings people
together from across disciplines to collaborate as a unit with an open mind and to remove inefficiencies.

In DevOps, the responsibility of accomplishing a task is not considered an individual responsibility, but a shared
one. Wherein if the person in charge fails or succeeds, the entire team gets the consequence or the praise.
This creates a blameless culture that acknowledges the fact that humans make mistakes. Amazon, Etsy,
Netflix, and Target are known to use DevOps in their organization.

Elements of DevOps
The three (3) elements (PPT) support and enable DevOps:
1. People – the heart of DevOps, which is composed of a DevOps team consisting of a pool of tooling
professionals. A DevOps team is built around an application; if an application is being developed,
all the people responsible for its development and operations must be grouped to create a single
team. For example, Application Z is an Internet banking program for individuals and small business
owners. The possible DevOps team could be the following:
o Product Owner – the owner of the product and service backlog
o Developer – for coding and unit testing
o Tester – involved in developing test scripts
o Architect – designs the software and are shared across multiple DevOps teams
o IT Security – for managing aspects of IT security

2. Process – The CI/CD pipeline consisting of Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and
Continuous Deployment is used for effective DevOps Methodology. This is a set of DevOps best
practices to help teams deliver software faster and more efficiently.
o Continuous Integration – provides a central repository for developers to use throughout a
project. This automates anything in the central repository to reduce errors and compile
artifacts into organized builds to perform initial tests.
o Continuous Delivery – delivers the builds into the test environment and then needs human
intervention to deploy the tested builds into production. It aims to get code changes like fixes
or configuration changes into production faster and safely.
o Continuous Deployment – performs beyond Continuous Delivery and deploys automatically
to production. This is viewed as a build on the established practices of Continuous Delivery,
but this focuses more on a complete end-to-end automated approach, while Continuous
Delivery requires human intervention.

3. Technology – often regarded as the most important of processes. There are several tools that
claim to support DevOps, see Figure 1. However, choosing the right tools is just as crucial since
not all tools can be used for all technologies.

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For example, for the source code repository function, Git and Subversion can be used as both
provide a versioning capability for the source code and can be integrated with other toolsets for
automation. Looking deeper, Subversion is under the Central Version Control System (CVCS)
category, while Git is under the Distributed Version Control System (DVCS).

CVCS has a server-client relationship to store and retrieve the code, and the developer is required
to first check out the existing code, make changes, and check it back in. In DVCS, each developer
has the entire code on their computer that requires no check-out and check-in, allowing multiple
developers to work seamlessly. As the source code is locally available in DVCS, accessing, adding,
combining, and delivering the code is faster than in CVCS.

It is important to weigh and compare the capabilities and compatibilities of each tool before
choosing one.

DevOps Principles
DevOps principles are everchanging, but these are the most widely believed set of principles, known as CALMS:
• Culture: Culture cannot be changed in an instant as it is embedded into human behavior and
would require an overhaul to do so. But there are some behavioral traits that DevOps seeks to
change:
o Taking responsibility for the entire product and not just the task performed
o Stepping out of the comfort zone to innovate
o Communication, collaborating, and developing an affinity with the teams
o Experimenting as much as possible

• Automation – an enabler of faster delivery and crucial for providing rapid feedback. Repetitive
tasks that do not require human intelligence are the kinds of activities that can be efficiently
automated. For instance, building infrastructure before was a major task for hardware architects
and administrators and building servers took a significant amount of time. Now, cloud
infrastructures are much utilized, and servers can be created through coding.

• Lean: DevOps borrowed from Lean technology which is about keeping things simple and not
overcomplicating them. This allows the teams to focus and work on things that are easy to
comprehend and simple to work with. The first part of the Lean principle addresses that the
primary issue is not to bloat the way to do things, just do them straightforward and minimally. The
second part is to reduce waste from the methodology such as defects and convoluted processes.
Defects and convoluted processes delay the overall delivery, and it takes much more time and
money to address and fix them.

• Measurement: The only way to find out whether the outcome is favorable is by measuring it. This
principle provides direction about the measures to implement and keep tabs to feel the reception
of the overall software delivery. Feedback could be used as a measurement to automate
processes. Measurements in monitoring such as in applications and infrastructure, can indicate
when an event is a warning or an exception.

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• Sharing: This is the need for collaboration and knowledge sharing between people. The shared
knowledge, experience, ideas, and thoughts can help others in making them better and more
profound. This leads to collaboration instead of competition and skepticism. In DVCS, accessing,
adding, combining, and delivering the code is faster compared to CVCS.

References:
Advised Skills (2023). ITIL 4 guiding principles explained. [Web Article]. Retrieved on July 31, 2023, from
https://www.advisedskills.com/about/news/213-itil-4-guiding-principles-explained
Kaiser, A. (2023). Reinventing ITIL and DevOps with digital transformation. Apress.
Wilkes, A. (2022). The people, process, and technology that make DevOps effective. [Web Blog]. Retrieved on July 31,
2023, from https://www.launchableinc.com/blog/the-people-process-and-technology-that-make-devops-effective/

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Figure 1. DevOps tools periodic table. https://digital.ai/learn/devops-periodic-table

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