“Aligning IT & the Business” Through IT Service Management

by John F. Scott, VP of Marketing & Product Development
RealOps, Inc.

The IT Operations Dilemma
Businesses today more than ever before have become critically dependent on the infrastructure and business applications that support key operational functions across the enterprise. It is therefore no surprise; one of the greatest mandates facing IT today is to align itself more fully with the needs and priorities of the business. In a very real sense, such alignment can mean the difference between success and failure for the business. Yet, the vast number of technologies, platforms, security considerations, etc, in addition to procedural complexities and organizational fragmentation has resulted in a growing chasm between IT and the business. Add to this the financial realities in which IT is being expected to ‘do more with less’, and the dynamics combine for a daunting challenge.

These same dynamics have given rise to a number of the most contemporary paradigms & pervasive industry buzzwords, to include the likes of Utility or Grid Computing, Business Service Management (BSM) and ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library). ITIL is in fact a prescriptive guide for performing IT Service Management (ITSM), which has become the de facto framework for describing all facets of operational process within IT. Through ITIL and ITSM, IT can drive toward a clear vision in which it increases operational process maturity and becomes more responsive to business. In turn, process maturity and operational discipline set the stage for implementing data center or ‘run book’ automation, something RealOps refers to as ‘Integrated Operations Automation’ (IOA). This article explores the questions ‘How does ITSM provide a real world solution to the challenge of aligning IT to the business?’ and moreover, ‘How do you deploy ITSM & IOA in practice to drive tangible value?’

A Recent History of Innovation
The subtle underpinnings of the IT Operations challenge cannot be overstated or over-simplified, and indeed, there is growing awareness and effort in the market to deliver next generation solutions to help combat this problem…or at least, specific parts of the problem. One of the more prominent of such efforts over the past several years is that of Utility or Grid Computing – alternatively known by terms such as On Demand Computing, IT Virtualization, Adaptive Enterprise and Agile IT amongst others. Irrespective of the title, the pervasive theme is the idea of dynamically linking computational resources and delivering them in an automated, real-time, as needed or ‘utility-like’ fashion. And indeed, many technological innovations toward this vision have occurred over the past several years. And yet such technologies have been slow to gain market penetration, despite the promise of dramatic operating efficiencies. Thus, this begs the question “why?” The answer harkens to the underlying reality that it is not simply a function of technical feasibility or capability in question. The much more relevant if not critical element to driving the type of automated IT environment is how do you maintain proper procedural controls and operational integrity while implementing large scale automation? In other words, the real question isn’t ‘can I’, but ‘should I’, and if so, under what circumstances and how? An overly simplistic answer is to integrate service management technology and procedural design into a delivery vehicle that enables automation for the targeted IT infrastructure and operational functions. But this implies broad sweeping implications linking process and technology, along with the people that utilize both. And in a very real way, this much change to a mission-critical production environment invites potential disaster.

Interestingly, this concept and vision of driving a fully automated IT infrastructure is actually somewhat dated, despite the fact it remained largely conceptual in nature for the past several decades. In the earlier days of Mainframe and Mid-range Computing, similar concepts prevailed under the moniker of ‘Light’s-out Operations’ and other similar terms. These descriptive titles accurately alluded to a state of broad sweeping automation across mission-critical IT operations, whereupon operations staff are outmoded in result to the automation, and the lights are ‘turned off’ throughout the data center. Technological innovations, from the Internet and WAN’s to the advent of Client/Server and later Web Server-based Distributed computing models, rapidly overtook such strident efforts for rigor, stability and discipline inside the operations environment. In many ways, the IT community regressed in process maturity, largely in the name of innovation and responsiveness.

But over the past several years, through the experiences of such tragedies as 9/11, hurricane Katrina, or any of the various security penetrations and largely publicized service outages prominent brands have endured, the focus for ensuring appropriate controls within IT has gained a renewed level of attention as a strategic objective. And many wonderful vendor technologies have been brought to market to help company’s better address many of these challenges. Yet, most such solutions still tend to apply very specific focus to the solution. Some apply particular emphasis on certain layer(s) in the technology stack (networking, security, storage, servers, databases and applications), while others place focus on key operational disciplines such as Event, Configuration or Change Management. While each of these approaches offers a valid and potentially valuable solution to its area of specific focus, there remains a gap in the larger dynamic of affecting holistic integration across all layers of technology and all facets of operations function upon which IT Service Management and the vision of ‘Light’s out Management’ rests.

The Next Evolutionary Step
Integrated Operations Automation at its root conveys the concept of bridging the various technological and procedural elements across the IT Service Management spectrum into a fully orchestrated capacity, from which comprehensive automation is attainable. IOA represents a vision that can only be realized through incremental steps over time, progressing further and further away from manual toward automated operations.

But the question still remains how to affect broad reaching automation without compromising the integrity, flexibility and responsiveness required by Operations. The answer to this lies with tightly integrated operations. But to fully understand the concept of Integrated Operations itself, it is imperative to first highlight the key precept of automation. There are three core elements central to any IT function (or any business function): People, Process & Technology.

Automation represents the concept of utilizing technology to replicate the processes or activities that are otherwise performed manually, in order to drive speed, quality and efficiency across operations. This is not to say that human labor is removed entirely from the overall business function. In many cases, automation is implemented for specific portions of routine, repeatable ‘sub-functions’. A perfect example of this exists in today’s automotive assembly line, which leverages a high degree of machine-based automation, while still depending on human labor to handle the more complex, unregulated functions.

In this context, IOA promotes the notion of introducing automation to replace manual execution for the highly repetitive tasks or functions inside IT operations, freeing up human-based labor to provide higher-level analytics and functioning, in order to ensure continuity and holistic delivery of service. Yet, automation itself implies full and complete awareness, structure and predictability of process, which has generally ‘created the rub’.

At its most basic level, ‘Integrated Operations’ is the concept of bringing together the various functional, procedural, technological and labor-based elements of IT Service Management into a finely tuned engine that operates as a single entity. But for most who have experienced or even witnessed an Operations environment first hand, this simple notion couldn’t be more complicated in practice. The proliferation of technology itself across all layers, to include networking, security, servers & OS platform, storage systems and web/middleware / messaging / business level applications adds a degree of technical complexity today that IT has never faced before. Moreover, each of these technical components is subject to the numerous process functions associated with IT Service Management.

One standard that is closely aligned with IT Service Management and that has gained worldwide prominence in outlining these disciplines is the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), as mentioned above. Others have also arisen in an effort to outline best-practice models and frameworks by which to make sense of the deeply complex task of delivering IT Services. The fundamental components of the ITIL framework are apportioned into two areas: Service Support (Incident, Problem, Configuration, Change and Release Management) and Service Management (Capacity, Availability, Service Level, Continuity and Financial Management). The following graphic illustrates a simplistic, adapted model for the cross segmentation of technology by functional discipline:

This framework is further complicated by the realities of role-based fragmentation inside each company, codified through unique organizational structure. Each enterprise environment generally includes such organizational components as the Customer Support or Help Desk, a Network Operations Center (NOC), Advanced Operations and varying Engineering functions with specific technical focus. It is also fairly common to find some degree of functional focus as well (such as Security groups, Storage groups, Application support teams, Inventory and Provisioning departments, Change Management specialists and the like). Hence, the objective associated with achieving comprehensive operational integration is greatly challenged by organizational fragmentation along with procedural and technological delineations. The consequence is enormous logistical if not outright political complexity, which creates a real impediment for any effort to affect broad reaching integration, orchestration, and ultimately automation. Yet this is precisely what must be done.

Summation
The catalyst of Integrated Operations Automation is the bridge that overcomes the barriers of technology, process and organization (people) and unifies the parts into an efficient, scalable and dependable delivery capability. Once the link is established between technology, process and organization, it is then possible to begin viewing the services being delivered to the business on a more holistic level. ITSM and ITIL provide robust and normative models for mapping out these conditions. In turn, IT is empowered to establish service level mapping in accordance with the priorities of the business and for the first time has the capacity to prioritize resource allocations (both human and technical) to the areas that matter most. This is generally what is meant from the term Business Service Management (BSM) and correlated strategies and products. This, more than anything else embodies the inherent value of the Integrated Operations Automation framework. In practical terms, that value is streamlining IT operations management by integrating a vast array of systems and network management tools across operational disciplines, while automating repeatable operational process to eliminate time-consuming, manual activities for Operators. Combining best-of-breed NMS technology with best practice ITIL processes to deliver a robust integrated operations solution sets the stage for comprehensive management across the IT service delivery spectrum.

About the Author
John F. Scott is Vice President, Marketing and Product Development for RealOps, Inc. In this role, his responsibilities include providing vision and direction for the company and managing the roadmap and development of the company’s product portfolio. Mr. Scott previously served as Vice President, Product Development with NTT/Verio where he had overall product management and engineering responsibility for the Enterprise Hosting product suite. Prior to this, Mr. Scott co-founded and served as Vice President, Marketing for SevenSpace, an IT outsourcing leader. Previously, Mr. Scott served as the Vice President, Strategy & Business Planning for Digex, overseeing finance, facilities, legal and IT. He also served as acting CFO/CIO for the seven months prior to his departure. Prior to joining Digex, Mr. Scott began his career as a Senior Consultant in the Washington, DC telecom industry practice within Andersen Consulting. Mr. Scott earned double degrees (B.S.B.A) from Georgetown University’s School of Business in Finance and International Business.