Integrated IT Service Management with Open Source

Transcription

1 May 2014 Integrated IT Service Management with Open Source How integrated ITSM processes and applications save money and increase efficiency Author: Tom Eggerstedt, Account Manager, it-novum GmbH it-novum GmbH

2 Table of Contents 1 Integrated ITSM Processes with Open Source Requirements and Processes Realizing ITSM Integration Basis for Decision-Making Selection Process Contact Kurzfassung Executive Summary Integrated ITSM processes and open source applications offer a number of important advantages to organizations: a wide range of procedures and tasks become more efficient while costs and investments in personnel are reduced. This white paper will illustrate how. Questions, Remarks, Critique If you have any questions, commentary or suggestions about this white paper please contact Tom Eggerstedt at kundencenter@it-novum.com. Webinars We regularly present webinars on the subjects of IT service and system management. If you would like to join please contact kundencenter@itnovum.com. 2

3 1 Integrated ITSM Processes with Open Source If you are like most people working in IT departments these days you are under pressure to keep costs low and simultaneously increase efficiency and quality. Your department may be on the verge of being changed from a cost center to a profit center, and probably you are required to show how your IT conforms to your organizational objectives. In this case you are likely to already be familiar with the terms ITIL and IT service management. In general, the idea of service orientation is a good one, though even daxlisted companies have difficulty implementing it. Becoming a service-oriented ITSM department is in reality much more difficult than it would appear in theory. The process needs to be planned carefully, it takes a long time and requires constant attention and refinement. You will also have to consider whether the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or those of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard PCI need to be taken into account, as these have an impact on ITSM procedures as well. Challenge ITSM IT service management (ITSM) is the integration of processes (incident management, problem management, change management and configuration management) and technologies with the objective of achieving greater customer orientation and a higher service quality. It forms the basis of an active and structured IT infrastructure as it provides IT services. A well-functioning ITSM is based on three pillars: methods, processes and tools. The ITIL set of best practices serves as a model for optimal processes in IT. In order to make these processes work in the real world, organizations need the right tools ideally ones that fulfill ITIL requirements. Unfortunately, these tools are often implemented in isolation from each other, since an adequate 3

4 approach for the integration with related applications has been overlooked, with the result that the tools cannot deliver their intended utility. This white paper will describe how you can, with a structured approach, a defined strategy, and sufficient self-discipline, avoid the numerous pitfalls that have proven so ruinous to other ambitious ITSM implementation projects. 2 Requirements and Processes An ITSM process model provides comprehensive descriptions of an organization s IT processes. Before the first tools or software are even discussed, it s important to define the various services, the dependencies of the systems among each other and all other processes that are going to be connected to them. The classic hotline example A user calls and complains that his system has become slow the past few days (incident management). You begin to investigate the situation and check the server s memory, the drive IO, the CPU load, the physical connections, etc. In the process you discover that one drive is suffering from frequent read errors (problem management) causing extremely high latency times. In consequence, you decide to replace the drive (change management). The following might represent a typical course of events: The customer calls, his call is taken, the error is investigated, the server is shut down and the drive is replaced. Are you familiar with the following points? The customer is given only rudimentary feedback with regard to the status of his problem In case of illness, the issue has to be completely re-started due to a lack of documentation A hardware incompatibility is discovered while replacing the hard drive Frequent escalations 4

5 The lack of availability of either documentation, monitoring, or a process guide while processing calls in many organizations makes such issues unavoidable. Many problems even have to be processed multiple times. One objective therefore has to be to establish processes in the IT department that guarantee a complete and comprehensive description and define areas of responsibility for the individual service elements. It should be possible for any employee to quickly determine what needs to be done in any situation. A prime example of a solution: The Monitoring system informs the responsible staff member or members, after a pre-defined period of time has passed within the ticket system, that a particular drive is having read errors (incident management). The agent reserves the ticket so that nobody else will work on it, then determines from the available documentation that the issue involves server X with a drive of the type AC. With the help of the link from the ticket to the configuration item in the CMDB (please see blog CMDB) it is possible to check the inventory and to look up the contact information for the supplier s representative. Additionally, the service agent sees that maintenance for that particular server has been scheduled for the coming week. He only needs to leave instructions for the replacement of the drive with a task or work order in the ticket system (problem and change management). The planned downtime for the maintenance next week has been recorded in the CMDB and monitoring system, now it can be used for the solution of the ticket. The schedule stands. Users are informed via the customer front end that performance on system X may be somewhat slower but that the problem will be resolved in the next couple of days. During the maintenance downtime the drive is replaced and corresponding information entered into the CMDB unless it is automatically updated using a discovery tool. The defined process described here will reliably prevent any of the issues described above from occurring: The customer will be informed proactively about any problems via the ticket system Managers can access any tickets which are blocked and release them 5

6 An inventory function provides access to the current stock of hardware and software Escalations will only take place when the poor quality of system X can be established through an evaluation (monitoring in combination with the number of tickets) 3 Realizing ITSM Integration Start with the documentation for your IT landscape, with the CMDB, and then proceed to monitoring and ticket implementation. So says ITIL. Any deviations from this plan need to be considered carefully, as they can easily necessitate modifications, and thus additional time and effort. All tools obviously require interfaces to each other, (please see the example i-doit and openitcockpit) so that the data in the CMDB is available to the monitoring system and the ticket system. Interfaces A single solution that covers all three bases and thus requires no interfaces may seem on the surface to be a good way to go (theoretical). It may however introduce new difficulties that make achieving your ultimate goal more difficult in the long run. Some good examples of such difficulties would be a lack of flexibility and the inability of many tools to be customized for specific requirements. And every organization has such requirements. Let s stick therefore to tools with interfaces, that are flexible, extendable, and maybe even open source. 6

7 The infographic above illustrates how much you can potentially save with an integrated ITSM with open source tools. With regard to the interfaces, the following data has to be exchangeable: CI specific information Ticket information Service information SLA information Monitoring-specific information CMDB Monitoring An optimal monitoring requires data from the CMDB to be accessible, so that the supervised hosts do not have to be managed twice. Filters are advisable so that the system data to be transferred can be limited. An interface should transfer both the services and the SLAs so that they can be complied with. 7

8 Monitoring Ticket system An interface between the monitoring and the ticket system passes the correlated reports from the services, together with additional information, (CI, errors, etc.) to the ticket system and assigns them in many cases to the queue. When a ticket is received the interface sends an acknowledged signal back to the monitoring system, so that further messages on this subject can be prevented. Ticket system CMDB The ticket system should provide an overview of your tickets and CIs so that you can keep an eye on your cumulative time and expense. This overview should be stored in the CMDB as well. 8

9 4 Basis for Decision-Making The following points should be considered in addition to the interfaces provided when making a decision: CMDB: Are all IMPORTANT requirements covered? Services SLAs Illustration of the dependencies between the CIs, services, and SLAs Emergency plans (ISO 27001) License management Maintenance contracts Facility Is the user interface intuitive and easy to use? Is the system extendable and forward-looking? Can it be integrated into my existing IT landscape? Monitoring: Multi-tenant capable Are all IT components supported? Are SLAs supported? Is it easily usable? Are the delivered values real-time? How easily can it be extended or customized? Which platforms are supported? Are applications, services and additional products monitored as well? (door openers, air conditioners) Can the values and services be correlated? Is it web-based? Can it easily be integrated into my existing IT landscape? Is it extendable and forward-looking? 9

10 Ticket system: Can it easily be configured and extended? Does it support workflows and ITSM? Can it be integrated into my existing IT landscape? Is it web-based? Can services and SLAs be represented? 5 Selection Process Choosing the right tool is always a matter of making the best trade-offs for your particular situation. A new system should fulfill all your requirements, (see above) but at the same time it cannot exceed your budget. We suggest a rational and structured approach to making your selection. Take a piece of paper and write down all your requirements. At this point forget about your existing infrastructure. But think carefully about the midterm and long-term objectives for each of your organization s departments. Then think again, this time about all the risks inherent in the implementation, and write them down too. When you are satisfied that you have a thorough list, you are ready to begin looking at solutions. In addition to the commercial proprietary software on the market there are a wide range of open source solutions that deserve your attention. In our experience open source software fulfills the great majority of requirements that modern organizations have, and offers a number of advantages, especially in terms of flexibility, customizability and security, that most commercial products cannot match. Today, a large majority of corporations around the world have gathered experience with open source and are now integrating it into their existing landscapes on a massive scale. Low TCO, scalability, control and flexibility, zero license fees and low-cost upgrades and maintenance are only a few of the reasons. Open source also sets users free from vendor lock in, which reduces 10

11 risk and future investment costs significantly. The most important thing however is that you as the user are no longer dependent on the vendor s schedule. Instead of having to rely on a single person or company, you are free to choose from a whole network of internal and external suppliers of IT services. The following infographic (ITSM stack) presents one possible constellation of open source solutions capable of fulfilling all the standard requirements the modern organization can have. Open source software has the additional advantage of having a comparatively large number of people who contribute to its functionality and quality. The growing need for security gives a lot of smart people incentive to take things into their own hands, with the result that weaknesses are discovered and 11

12 solutions developed for open source software at a much higher rate than can possibly be true for commercial software. One good example are smartphone apps which are developed by communities. The strategy of the past by which products are delivered to final users with insufficient quality control, and then rendered useful through a liberal investment in expensive consultancy, is becoming less and less competitive on the market. Those days are numbered. Why then, would anybody spend his money on licenses, maintenance, and consultants expensive fees? When open source solutions offer a much higher ROI with less risk in the future? 12

13 6 Contact Tom Eggerstedt Account Manager it-novum GmbH Edelzeller Straße Fulda Tel: +49 (661) Contact Austria: Am Europlatz 2 Gebäude G 1120 Wien Tel: +43 (1) info@it-novum.at 13