The HP OpenView Approach to Change and Configuration Management. White Paper. Change is good, but you go first

Transcription

1 The HP OpenView Approach to Change and Configuration Management White Paper Change is good, but you go first 1

2 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Organizational Issues 3 The Service Management approach 4 The IT Infrastructure Resource Planning Road 4 The Service Management Road 5 The IT Transition Management Road 5 Key Benefits of Configuration and Change Management 6 HP OpenView ITSM Configuration and Change Manager 6 Configuration Management 7 Change Management 10 Change Initiation 10 Change Tracking 12 Change Authorization 12 Change Risk and Impact Assessment 12 Change Scheduling 13 Change Building 13 Change Coordination 13 Change Verification 14 Change Review 14 Software Control and Distribution 14 Work Manager 15 Audit and Notification management. (Task Manager) 15 Inventory Reconciliation Manager 15 Integrations with HP OpenView ITSM products 17 Service Level Manager 17 Help Desk Manager 18 Asset Manager 19 Conclusion 19 Appendix 1: The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) 20 Appendix 2: The HP Consulting Reference Model 21 2

3 Introduction In today's global economy, the digital revolution is redefining the competitive forces in the economy with an incredible speed. The world s most successful companies of today simply did not exist ten to twenty years ago. Internet technologies redefine core business processes, and innovation is the key driving force for success in this era of transition. To keep up with the rapid technological and business changes, organizations have to invest in an organizational process to be able to adapt to these changes. The skill sets needed for rapid adoption of changes have to be developed and coordinated in an enterprise change management process, to ensure successful change coordination and implementation. Organizational Issues The speed of technological changes is increasing, hardware becomes obsolete less than 3 years after purchase and managing technology changes has become even more complex with the growing number of dependencies in a IT Infrastructure. The shift from the Mainframe to the client server environment and today's shifts to Internetworking architectures has increased the complexity of managing changes. Where the Mainframe architecture had its boundaries inside the organization, Internetworking architectures have global boundaries and are dependent on components that could reside outside the organization and, thus, outside the responsibility of internal IS organizations. Technological changes have become more important. The innovations of today have led to new business disciplines like E-commerce applications and processes or E-Business strategies that are reinventing the entire business. Recent history has already taught us that the only way to sustain competitive advantage is too more innovative your competitor. IS organizations are facing the challenge to adapt to technology changes, change the IT infrastructure to enable the business changes and identify new business opportunities based on new technology. Besides this, IS organizations are under a lot of pressure to decrease their Total Cost of Ownership. They are also facing the difficulty of working with parts of the Infrastructure managed by outsourcers and the threat of being outsourced completely. IS organizations are dealing with knowledge workers who are becoming more computer literate everyday and demand higher quality IT services. IS organizations are sometimes struggling to get control on their legacy environments, or are completely replacing their legacy environments and rolling out new business critical applications like ERP. All these challenges have led to the awareness that it is critical to have an IT infrastructure in place that is able to rapidly react to changing business needs. 3

4 The Service Management approach The overall goal of IS organizations is to align IT to the business and deliver quality IT services to the business and fully contribute to the business while at the same time being able to rapidly change the IT Services as business or technological changes occur. There are three roads that lead to this ultimate Service Management approach: 1. The IT Infrastructure Resource Planning Road focuses asset utilization 2. The IT Service Management Road focuses on customer management and quality. 3. The IT Transition Management Road focuses on rapid adoption of enterprise changes. Figure 1. Positioning Service Management The HP OpenView IT Service Manager product suite consists of four products. 1. HP OpenView ITSM Asset Manager. 2. HP OpenView ITSM Help Desk Manager. 3. HP OpenView ITSM Configuration and Change Manager. 4. HP OpenView ITSM Service Level Manager. The IT Infrastructure Resource Planning Road IT Infrastructure Resource Planning is a Gartner Group definition: "The ultimate objective of infrastructure resource management for IT is the synchronization of the IT management processes with the enterprise's overall business objectives." IT Infrastructure Resource Planning focuses on Asset Utilization, Asset Optimization and eventually Asset Synchronization. The business objective is cost control and the main focus will be reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the IT environment. 4

5 Organizations that take this road will focus on controlling their costs related to IT Assets. After a successful implementation of Asset Management, the organizations will seek ways to leverage their control by utilizing the assets information for operational processes such as the service desk. Another step could be the implementation of Change Management processes to optimize the Asset Management process and implement "just-in-time" principles for asset supply and asset inventories. The last stage of the Infrastructure Resource Planning Road is the implementation of Service Level Management processes, focussing on relating the now controlled costs to the benefit of the organization. The Service Management Road Although the end-stage of The Service Management and the Infrastructure Resource Planning road is clearly the same, the service management road has a different focus. The service management road has a customer (end-user) focus rather than a cost optimization focus. The Service Management road focuses on treating the IT endusers as customers. In order to do this, knowing how and who uses IT Assets in the production environment is of key importance. Hence, Configuration Management is a key process in the first stage of the Service Management road. Having a configuration management database will enable help desk staff to understand their customers and deliver a more efficient and effective level of support. The second stage on the service management road is the implementation of a change management process to control and change the production environment as to increase the quality. The focus of the change management process is, hence, quality improvement and implementation of a continuous improvement process within the IS Organization. The final stage is the complete triangle once more. The IT Transition Management Road The IT Transition Management Road approach is focuses on controlling the production environment. In these turbulent times, where IT transitions have a major impact on business, organizations have the ability to start with the Configuration and Change Management process as the first step towards the ultimate IT Service Management approach. The IT Transition Management Road approach focuses on creating an IT production environment that is controlled and managed in such a way that it can rapidly adopt and support IT transitions such as: E-business or E-Commerce initiatives, rolling out new applications, or getting rid of the legacy environment. This paper will focus on Configuration and Change Management, the processes needed to enable organizations to rapidly and successfully adopt IT transitions. 5

6 Key Benefits of Configuration and Change Management Effective configuration and change management is indispensable to the satisfactory provision of IT services. An ability to absorb a high level of change is necessary for effective IT Service provision. An ability to change things in an orderly way, without making errors and taking wrong decisions is necessary for efficient IT service provision. Key customer benefits from implementing HP OpenView ITSM Configuration and Change Management includes: Less adverse impact of changes on the quality of IT services and service level agreements. A better assessment of the cost of proposed changes, before they are incurred. A reduction in the number of changes that have been backed-out, but an ability to do this more easily when necessary. The accumulation of valuable management information relating to changes, which will help diagnose problem areas and assist the Problem Manager, Availability Manager etc. Increased productivity of users - due to less disrupted higher quality IT services. Increased productivity of key IT staff personnel. A higher control of the IT Infrastructure. The configuration management database will allow IT staffs to work with an up to date overview of the production environment. Better control of software. Configuration manager and software control and distribution will help organizations to control the implementation of software changes, coupled where appropriate with hardware changes. Improved Security. Because configuration management assists IT management to control the versions of CIs in use it makes it more difficult for these to be changed maliciously. The IRM process improves security by having the ability to verify changes and detect unauthorized changes. Increased customer satisfaction by having standard change procedures. An ability to absorb a high level of change in this fast moving global economy. HP OpenView ITSM Configuration and Change Manager A short summary of the Configuration and Change Manager product: Configuration Management Change Management Software Control and Distribution Work Manager Audit and Notification management. (Task Manager) 6

7 Inventory Reconciliation Manager Integrations with HP OpenView ITSM products Configuration Management In industry today, there is some confusion about the difference between Asset Management and Configuration Management. Asset Management focuses on complete life-cycle management of an IT asset, while configuration management focuses on the production life cycle of an IT asset. Configuration management focuses on how IT Assets interconnect and relate to each other so that it produces IT Infrastructure Services to the business units. You could say Configuration Management is a specialized discipline of Asset Management. Configuration Management doesn t focus on the cost of Asset, but more on its role in IT service provision and the quality of its performance. Asset Management tools typically do support component-configuration management support, for instance having the ability to track the components of a desktop (memory, CPU etc), the tools typically do not support the complex functionality of identifying how IT Assets exactly interact and deliver services to the business. From an IS Operations management perspective, Configuration Management is the information needed too fully empower the Help desk Management and Problem Resolution Staff. In short, configuration management focuses on IT Infrastructure that is in production. The definition according to ITIL is as follows: Configuration management is a discipline that gives IT Management precise control over IT assets by allowing IT Management to: Specify the versions of Configuration items (CI) in use and in existence on an IT infrastructure and information on. - The status of these items (e.g. in live use, scheduled for live use, scheduled for upgrade etc). - Who owns each item (the individual with prime responsibility for it). - The relationships between items (components, connections etc). Maintain up to date records containing these pieces of information. Control changes to the CIs by ensuring changes are made only with the agreement of appropriate named authorities. Audit the IT infrastructure to ensure it contains the authorized CIs and only these CIs. The items that may be brought under configuration management control include hardware, software, documentation, telecommunication services, computer center facilities and any others the organization wishes to control. 7

8 Configuration management, as applied to IT infrastructure management, consists of four basic functions: Identification - specifying and identifying all components of an IT infrastructure. Control - the ability to agree and 'freeze' CIs and then to make changes only with the agreement of appropriate named authorities. Status Accounting - the recording and reporting of all current and historical data concerned with each CI. Verification - a series of review and audits to ensure conformity between all CIs and the authorized state of CIs as recorded in the configuration management database (CMDB). IS organizations should draft an overall objective for the configuration management function. The objective could be: "To bring all IT infrastructure components and associated items of documentation under ongoing configuration management control and, thereby, to facilitate the management of change to contribute to the economic provision of quality IT services in the face of changing business and user requirements." Detailed objectives include: Recording the names and versions of the physical items that make up the IT infrastructure and the relationships between them (e.g. A is used by B; C is connected to D; E is part of F; etc) and the required attributes of the items. Making sure all changes to the IT infrastructure are properly authorized and, once implemented, are recorded immediately. Identifying the current status and the recent history of all IT infrastructure constituent items. Identifying and storing authorized software copies. Checking the actual state of the IT infrastructure corresponds to the authorized (desired) state. The Configuration and Change Manager allows organizations setup classification structures for the CMDB. Defining Classification breakdowns is critical for a successful implementation of a CMDB. A decision needs to be made at which level CIs will be identified and hence controlled. A possible classification structure: IT Infrastructure Software Hardware Networks Documentation Workstations Servers Notebooks Intel based Unix based 8

9 Once all the CIs can be classified, it is possible to model their relationships. For example: A CI is part of another CI (e.g. memory is part of a notebook, this is a parent child relationship). A CI is connected to another CI (e.g. a server is connected to the LAN). A CI uses another CI (a program uses a module from another software program). The CMDB also provides the option to group CIs in a logical CI definition. For instance, all business PCs that are used as workstations can be grouped in one logical CI called workstation. This will allow Configuration Managers and Change Managers to easily identify similar CIs in case of needed moves, adds, upgrades, replacements or changes. In CMDB, you can generate a graphical overview of the IT infrastructure. This allows IT specialists to get a quick insight in the IT Infrastructure. In CMDB, you can define owners, users and administrators for CIs. The administrators of Configuration Items play a big role in the Risk Assessment process in Change Management. This process will be described more in detail in the Change Management process overview Tracking the users of CIs will allow Help desk staff to have a view of the endusers "personal" IT Infrastructure. The help desk can view the connections that the end-user has and which parts of the IT Infrastructure is used by the end-user. This process will be described more in detail in the HP OpenView ITSM Help Desk integration overview. The CMDB allows for tracking locations to generate IT Infrastructure overviews by location as well as time-zone support. In the CMDB database, organizations can track supplier and contract data. This information can be used to analyze brand performance and, hence, contribute to the process of optimizing the performance of operational assets. The CMDB is tightly integrated with Network and System management tools to ease the process of populating the database, but also to automate the verification of the Configuration Management database. The inventory reconciliation process will allow organizations to identify unauthorized changes made to the IT infrastructure. This process will be discussed in detail in the Inventory Reconciliation Manager paragraph. To ease the process of verification and auditing, CMDB is equipped with a barcode module. This allows organizations to scan location and component structure of physical objects and automatically verify the scanned data with CMDB. For auditing purposes, this functionality is very cost effective and speeds up the process of IT audits tremendously. 9

10 Change Management The objective of change management can be defined as: "Change management is the process to control the IT Infrastructure and to implement authorized changes to the IT Infrastructure rapidly to support ever changing business needs and expectations of business users while minimizing the impact on existing quality IT services delivered to the business." Change Management is tightly integrated with Configuration Management as a single function; this is the preferred approach.. The comprehensive Configuration Management system that is used to do the impact assessment of changes enables the controlled implementation of changes. The Configuration Management database identifies relationships between an item that is to be changed and any other components of the IT Infrastructure, thus, allowing the administrators of these items to be involved in the impact assessment process. Whenever a change is made, the configuration management database is updated. The change management process has the following sub processes: Change Initiation Change Tracking Change Authorization Change Risk and Impact Assessment Change Scheduling Change Building Change Coordination Change Verification Change Review Change Initiation To control and plan IT transitions, you should understand how changes are initiated. IS organizations can identify five types of changes: 1. Business Initiated Changes 2. Technology Changes 3. User Requested Changes 4. Standard Procedural Changes 5. Problem Solving Changes Business Initiated Changes Every change to the IT infrastructure should be business driven, however, not every change is initiated by the business. Business initiated changes are changes that are directly driven by the corporate business strategy. Global expansion, mergers and acquisitions are examples of business driven changes. Typically, these business changes have a critical character in terms of timing. "How quickly can we connect our business processes after an acquisition?" It is therefor critical that today's greatest bottleneck for efficient and effective business processes, IT, is prepared to support these changes. Business initiated changes can be very technology driven, like the demand of senior management to enter the E-Commerce market, or the demand of senior management to have a global Intranet. 10

11 With the rate of technology changes increasing, and the difficulty identifying new business opportunities made possible by new technology, organizations should consider a technology opportunities task force that consists of business analysts, technology researchers and some level of senior management. Technology Changes Technology changes are changes driven by the fast moving hardware and software industry. Technology changes can also be seen as "upgrade" changes. Changes as upgrading the organization from Windows 95 to Windows 98, or upgrading from Pentium 166Mhz desktops to Pentium II 400Mhz desktops, are examples. While rolling out applications for the first time could be considered a business initiated change, an upgrade from SAP r3 to SAP r4 could be considered a technology change. These changes are normally somewhat easier, since the Configuration Management database contains information about what part of the IT Infrastructure is subject to these types of changes. User Requested Changes User Requested Changes are normally tracked at the service desk. In today's knowledge society, IT Customers have become more demanding and computer literate, hence, this type of change has become more and more important. User Requested Changes could transform into a technology change to take a more proactive approach to prevent similar User Requested Changes in future. For instance, an end-user request for an additional 16MB of memory for his laptop could be changed into a technology upgrade to add 16MB of memory to all of the laptops of knowledge workers with the same profile and the same laptop. User requests could also be requests for additional functionality within applications or requests for additional applications. Standard Procedural Changes Standard procedural changes can be explained as standard policies within the organization. For instance, a general procedure could be that a new employee would have IT facilities within 24 hours after his hiring date. These standard changes have a very high customer and organizational satisfaction rate. Problem Solving Changes Problem Solving Changes can take a proactive and reactive form. Problems that have not yet made themselves visible to the end-user can be solved by quality improvement changes. One could think of maintenance activities or a change to prevent a performance drop from actually happening. Problem Solving Changes also focus on solving incidents that have occurred or are still occurring in the production environment. This is a somewhat more reactive form. While incidents can be detected by Network and system management tools or are logged at the helpdesk, underlying problems are not so easy to identify. The help desk is focussing on quick fixing the incident to restore the IT service provision. Problem management is the process to analyze the reported incidents and identify if incidents occur because of a flaw in the network topology or a wrong 11

12 configuration of a router for example. Once this root cause analysis process is finalized, the root cause problem and its related incidents are the foundation for a change to increase the quality of the production environment. In HP OpenView terminology all these change initiators are referred to as Requests for Changes (RFC). Change Tracking Once a change has been initiated, the Configuration and Change manager provides the ability to track the change throughout its life cycle. Changes go through different statuses and progress lines to identify when what happened is being tracked automatically. Configuration and Change Manager allows for the definition of standard changes to support repeating changes such as the Standard Procedural Changes. When RFCs are problem solving changes or incident solving changes it is critical to be able to relate the problem or incident ticket to the change request. This functionality is also necessary in case an implemented change has caused new problems and incidents in the IT Infrastructure. This functionality is provided via the integration with HP OpenView ITSM Help Desk Manager. The RFC has to be prioritized and its status can be tracked throughout the life cycle of the change. The Change and Configuration Manager can identify the CIs that are subject to the change and relate these to the Change request. By utilizing the logical CI feature in the CMDB it is easy to identify changes to a logical group of similar CIs (e.g. all PCs with 166Mhz and 32MB). Change Authorization The RFC needs to be categorized. The level of importance will trigger the authorization path that needs to be followed. The Configuration and Change Manager has the ability to schedule Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings to authorize changes. Change Risk and Impact Assessment The CAB members are responsible for making sure an adequate Risk and Impact estimation of changes is being made, to estimate resources, confirm priority and schedule the change. In the risk and impact analysis the ability to view the administrators and users of the affected CIs and the ability to view the relationships of the affected CIs is a big win. This will allow organizations to really come to an accurate risk and impact analysis. When an integration with HP OpenView ITSM Service Level Manager is in place, the risk and impact analysis can be more enhanced. Once IT services are defined based upon the configuration management database, the configuration and change management system is capable of automatically identifying which IT services can be affected. Via the tracking of potential service level agreements for those services it is possible to even identify all affected parties that are subject to these service level agreements. 12

13 Change Scheduling HP OpenView ITSM allows for resource scheduling via the work management functionality. Work Manager is the central overview for all tasks related to IT Management. Work Management will centralize all work orders generated by HP OpenView ITSM Helpdesk Manager and Configuration manager and Change Manager. Work Manager will provide the Change Manager with a quick view of the workload of the IT specialists and identify who is available. HP OpenView ITSM allows the Change Manager to identify if potentially needed new assets are in stock, or should be purchased or leased via HP OpenView ITSM Asset Manager. HP OpenView ITSM Asset Manager can identify the most cost effective IT Assets to be used for implementation. Changes can be scheduled within a certain timeframe. This process can be optimized via an integration with HP OpenView ITSM Service Level Manager. In Service Level Manager, service hours and a business impact level (importance level) for IT Services can be set up. Since it is possible to identify which services will be affected (see Risk and Impact Assessment) it is also possible to identify the best timeslot to implement this change. The change can be scheduled with a minimum impact to the existing business services by looking at the service hours and business impact levels of the affected services. This calculation is done automatically and the system will advise the change manager the best timeslot to implement the change. Change Building Once the change is approved the change manager can start working on an implementation plan to implement the change. A back-out plan needs to be specified and the change manager has to identify how CIs should be changed exactly. The change can be tested in a neutral environment. During the Change Building phase the CIs that are about to be put in production are updated from status and go from the status "reserved for change" to "scheduled for change" to "tested and approved for change". Change Coordination The change manager can utilize the work manager functionality to assign tasks that are related to the implementation of the change to IT specialists. The system can automatically notify these specialists that work orders have been assigned to by utilizing the Task Manager (auditor and notification tool). The Change manager can identify directly affected users via the CMDB and if the integration is in place with Service Level Manager the Change Manager can directly identify the services affected and can notify the responsible service managers. The service managers are responsible for the notification of the affected end-users that can be identified via service level agreements. Hence, it is possible to automatically generate s to all affected users that a change is going to be implemented (e.g. "Monday March AM the mail server will be down for 15 minutes due to maintenance activities on the network"). After the change is implemented and closed the CMDB is updated automatically. 13

14 Change Verification To ensure the change was implemented properly Configuration and Change Manager provide the ability to check the physical infrastructure and compare this with the CMDB. Via the inventory reconciliation manager process that integrates with tools such as HP OpenView Network Node Manager, HP OpenView DTA, Microsoft SMS and others, the system can run a check and compare the discovered components with the CMDB. The system will produce a list of differences which can be viewed as unauthorized CIs or unauthorized changes. Not only is the system capable of verifying if changes are implemented as planned, the system can also identify unauthorized changes that can jeopardize service provision and service quality. IS organizations can take action on these unauthorized changes and is able to implement a higher level of security to protect quality IT service provision. The reconciliation process is described in the "Inventory Reconciliation Manager" paragraph. Change Review Configuration and Change Manager provides the capability to report extensively on the change and configuration management process. Management reports can be generated on topics as: Implementation rate Quantity of changes by reason, priority, classification etc. Overview of changes and affected CIs Overview of open changes Overview of implemented changes And more. HP OpenView ITSM Report Manager also provides the ability to generate flexible reports by utilizing Business Objects technology. HP OpenView ITSM Report Manager is an additional product. Software Control and Distribution All to often computer software, because of its somewhat intangible nature, is not regarded as a true asset and is therefore not properly controlled. Yet Software can be an extremely valuable asset, which has a marked effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of businesses. By purchasing software, organizations acquire rights and obligations. Software control is needed to make best use of organizations rights. The Software Control and Distribution function is Configuration and Change Manager is responsible for: The storage of management authorized software in the centralized configuration management database. The release of the software into the live environment. The planning of the distribution of the software to remote locations. Implementation (bringing into service) of the software. The SC&D manager controls the software life cycle from development to distribution and implementation. Software control is enforced by unambiguous 14

15 registration of stored software items in a definitive software library (DSL). They are stored as software configuration items in the configuration management database. Software Control & Distribution controls all activities regarding the DSL, such as storing and extracting software items. The development of software is managed by control over the development lifecycle in relation to the DSL and Change Management. Distribution of software can be seen as a specific change to the infrastructure and is treated as such. Distribution of software is controlled by composition of releases as sets of SCIs from the CMDB and distribution lists that define the deployment of releases. Different tools such as HP OpenView Desktop Administrator can be used to automate the SC&D process further. Work Manager Work Manager provides the functionality to have a centralized management console for all work related to IT Management processes. Work Manager is used in the change management process to identify IT staff available to carry out tasks related to the change management process. Work orders have a classification structure, a status, priority, target setting, progress and a scope. The classification structure for example is Risk and Impact Analysis, Appointment or Approval. The scope could be a help desk ticket, a problem ticket or a change request. Configuration Items can be linked to work orders. Audit and Notification management. (Task Manager) HP OpenView ITSM Task Manager can be considered the workflow engine of HP OpenView ITSM products. HP OpenView ITSM Task Manager allows IS Organizations to set auditing trails on status progress or any other fields. Based on modifications of the audited fields, task manager can take action and call any type of executable. For instance, when a work order is released to a specialist with a high priority, task manager can be set to call the beeper of the specialist, do a screen pop-up or send an . Task Manager can audit any field in the HP OpenView ITSM database and is included in Configuration and Change Manager. Inventory Reconciliation Manager HP OpenView ITSM Configuration and Change Manager can be extended with the Inventory Reconciliation Manager (IRM). The Inventory Reconciliation Manager is an open interface to the CMDB to integrate with Network and System and Management integration. IRM plays a significant role in automating the change verification process. 15

16 IRM has two main functions: Populate the CMDB - the initial population of the CMDB can be done through IRM. This will speed up the process of creating an accurate CMDB. Automated verification of the CMDB - as explained earlier, the CMDB is the authorized and desired state of the IT Infrastructure. In any organization, people will implement unauthorized changes. With the IRM process it is possible to automate the detection of unintended changes and, hence, secure and protect the IT service provision. External Repository Extractor ASCII File IRM Engine Reconciliation Database Report NNM DTA SMS CMDB... Extractor Development KIT Overnight Changes Unauthorized Changes Change Management Database Figure: The Inventory Reconciliation Process Network and System management tools such as HP OpenView Network Node Manager, HP OpenView Desktop Administrator and Microsoft SMS are capable of detecting hardware and software devices that are installed in the IT Infrastructure. The Configuration Management Database classification structure identifies to what degree organizations wish to manage their environment. Based on the classification structure an "extractor" for the NSM tools can be made. (Default extractors are NNM, DTA and SMS). The extractor will produce a list of detected configuration items that are uploaded via the IRM engine in the Reconciliation database. This database can be compared with the Configuration Management database and a list of changes is produced. In principle these changes are unauthorized, since the change manager process did not model these changes. Based on the report, organizations can take action and identify potential hazards to IT Service provision. Based on the Reconciliation management database, organizations can also automatically verify if changes have been implemented as planned. 16

17 Integrations with HP OpenView ITSM products Configuration and Change Manager is integrated with the three other HP OpenView ITSM products. Service Level Manager Help Desk Manager Asset Manager Service Level Manager HP OpenView ITSM Service Level Manager allows organizations to translate an IT strategy into IT services. IT services are build up from the CMDB. A SAP service for instance consists of various configuration items such as network CIs, database CIs, Hardware CIs and Software CIs. Service Level Manager is, therefor, seamlessly integrated with CMDB. Once services are defined Service Level Manager allows you to define Service Level Agreements for those IT services. These SLAs incorporate Service Level Objectives like: service hours, availability, performance, business impact levels, resolution rates, costs, duration, responsible service manager etc. HP OpenView IT Operations as well as the HP OpenView ITSM products utilize this information. The integration of Service Level Manager with Configuration and Change manager has four major functions: 1. Bring new IT services in production. 2. Change existing IT services. 3. Change the IT Infrastructure with a minimum impact on the business. 4. Notify end-users when their IT services are scheduled to be impacted via changes. Bring new IT services in production Once IT Services are designed and tested and ready to be implemented in the production environment, this has to be managed as a change to the existing IT Infrastructure. Change Manager can be used to support this process. The common usage of a central CMDB is critical in this process. Change existing IT services Whenever existing IT services need to be modified to increase the quality of service; changes need to be made in the IT Infrastructure. Since IT services are based upon the CMDB information, the changes on the IT Infrastructure should be managed through Change Manager to ensure correct risk and impact assessment and to implement the changes successfully. Change the IT Infrastructure with a minimum impact on the business In general, whenever there are changes being scheduled to the IT Infrastructure, a risk and impact assessment needs to be made. The risk and impact assessment process can be empowered by utilizing service level management information. CIs that are part of an IT Service, have service hours and business importance levels. Hence, it is possible to calculate the best timeslot (Window of Opportunity) to schedule the change with a minimum impact to the business. 17

18 Figure: Window of Opportunity The above figure explains that a particular CI, a Windows NT Server, is subject to a change. This particular CI is part of three IT services, the service, the HR Business Service and a Back-up service. These services have different impact levels on the business and have different service hours. From the graph, you can identify the best timeslot to implement the change is Tuesday. Risk and impact assessment become more sophisticated by having the ability to view the IT services that could be affected as a result of the change. Notify end-users when their IT services are scheduled to be impacted via changes Changes are made to CIs, CIs are part of services, services have Service Level Agreements and, hence, have end-users. The information about who in the organization is potentially impacted by scheduled changes becomes available automatically straight away, via the integration with Service Level Manager. Change Managers and Service Manager can notify end-users (internal customers) about changes that are of interest to them. Help Desk Manager Configuration and Change Manager is seamlessly integrated with HP OpenView ITSM Help Desk Manager. The products use the same authorization structure, the same database, the same business logic and the same UI. Help Desk Manager will use the same CMDB. The information about the authorized IT Infrastructure is immediately available for help desk staff. It will allow help desk staff to generate personal CI overviews for callers and will enable the help desk staff to use the CMDB classification structure to search for similar problems with similar CIs. Help Desk Manager supports two additional ITIL processes: Incident Management and Problem Management. Both processes are tightly integrated in the Change Management process. Incidents and root cause problems can be related to RFCs as initiation of changes and can be related to implemented changes as "caused by change". 18

19 The two products will utilize the work manager as central management window for all work related to IT Management. Asset Manager HP OpenView ITSM Asset Manager is focuses on the complete life-cycle management of IT Assets. Asset Manager will allow organizations to optimize their Asset utilization from a cost perspective. When integrated with HP OpenView ITSM change and Configuration Manager, the Asset Manager and CMDB can share the same data. When changes are scheduled and new CIs need to be ordered since they are not in stock or not available at the IS Organization, Asset Manager can help change managers identify if the needed assets are available in the entire organization. If needed, Asset Manager can make sure that assets will be available and can optimize the purchasing process by focussing on cost efficiency, the best brand and the best supplier. Asset Manager allows change manager to reuse software licenses that could still be installed on disposed desktops. Asset Manager allows changes to be implemented more cost effective and focuses on decreasing the Total Cost of Ownership of the entire organization. Conclusion "Change is good, but you go first" is often the nature of people when it comes to innovative changes. In the turbulent changing times of the digital era, organizations are often struggling with the adoption of new technology and IT transitions and everchanging business needs. Configuration and Change Management processes can help IS organizations to build an environment that is ready to absorb and control the challenges that they are facing. Configuration and Change Management is a People, Process and Technology discipline. Where ITIL can be the guidance to implement the processes, HP OpenView delivers the technology based on ITIL to support your processes. With the process setup and the technology to support it, it is up to IS Organizations to create a new culture within their organizations. A culture that could be described as follows: "Change is good, can I go first!" 19

20 Appendix 1: The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) The HP OpenView IT Service Management initiative is based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The ITIL methodology was first documented and made publicly available in ITIL was developed by the Central Computer & Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) of the UK government. Today, ITIL is managed by EXIN a Dutch IT examination organization. The ITIL books or modules can be used either separately or together as a complete code of good practice for IT services provision. ITIL has been developed in collaboration with experts, practitioners, consultants and trainers, and is linked to an international user group, the IT Service Management Forum LTD (ITSMF). The ITIL service management modules are: Help desk Problem Management Change Management Software Control and Distribution Service Level Management Configuration Management Cost Management Availability Management Capacity Management Contingency Planning The HP OpenView IT Service Manager product has been developed according to ITIL principles. The product supports the integrated character of the ITIL processes and the integrated product suite is unique in the service desk industry. The ITIL guides and the ITIL advice are not definitive, however, and should be interpreted for every single organization. ITIL is probably the only comprehensive, publicly available, guide you will find on IT service provision. 20

21 Appendix 2: The HP Consulting Reference Model The HP Consulting organization has built a reference model around ITIL and IT Service Management. They identified four disciplines that interact and integrate with each other. 1. Business - IT Alignment 2. Service Design and Management 3. Service Development and Deployment 4. Operations Bridge At the center of these four disciplines are Configuration Management and Change Management as the connecting and controlling processes. Configuration and Change Management guard and control the production environment that produces and delivers IT services to the business. The interaction between configuration and change management with processes as incident, problem and service level management is the critical success factor in implementing a working solution. Figure 2 and 3. The HP IT Service Management Reference model. For more information, or a complete 30-page white paper please visit 21

22 Acknowledgements The development of the Hewlett-Packard OpenView Configuration and Change Management white paper was a team effort, involving many people residing in different countries. Special thanks to: Onno van Steenis, Erik Hoffman, Michel N'Guettia, Izad Khormaee, Nick Thomas, Ken Wendle, Andrea Hulskamp. Karel van der Poel 22

23 The information in this document is subject to change without notice Copyright Hewlett-Packard Company All Rights Reserved. Reproduction, adaptation, or translation without prior written permission is prohibited, except as allowed under the copyright laws. 23