Supporting Operational Process Management

This involves the management of all the underpinning process that is necessary for the support of effective and efficient operational processes. Many of these also provide invaluable support and information to other ICTIM and ITSM processes. It includes:

Operational document maintenance: The development and maintenance of a central library containing all the documentation necessary for the support and smooth running of the operational ICT services and infrastructure. This is referred to as the Operational Document Library (ODL) and is often a combination of printed and electronic documentation. It is essential that a duplicate copy of all essential operational documents is also stored off-site, ideally as a complete off-site copy of the ODL. This documentation should include all site maps, plans, room layouts, schematics, and infrastructure topology diagrams.

Information logging and collection: The process of gathering all types of information on the use of the operational ICT services and infrastructure The array of information that may be needed is is considerable. Appropriate and adequate levels of storage should be obtained from the storage management processes. The information should be regularly condensed and archived. The type of information required includes:

• Performance related data and logging infomation and logging information used for Capacity Management analysis and reporting purposes
• The combination and allocation of usage statistics and costs to defined sets of users and services for subsequent usage control or charging purposes by both Capacity and Financial Management
• The capture and collection of MO status and usage data for the purposes of subsequent analysis, control, allocation and reporting by Availability Management
• Management and control of MOs, performance attributes, schedules, consolidations, historical utilisation, trends, business usage profiles, business transactions business expected resource usage for use for use by Capacity and Financial Management.

Information analysis: The process of analysing operational measurement data in order to determine the cause of operational deviations and to formulate subsequent related improvement activities. The analysis is, in many cases, a means to explain the observed performance of a MO or a set of MO’s. Its regular and ad hoc usage comes about when there is an unacceptable operational degradation in the ICT infrastructure. The analysis activity needs to come up with answers on the cause of this operational deviation. Because of the ad hoc fashion, there will be little or no experience in analysing the data and there will be few or no tools to aid with his analysis. In order to take preventive measures before the operational degradation becomes noticeable, it is necessary to routinely analyse the recorded information as well as analysing it on an ad hoc basis.

• Analysis and development of trends in operational performance, both of the ICT infrastructure and the operations personnel
• Measurement, analysis, and reporting of all operational OLA targets and achievement

Scripting: The customising, configuration and automated scripting of procedures to aggregate and consolidate logging information or to control the actions and responses of management tools to detected events and conditions.