Improving service management in campus IT operations

Abstract

Purpose -This paper aims at presenting the benefits from implementing IT service management (ITSM) in an organization for managing campus-wide IT operations. In order to improve the fault correlation from business perspectives, we proposed a framework to automate network and system alerts with respect to its business service impact for proactive notification to IT operations management. Design/methodology/approach -The authors first evaluate the effect of IT service management (ITSM) tools in practical adoption followed by experience sharing in developing management process modules in service outsourcing model. Three years of quantitative analysis using real operational data were used to present the effect on ITSM tools adoption. A framework was developed from the study of literatures in service management, incident prioritization, and business continuity planning. For the proposed framework, it consists of a hybrid case-based and rule-based reasoning module and a new approach which utilizing business continuity planning for service-resource mapping with business criticality and user activities. Findings -For the past decade in the IT industry, a paradigm shift in managing IT could be observed. People are concerned more in managing IT services instead of traditional device-oriented IT system or network components. With the term "business-driven IT services," it has raised new challenges in the area of IT service management, especially with respect to the management of service level agreement with service provider and the management of system and network faults. Research limitations/implications -Further work should be carried out on the aspect of using real data for the framework as motivated by the limitations of the present study. Practical real data could help the reader to experience its quantitative benefits. Practical implications -This paper highlights the value of effective IT service management, placing particular emphasis on service outsourcing consideration and the mechanism in service-event correlation. Originality/value -This paper illustrates the effect of ITSM tools adoption by analyzing real operation data. The proposed framework explicitly utilizes business continuity planning (BCP) processes to identify the relationships between business services and IT resources that helps to improve the IT service management.

Research in Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) (2000 – 2010)

“…CMMI is another method that ITSM researchers have applied to measure the maturity of ITSM (e.g., Park, Kim, Choi, & Jun, 2008;Richter, 2009;Deutscher & Felden, 2009;Dutton, 2010). Business Continuity Management (BCM) is also applied in ITSM studies (e.g., Lumpp et al, 2008;Wan & Chan, 2008;Wan, 2009). It provides a framework for managing risk in the event of disaster, by identifying the relationships between business services and IT resources.…”

Information Technology Governance for Higher Education Institutions: A Multi-Country Study

“…Most of the studies found cover part of the ITG practices, but most of them aim to develop a framework or a model for a particular reality. Some universities used ITIL as the main practice to implement ITG [23,[45][46][47], others include COBIT [19,48] or ISO/IEC 38500 [18].…”

A Qualitative Case Study Identifying Metrics for ITIL Request Fulfillment Process: Perspectives of an Information Technology Service Provider Group

“…Pollard and Cater- Achieve a more predictable infrastructure due to improved rigor during system changes; improved clarity in roles and responsibilities; reduction in system and service outages; improved coordination between functional teams; seamless end-to-end service; more documented and consistent ITSM processes across the organization; consistent logging of incidents; enhanced productivity; reduced costs; and improved customer satisfaction. Wan and Chan (2008) Avoid chaos in operations management and achieve a systematic process; improvement of service target and identification of the most-requested users and services. Kumbakara (2007) Increased IT predictability, efficiency, and service quality; reduced support costs; compliance with regulatory requirements; and better management of end-to-end IT services Cater- Steel, Tan, and Toleman (2006) Compliance with legal requirements; risk management; cost reduction; and customer satisfaction Hochstein, Tamm, and Brenner (2005, May) Increased client-service orientation and improved quality of IT services; better efficiency due to process standardization, optimization, and automation; and improved transparency and comparability through process documentation and monitoring…”