ITIL Posts
In the previous article, I briefly mentioned about why and how IT departments within organizations should implement an IT services chargeback model. Photo by interrupt.
Today’s post, I’ll walk you through the implementation with the help of an open source Service Level Management software called OTRS.
OTRS stands for Open source Ticket Request System – an ITIL compatible Service Desk for you to manage sales, pre-sales enquiries, IT management, help desk, and many other support services.
I found out that OTRS is not just a simple Ticket Request System but rather a comprehensive solution which focuses on the entire service level management offerings.
What I mean by the service level management offerings include abilities to:
- Create the IT service catalog.
- Attach service level agreements (SLA) to each service.
- Allow service offerings to be transparent and made known to all users.
- Allow users to request or respond to a particular service.
- Allow service desk personnel to respond or escalate a service.
- Allow a service manager to monitor all tickets from an overall perspective.
OTRS has an online demo and it is from this demo that I will attempt to show you how OTRS can fulfill the offerings as stated above. Continue Reading »
Open source web based service level management software
In ITIL, the process which I find most challenging to really understand fully is the Configuration Management Process. Image by Cote.
One of the key / heart for every organization which implements ITIL processes is the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
When I was studying on ITIL, I always wonder what should go into a CMDB. Is it just a transactional database like the common MySQL or SQL Server databases?
Drilling in further about CMDB, I found out that the purpose of a CMDB is to store configuration items (CI) which acts as a structural unit in a CMDB.
Examples of configuration items (CI) include:
- Software applications
- People
- Network
- Documents
- Hardware devices
Basically anything related to IT which can be tagged with the following attributes can be considered a CI:
- Technical
- Ownership
- Relationship
Let’s take an example of a CI, say the database server. The database server can be considered a CI as we can identify its ownership, the relationship of the DB server with the other application servers as well as state its technical attributes such as MySQL or SQL Server.
In essence, the purpose of a CMDB is to store lots and lots of CIs and eventually be able to show its relationships for the analysis purposes. Continue Reading »
EasyCMDB – web based app for Configuration Management
More and more software as a service (SAAS) web application are emerging these days. We can find many SAAS sites which offers a range of services from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to Personal Finance Management. Image by cote.
SAAS web applications provide the following key benefits over onsite installed software:
- No or little effort required to maintain software and servers
- Quick to deploy and implement
- It doesn’t take months to implementation
- No huge up front fees
- Get to try and test the features and functionalities before purchasing
Most organizations these days are remaining competitive by getting leaner with less employees and technology to manage. For example, a legal firm that specializes on providing legal consultations can focus and work on what they do best and leave the technology maintenance to the experts, in this case the SAAS providers.
In my opinion, some services can be hosted online while some others might require a lot more effort to educate and change the mindset of potential customers to migrate or even adopt. Take anexample – ERP SAAS providers. An ERP system is usually the core of the organization. Core as in, if the data falls on wrong hands, business continuity could be affected. Also most ERP system needs to be customize according to the organization’s business processes. Creating an ERP package which is common and standard for all organization could be challenging for ERP SAAS providers to provide. Continue Reading »
Web based IT service management software
Managing some IT systems within your organization?
As the owner of the system, do you sometimes get calls and emails complaining about bugs and errors on the system? If you do, don’t worry too much about it as it’s common for systems to have problems. It’s just how frequent the incidents arise. For some, it may just be once a month. For some unfortunate ones, the incidents could go up to 2-3 times in a day!
It is critical for system custodians to handle incidents in a professional and organized manner in order to ensure that the organization’s productivity is not affected. If your organization implements ITIL Service Management processes, incident management is a key process when providing IT Services. Image by Star5112
When we talk about the process of managing incidents, it’s all about:
- Recording incidents
- Classifying and prioritizing an incident
- Investigating, escalating and diagnosing an incident
- Finding a resolution and recovery
- Closing an incident and clarifying
Since there are a few steps from the beginning of a complaint till the end where an incident gets resolved and reported back to the user, it would be wise to fully utilize tools to help manage various reported incidents.
The following are three Free Incident Management Software for you to begin tracking incidents within your services: Continue Reading »
List of FREE incident management software
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