ITIL OSA - Exam tips:

 best answer will show value to customer and you liaised with business
 You are a manager - not details, choose the higher level answer - avoid weekends,
hard dates requirements if asked in question.
 Mary? Joe? Peter? - who is suited to which role
 Numbers are not important - what is the data telling us about which itil process
 Core concept for the question - what process before delving too deep into question
 Keep answer within context of service operation. value to business
 Identify what the question is after
 May have RACI model.
o Must have 1xA for each row and no more than 1
o Must have at least 1xR for each row
o Not too many R's (inefficient)
 Review critical success factor -see handout. Don't mixup service desk KPI's with other
- request, incident.
 If asking about function, answer in function. If asking about sla's for request don't
get involved in OLA's with SDESK
 Look for VALUE
 IGNORE technology
 REVIEW KPI's for
o incident
o Request
o Problem
o Service desk
 High level thinking - mgt not tech
 Tech mgt and app mgt - involved in design and kedb
 Tech and app mgt - KEDB and training assisting SDESK. Means more incidents are
solved at 1st level
 Tech and app - capacity and availability mgt
 Warning - don't conduct skills inventory or training needs analysis
 Good - relationship between data
 Review existing process is good - look out for procedures
 Buy in for data team important for monitoring
 Pin-point what the key issue is in the question - pick the answer that best
addresses that issue

GOOD WORDS:

 Value
 Customer
 Agree
 Scope
 Magnitude
 Process better than procedures
 Relationship
  Communication
 Capability

BAD WORDS:

 Some, all, none, every

 Best, main
 Padding
 Numbers and stats
 Costs
 Case-by-case
 Too tech specific

REVIEW FOUNDATIONS

Notes:
- a service is a self-contained bubble
Understand core concepts of each process
•·Incident (restore) vs problem (fix root cause)
•Incident (unplanned outage) vs request (planned fulfillment)
•Request (std change) vs change (normal change)
•Event (detect, make sense, action) vs incident (restore asap)

RACI responsible, accountable, consulted, informed

Personality types suit some roles

•·inc: quick, resolve fast
•prob: detailed, thorough
•chg: resilient, water off a duck back, not afraid to disappoint people
•SDesk: quick learning, customer focused

RE-familiarise where other process are in itil - DESIGN: avail, capacity. STRATEGY: SLA, etc,
etc

SWOT Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

CUSTOMER
|. SLA (SLA) - MTTR Important
|
PROVIDER
SLM / \ supplier mgt
(OLA) | \ Underpinning CONTRACT
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
- incident KPI's. - 3rd level support
- Service Desk KPI's
- Level 2 support KPI's

Strategy Creates Value (outcomes, preferences, perception)

|
| (Output / Requirements [utility/warranty]
|
Design Defines (resources and capability)
|
| Service Design Package
| PPPP People, Process, Product, Partners
| Information, Metrics, Architecture, Process, Solution (IMAPS)
|
Transition - Deliver
|
| Service (Puts Service into Operation)
|
Operation Runs the Service. Value Perceived/realised

Measure, Manage & Control

 Business

 Service

 Process

 Component / Technology

Incident Symptom
Problem Cause

SERVICE DESK
•·Local is expensive, can have communication issues. Each site has local service desk
•Central - Service desk in one location. ie. 24x7 shifts if required.
•Virtual - Series of connected service desks in disparate locations
•Follow the Sun - Geographically dispersed, staff work normal day shifts for their timezone,
need standard processes, tasks, handover

Service Desk can contain specialised groups (ie. custom apps, Video Conferencing SME's)

Super Users - not in service desk but in business. Can help speed up incidents. Issues are loss
of visibility of incidents can occur if incidents raised direct to Super Users are not raised in
ITSM tool - no stats captured for reporting, true situation not exposed. Measuring Service
Desk - Surveys (exam) Pro's and Con's.

REQUEST MANAGEMENT

•·To provide the channel for customers to request and receive standard services
•Provide information about Services - and how to obtain them
•Deliver Standard Service Components (licences, s/w media, etc)
•General Information , Complains or comments
•Are PLANNED. (incidents are unplanned)
Tightly aligned to Incident process

Benefits:
•·Reduces bureaucracy,
•reduces cost of providing services
Policy:
•·Predefined workflowSingle point of contact
•All requests need to be authorised before Actioning (some may be pre-approved, other the
Sdesk will need to chase)
•Prioritised in alignment to business functions
Types - users can request:
•·Info or advice
•A standard change
•Access to an IT Service
Uses pre-defined steps or workflow
Tool.
•·Can use a menu selection (tool, self-help, shopping cart).
•In the tool, expectations can be set by automatically providing delivery/implementation
SLA's to the customer
•Users can view their request status (tracking)
Some requests handled by Service DEsk, others by specialist groups
Request Management Process steps
1..Receive Request
2.Logging and Validation (timestamp, etc)
3.Categorisation
4.Prioritization
5.Authorization
6.Review
7.Execution
8.Closure (Service desk confirm with customer)
9.Re-open request
(Exam - slide 61 & 62)

ACCESS MANAGMENT
Strong Links to Availability Mgt and Security Mgt and HR

Process granting authorised users the right to use a Service and preventing unauthorised
users
Manage and Protect assets/data/information/services - C.I.A.
•·C - Confidentiality
• I - Integrity
• A - Availability

All requests should be authorised before actioning (ie. Service desk review authorisation has
been done, but do not chase it up themselves)

Access Mgt
•·should log and track access to ensure rights are being appropriately used.
•Align to a change of status of personnel
•Track history of who accessed or tried to access
Key Concepts:
•·Access - Level/extent of functionality/data user entitled to use
•Identity - users must be unique
•Rights - Privileges / Access granted to access the services
•Service Groups - Access to Several Services granted at same time
•Directory Services - Tools used to manage (AD)
•Role Conflict - Risk increases in conflict with # of roles and groups defined.
Refer appendix 15 - figure 4.9 and slide 70
Access MGT steps
1..Request
2.Verification (they are who they say they are)
3.Provide rights
4.monitor identity status
5.logging and tracking
6.remove / restrict rights
Access MGT has interface with HR - very important to get rights correct
Access MGT has interface with Change Management

Information Mgt - Identity, Roles and Groups for easier management. User profile, user
template, role.

Security and HR very close to Access mgt.

Access mgt only executes security policy - does not define.

 Security defines who gets access to what.

 HR provides list of roles and rights to access mgt.

 Access mgt puts group and access together and maintains it.
EVENT MANAGEMENT

Multiple functions and processes connect to Event Mgt

Change of state of a CI that has significance to someone

 Detect events

 make sense of the events (through filtering and correlation)

 Determine appropriate control action

Correlation = rules, if...then

early warning for incident detection, therefore minimise potential business impact
•·Password lockout after 4 attempts = event mgt
•Cleaning log files / detecting low disk space
Event Mgt - Focus on generating and detecting meaningful notification about status of IT
infrastructure and services
Monitoring - Key requirement for event mgt, also seeks other conditions that do not
generate events

•·Scope:
•·Configuration items,
•Environmental factors (heat, door, etc),
•S/w Licensing,
•security (intrusion detection),
•Server or Application utilisation, etc.
•·Value:
•·24x7 (save $'s and need for real tie people monitoring)
•Feed Availability / Capacity processes
•Efficiency - staff for other activities
•greater customer satisfaction
•·Policy
•·Notification -> responsibility for handling
•centralise where possible
•common messaging
Event: A change of State
ALert: A warning that a threshold has been reached
Auto-Response: automated recovery (restart service, auto reboot, etc)

Status change with significance

THRESHOLD - required for correlation.

 Information (no threshold)

  Warning - not yet reached threshold. <threshold

 Exception - passed threshold => threshold

Into: correlation which is fed by rules

Warning - can trigger automatic response that can prevent an incident.

Key concepts - slide 87

Design
1..Instrumentation
2.Error messaging
3.Event detection and alert mechanism
4.Identification or thresholds
Event Mgt implements thresholds - but does not SET them. Inc, Prob, etc do.

Activities - pg 93 and figure 4.2

Event Management creates the Policy but up to each function (Service desk, IT Ops Mgt,
App Mgt, etc) to maintain.
Activities:

 Event occurs
 Event notification
 Event detection
 Event logged
 First level correlation
 Significance. informational, warning, exception
 second level correlation
 Further action
 Response selection - incident problem change
 Review
 Close

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

An unplanned interruption to an IT service or Reduction Or Quality of a service

Failure of a CI that has not yet interrupted service is also a incident

Business Value:

 Reduce unplanned labour and cost

 Alignment - IT aligned to business priorities
  Improvements - helps identify potential Service Improvements
 Service Desk - additional training or service required

Incident Model

 predefined steps for Standard Incident

 Contains
o Step to handle incident
o Dependencies and co-processing requirement
o roles and responsibilities
o Timescale, threshold, and escalation procedures
o Any necessary evidence preservation activities

Activity

 Identification - call to SDESK

 Logging - capture incident (summary, date, unique ID, where)
 Categorisation - useful for trending, Network/telephony/handset. May help with in
articles and sending job to right resolver.
 Prioritisation - impact and urgency = priority. Dictates response and resolution time,
if major incident execute Major incident procedure
 Diagnosis - gather full symptoms, try to resolve, advise user if clarification or
escalation required
 Escalation - functional escalation (sdesk to 2nd level to Vendor), Hierarchical (for
Comms, approval)
 Investigation and diagnosis. - further detailed analysis and determination of cause.
Search for answers.
 Resolution and recovery - apply and test potential solution. User, SDESK, specialist,
third party all could be involved. Pass back to SDESK for closure
 Closure - check the customer is happy

PROBLEM MANAGEMENT

The unknown cause of one or more incidents

Objectives

 : to prevent problems and resulting incidents from occurring

 To eliminate recurring incident
 To minimise the impact of incidents that can't be prevented
activities:

 Reactive - respond to incidents

 Proactive - Trend analysis

Aligned to incident and change processes

Value: lower expenditure or workarounds

Lower cost/effort in fire fighting or resolving repeat incidents

workaround - no resolution yet but do A,B,C in the meantime

Known error - may come from release notes or transition

Pain value analysis - #incidents x duration x severity x cost x weighting factor

Techniques - Ishikawa, Pareto, kroner Trevor

Activities

 Detect
 Log
 Categorise
 Prioritise
 Investigate and diagnose
 Workaround - known error (change)
 Problem resolution
 Closure
 Major problem?

Incident matching is a part of Incident process - not problem - but feeds into problem

Interfaces with : incidents, service desk, release, change, config, service continuity,
availability, capacity, sla, finance

 Problem mgt does not close incident.

IT OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
PERFORM DAY TO DAY FUNCTIONS - maintain status quo
Baby sitting the hardware
ops control

 Console mgt (central observation & monitoring

 Job scheduling (mgt of routine batch jobs)
 Backup and restore
 Print and output
 Maint activities

Facilities mgt

 Manage data centres

 Power cooling
 Large scale consolidation
 Mgt of outsourcing contracts

How to run backup, restore, label tape, tape mgt - but don't need to know about oracle

TECHNICAL MGT

 Custodian of all technical knowledge and expertise - IT INFRASTRUCTURE

 PROVIDES TECH SUPPORT FOR SERVICE LIFECYCLE
 Obj: help plan implement and maintain technical infrastructure not support in
o Well designed technical topology
o Better skills
o Diagnose and resolve technical failures

APPLICATION MANAGEMENT
custodian of all technical knowledge and expertise - IT APPLICATION

TECHNOLOGY AND IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATION

REQUIREMENTS GATHERING

1. MoSCoW a
1. Must have
2. should have
3. Could have
4. Won't have

1. Requirements
2. Identify products
3. Selection criteria
4. Evaluate
5. Short list
6. Scoping
7. Rank
8. Select products