ITIL and Cloud Service Management

Cloud computing is a fairly new model of allowing convenient and on-demand network access to a plethora of configurable computing resources and services. Cloud services deliver computing, storage, software, applications, and so on, via Internet to customers on a self-serve basis. Customers can subscribe to these services based on their needs. These services are flexible, adaptable, and utility based where customers pay for their subscription as they require and use. Regardless of the growing recognition and importance of cloud computing, little effort has been put in towards incorporating it into established IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks like ITIL. Cloud computing is an entirely new form of infrastructure with its own unique mechanisms, processes and users. There is a need to accelerate the design and implementation of ITSM processes and capabilities to manage the cloud and therefore help reduce operational expenses and increase efficiency of cloud-based infrastructure.

ITIL is a widely accepted approach to service management in the world. It provides a consistent set of best practice, drawn from the public and private sectors internationally. It is supported by a comprehensive qualifications scheme, accredited training organizations, and implementation and assessment tools. The best practice processes promoted in ITIL support are those of ISO and British Standards. 

As organizations are briskly moving toward cloud services, many IT leaders find their existing ITIL structures do not support the cloud environment well, resulting in frustration and limiting the value of cloud promises. This will expose the business to needless complexities with no accountability for the end services being delivered and poses serious risks for any IT organization migrating to cloud solutions.

ITIL 2011 contains the majority of cloud-related content in the ITIL Service Strategy book. The book introduces the characteristics and attributes of cloud services and the numerous types of service delivery and deployment models.  Successful adoption to cloud computing starts with careful strategy processes planning followed by the design, transition and operation.

Cloud computing represents a major shift in IT architecture, changing the way IT services are sourced and delivered. It reduces upfront capital expenditures but there may be extra costs for operating expenses. The cloud computing service model has three different service layers or categories AKA the cloud stack. The cloud stacks are:  

Software as a Service (SaaS): this is cloud computing layer where users simply make use of a web-browser to access software that others have developed, maintain and offer as a service over the web.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): the consumers develop their applications and software using a set of programming languages and tools that are supported and provided by the PaaS provider. Developers can provide their customers with a custom developed application without the hassle of defining and maintaining the infrastructure.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): allows customers access to different kinds of infrastructure and use the resources to organise and run their applications through the use of virtual machines, which automatically can scale up and down.

The most commonly used three-cloud implementation models are:  Private cloud, Hybrid cloud and Public cloud. The concerns for refurbishing ITIL service processes mainly exist when the public or private cloud is hosted with third party. When services of private cloud are hosted internally there will be no substantial modification in the way of using ITIL framework.  

 

Wish you all the Best;

EL