ITOM - IT Operations Management

tiagomacul · ‎05-28-2019

ITOM

IT operations management (ITOM) is the administrative area involving technology infrastructure components and the requirements of individual applications, services, storage, networking and connectivity elements within an organization.

In the digital age, the heartbeat of any organization is its IT infrastructure. IT Operations Management, often abbreviated as ITOM, is the secret sauce that keeps this heartbeat strong and steady. It's the conductor orchestrating the symphony of servers, networks, applications, and cloud resources to harmonize with the organization's goals.

At its core, ITOM is all about efficiency. It's like a Swiss watch, ensuring every gear, spring, and cog of your IT machinery works seamlessly, minimizing disruptions and maximizing productivity.

Imagine a world where your organization's IT systems are finely tuned instruments, alerting you to potential issues before they become full-blown problems. This proactive approach is made possible by ITOM's Event Management, which keeps a watchful eye on the digital landscape and takes action at the first sign of trouble.

But ITOM isn't just about reacting swiftly; it's also about planning for the future. With Capacity Planning as a key component, it helps predict when and where your IT resources might fall short, allowing you to allocate them wisely and avoid performance bottlenecks.

In the age of cloud computing, ITOM extends its mastery to the cloud, ensuring that your cloud resources are optimally utilized, keeping costs in check, and services available 24/7.

And let's not forget the invaluable role of Automation in ITOM. Repetitive tasks are handed over to bots, freeing up your IT team to focus on innovation rather than routine maintenance.

So, in essence, IT Operations Management isn't just a set of practices and tools; it's the wizardry that transforms your IT into a well-oiled machine. It's the guardian of your organization's digital realm, ensuring that every bit and byte serves a purpose, and every operation is a step towards success.

Key components and areas within IT Operations Management may include:

Infrastructure Management: This involves managing the underlying IT infrastructure, including servers, network devices, storage, and data centers, to ensure they are reliable and efficient.
Event Management: This includes monitoring and responding to IT events and incidents in real-time. Event management tools help identify and address issues promptly.
Service Mapping: Service mapping tools help organizations understand how various IT components and services are interconnected, which is essential for troubleshooting and maintaining service availability.
Automation: ITOM often involves the automation of routine tasks and processes, reducing manual efforts and minimizing errors.
Cloud Management: As more organizations move to cloud-based infrastructure and services, ITOM also encompasses the management of cloud resources to optimize costs and performance.
Service Desk Integration: Integrating ITOM tools with a service desk or IT service management (ITSM) system ensures a streamlined process for incident management and problem resolution.
Capacity Planning: ITOM includes capacity planning to forecast and allocate IT resources effectively, preventing resource shortages or overspending.
Security Operations (SecOps): Some ITOM practices include security-related aspects to proactively identify and respond to security threats.

Why do you need? By Dawn Jurek

Discovery? Why?

Discovery finds computers and other devices connected to an enterprise's network. When Discovery finds a computer or device, it explores the device's configuration, provisioning, and current status and updates the CMDB. Documentation

In ServiceNow, "Discovery" is a powerful feature and application used for automatically discovering and mapping the configuration items (CIs) and dependencies within your IT infrastructure. This is essential for keeping your configuration management database (CMDB) accurate and up-to-date.

Here are key points about Discovery in ServiceNow:

Automated Discovery: Discovery uses a combination of technologies such as network probes, sensors, and patterns to scan your network and collect information about devices, servers, applications, and other components in your IT environment. This information is then populated into your CMDB.
CMDB Population: The data collected during Discovery helps populate your CMDB with a detailed and real-time view of your IT infrastructure. This includes information about hardware, software, network devices, and their relationships.
Dependency Mapping: One of the significant benefits of Discovery is its ability to map dependencies between various CIs. This is crucial for understanding how changes or issues in one part of the infrastructure can impact other services or components.
Service Mapping: ServiceNow's Service Mapping application builds on top of Discovery by providing a visual representation of services and their dependencies. This helps IT teams understand the impact of changes or incidents on business services.
Integration: Discovery can integrate with other ServiceNow applications like Incident Management, Change Management, and Problem Management. When issues or changes are detected, they can trigger relevant processes and workflows.
Scheduled Scans: Discovery can be configured to run scans on a scheduled basis, ensuring that your CMDB remains up to date as your IT environment evolves.
Credential-based Scanning: To gather detailed information, Discovery often requires credentials for the devices it scans. This ensures that it can collect information such as software versions, hardware details, and more.
Discovery Probes: ServiceNow uses "probes" to gather information. Probes are scripts or tools that are executed on target devices to collect data. These probes can be customized to gather specific information.
Mid Servers: For security and scalability reasons, Discovery often uses "mid servers" installed in your network. These mid servers act as intermediaries between the ServiceNow instance and the devices being scanned.

In summary, Discovery in ServiceNow is a critical component for maintaining an accurate and up-to-date CMDB, understanding dependencies between IT components, and enabling efficient incident, change, and problem management in your IT environment. It helps IT teams proactively manage their infrastructure and respond to issues more effectively.

Service Mapping?

ServiceNow® Service Mapping provides IT with visibility into the IT infrastructure that makes up business services. ... It guides users through the process of mapping multiple services in parallel and refining service maps, delivering IT service visibility faster than manual approaches. Documentation

Service Mapping in ServiceNow is an advanced feature and application that helps organizations map and visualize the relationships and dependencies between various IT components and services in their infrastructure. It is a part of the broader IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite within ServiceNow and plays a crucial role in enhancing the understanding of how IT services are constructed and interconnected.

Here are key aspects of Service Mapping:

Visualization: Service Mapping provides a visual representation of IT services and their underlying components. This graphical representation makes it easier to understand complex service structures.
Dependency Mapping: It identifies and maps dependencies between different configuration items (CIs) in an organization's IT environment. This includes servers, applications, network devices, databases, and more.
Automation: Service Mapping often works in conjunction with ServiceNow's Discovery feature to automatically discover and map CIs and their dependencies. This reduces manual effort and ensures that the mapping is always up to date.
Impact Analysis: With dependency maps in place, organizations can perform impact analysis. This means that when a change or incident occurs, IT teams can quickly assess how it might affect other services and components. This is crucial for change management and incident response.
Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Integration: Service Mapping populates the CMDB with detailed information about CIs and their relationships, keeping the CMDB accurate and complete.
Root Cause Analysis: When an issue arises, Service Mapping can help identify the root cause by tracing dependencies. This aids in faster problem resolution.
Service Portfolio Management: Service Mapping can be used to create a comprehensive service portfolio. It helps organizations understand the services they offer, their underlying components, and the impact of changes on these services.
Business Service Views: Service Mapping allows organizations to define business services and map them to their underlying IT components. This ensures that IT services are aligned with business needs.
Customization: Organizations can customize and extend Service Mapping to suit their specific needs. This includes defining service models, patterns, and custom CI types.

In summary, Service Mapping in ServiceNow is a valuable tool for IT organizations to gain visibility into the complex relationships between IT services and the underlying components. It aids in better management of IT services, improves incident and change management, and enhances overall IT service delivery.

Typical Discovery

H

T

Assessment

Number of subnets being discovered at once
Resources available on the MidServer
Available bandwidth between MidServer and targets
Resource availability (utilization) on the targets
impact, throughput, caveats, warnings, impact

Prerequisites

Benefits of ITOM

1. Gain visibility into the full spectrum of your IT operations

Real-time monitoring and reporting provide a clear view of the IT environment.
Dashboards and analytics enable data-driven decision-making.
Greater control over IT assets and resources.
Real-time monitoring and reporting provide a clear view of the IT environment.
Dashboards and analytics enable data-driven decision-making.
Greater control over IT assets and resources.

2. Proactively monitor your whole IT environment / Enhanced Operational Efficiency:

ITOM streamlines IT processes and workflows, reducing manual tasks.
Automation of routine IT tasks, leading to faster issue resolution.
Improved resource allocation, ensuring that IT assets are used optimally.

3. Improve Service availability and reduce Mean Time to Resolution

Proactive monitoring and alerting help prevent downtime and minimize service disruptions.
Faster incident detection and resolution due to automated processes.
Accurate dependency mapping ensures that the impact of changes is understood in advance.

4. Introduce automation to resolve errors as soon as they occur

Automation of routine IT tasks, leading to faster issue resolution.

5. Cost Optimization:

Better resource utilization and capacity planning reduce unnecessary spending.
Automated processes reduce labor costs and the risk of human error.
Improved asset management helps in tracking and optimizing hardware and software costs.

6. Improved Customer and User Satisfaction:

Reduced downtime and faster issue resolution lead to happier end-users.
Enhanced service quality and reliability improve customer satisfaction.

7 .Streamlined Compliance and Security:

Ensures that IT operations adhere to compliance standards and regulations.
Identifies security threats and vulnerabilities, enabling timely responses.

8. Effective Change Management:

ITOM helps in planning and executing changes with minimal disruptions.
It ensures that changes are well-documented and their impact is understood in advance.

9. Optimized Cloud Management:

ITOM assists in managing cloud resources efficiently, reducing cloud costs.
Ensures cloud resources are provisioned, monitored, and de-provisioned as needed.

10 Enhanced Collaboration:

ITOM tools facilitate collaboration between IT teams, enabling faster issue resolution.
Shared visibility into the IT environment promotes better teamwork.

11. Scalability

ITOM can scale with your organization's growth, accommodating an expanding IT infrastructure.
The ability to manage diverse IT environments, from on-premises to cloud-based, supports scalability.

12. Data-Driven Decision Making:

ITOM provides valuable data and insights that support strategic decision-making.
Analytics and reporting help in identifying trends and areas for improvement.

13. Service Alignment with Business Goals: