Service Asset and Configuration Management

Welcome to lesson 3 of the ITIL Intermediate RCV tutorial, which is a part of ITIL Intermediate RCV Foundation
Certification course. This lesson expands on how the process of service asset and configuration management (SACM)
contributes to RCV practices. The lifecycle phase emphasized in this lesson is service transition.
Let us start with the objectives of this lesson.

Objectives
By the end of this ‘Service Asset and Configuration Management’ lesson, you will be able to:
• Understand the complete overview of the purpose, objectives, scope and importance of SACM as a process to
generate business value. SACM policies, principles, concepts, activities, methods and techniques in relation to
RCV practices.
• Explain the importance and use of configuration items (CIs), along with tools, activity models, CMS back-ups and
historical data.
• Review the efficient uses of SACM metrics, as well as how service operation interacts with SACM.
Let’s look at the purpose of SACM process in the next section.

Purpose of Service Asset and Configuration Management(SACM)

The purpose of SACM is to Identify, control, record, report, audit and verify service assets and configuration items,
including versions, baselines, constituent components, their attributes, and relationships.
It accounts for managing and protecting the integrity of service assets and configuration items (and, where appropriate,
those of its customers) through the service lifecycle by ensuring that only authorized components are used and only
authorized changes are made.
It protects the integrity of service assets and configuration items (and, where appropriate, those of its customers) through
the service lifecycle Other purposes will include ensuring the integrity of the assets and configurations required to control
the services and IT infrastructure by establishing and maintaining an accurate and complete Configuration Management
System.
Now, let’s look at the key terms of this process.

SACM - Key Terms

As we have understood it is always a good practice to understand the keywords predominantly largely being used in this
process. The key terms and their description is given below:
• Attribute - Attribute is a piece of information about a configuration item. Some of the Examples are name,
location, version number, and cost. Attributes of CIs are recorded in a configuration management database
(CMDB) and maintained as part of a configuration management system (CMS)
• Audit - Audit is a formal inspection and verification to check whether a standard or set of guidelines is being
followed, that records are accurate, or that efficiency and effectiveness targets are being met. An audit may be
carried out by internal or external groups.
Now let us look at the objective of SACM process in the next section.

Objectives of Service Assets & Configuration Management

The objective of SACM process is to define and control the components of services and infrastructure and maintain
accurate configuration information on the historical, planned and current state of the services and infrastructure.
As we have an understanding of the objective, let us look at the scope of this process.

Scope of SACM Process

Scope Asset Management covers service assets across the whole service lifecycle. It provides a complete inventory of
assets and who is responsible for their control.
It includes:
 • Full lifecycle management of IT and service assets, from the point of acquisition through to disposal
• Maintenance of the asset inventory. Configuration Management ensures that selected components of a complete
service, system or product (the configuration) are identified, baselined and maintained and that changes to them
are controlled.
• It also ensures that releases into controlled environments and operational use are done on the basis of formal
approvals.
• It provides a configuration model of the services, assets, and infrastructure by recording the relationships
between service assets and configuration items.
• SACM may cover non-IT assets, work products used to develop the services and configuration items required to
support the service that is not formally classified as assets.
• Thus the scope covers interfaces to internal and external service providers where there are assets and
configuration items that need to be controlled, e.g., shared assets.
In the next section, we will look at SACM process as value to the business.

Business value of SACM

Value to business involves:
• Optimizing the performance of service assets and configurations improves the overall service performance and
optimizes the costs and risks caused by poorly managed assets, e.g., service outages, fines, correct license fees
and failed audits.
• SACM provides visibility of accurate representations of a service, release, or environment that enables:
- Better forecasting and planning of changes
- Changes and releases to be assessed, planned and delivered successfully
- Incidents and problems to be resolved within the service level targets
- Service levels and warranties to be delivered
- Better adherence to standards, legal and regulatory obligations (less non-conformances)
- More business opportunities as able to demonstrate control of assets and services
- Changes to be traceable from requirements
- The ability to identify the costs of service.

Service Assets and Configuration Management Principles

Let us now look at the key principles and policies of SACM. The main policy sets out the framework and key principles
against which assets and configurations are developed and maintained.
Typical principles include:
• Ensuring that Asset and Configuration Management operations costs and resources are commensurate with the
potential risks to the services
• The need to deliver corporate governance requirements, e.g., software asset management, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc.
• The need to deliver the capability, resources and service warranties as defined by the service level agreements
and contracts
• The requirement for available, reliable and cost-effective services
• The requirement for clear economic and performance criteria for interventions that reduce costs or optimize
service delivery, e.g., lower maintenance costs
• The application of whole-life cost appraisal methods
• The transformation from ‘find and fix’ reactive maintenance to ‘predict and prevent’ proactive management
• The requirement to maintain adequate asset and configuration information for internal and external stakeholders
• The level of control and requirements for traceability and auditability
• The application of continuous improvement methods to optimize the service levels, assets and configurations
• Provision of accurate asset and configuration information for other business and Service Management processes
• Integration of Asset and Configuration Management with other processes
• Migration to a common asset and CMS architecture
• Level of automation to reduce errors and costs.
Moving on let us look into the concepts of SACM.

Basic Concepts in SACM

Now let's discuss some of the basic concepts of the process.
 • Service Asset: Any resource or capability that could contribute to the delivery of a service. Examples of service
assets include a virtual or a physical server, a software license, a piece of information stored in a service
management system, or some knowledge in the head of a senior manager.
• Configuration Item (CI): A configuration item (CI) is a service asset that needs to be managed in order to deliver
an IT service. Examples of CIs include Service lifecycle CIs, Service CIs, Organization CIs, Internal and external
CIs or Interface CIs.
• Configuration Record: A Set of attributes and relationships about a CI. Configuration records are stored in a
configuration management database (CMDB) and managed with a configuration management system (CMS). It is
important to note that CIs are not stored in a CMDB; configuration records describe CIs that are stored in the
CMDB.
• Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS): A Set of tools and databases that are used to manage
knowledge, information, and data. Many configuration items are available in the form of knowledge or information,
and these are typically stored in the SKMS – for example, a service level agreement(SLA), a report template or a
definitive media library. The SACM process is not responsible for managing the SKMS. Some items in the SKMS
will be owned and managed by the SACM process, but others will be owned and managed by other processes or
people.
Let us now move on to discuss configuration management starting with a configuration model in the next section.
Wish to know more about ITIL Intermediate RCV? Consider watching our Course Preview here!