3.

4 SERVICE SUPPORT PROCESS

(activities that are more or less performed daily)
 Service Desk
• Service Delivery and Service Support processes are
linked together through the Service Desk:
– To provide a single point of contact between users
and IT service department of IT organization
– Focuses on activities
• Rapid restoration of normal service operation
to users http://simpleicon.com/wp-content/uploads/video-camera-1.png

• Handling incidents & Requests

• Provides interface for other IT Service
Management Process
 Service Support Process
• As the core of ITSM, IT Service Support
ensures that the customer has appropriate
services to support business function.
• Therefore, many organizations adopt best
practices and tools in order to import IT
Service Support normative and efficiency, and
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has been the
international effectively standard.
http://graphichive.net/uploaded/fordesigner/1313322481.jpg
 How many hardware?
How many software?
How many people/user?
How many
documentation?
A LOT OF ITEMS TO BE CONFIGURED!!!
 Configuration Management
• The process which identifies and defines
configuration items (CI) in a system.
• Involves:
– Monitoring status of these items
– Processing requests for change (RFC) and verifying
http://simpleicon.com/wp-content/uploads/video-came

the completeness and correctness of CI

– Provides logical model of IT infra (hware, sware,
and associated documentation)
Logical Model of IT Infrastructure
Configuration Management Flow Diagram
Process
Unmanaged IT
Components

Establish CI

Access CI

Change CI

Review CI
Process flow diagram of
configuration management by
Microsoft Operation Framework
CI Retired (MOF)
 Configuration Terms
Configuration Item (CI)
• Basic structural unit of a configuration management system
• Size, type and complexity may vary
• Can be composed from another CIs
• E.g. Individual requirements document, software , plan, models and people
Configuration Item’s attributes
• Information of CI is stored in database in the form of various attribute
• E.g. Name of item , location and description of detailed configuration setting and
associated options
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
• Contains all CIs important relationship among them
• Database may include category , copy and serial number , version , model,
historical information of item
Configuration Manager
• Managing activities of the configuration management process of an IT organization
• Roles of configuration manager includes : Staff , assignment of responsibilities to
staff and their training
 Example of
Configuration Item
Configuration Item (CI)
Configuration Item’s attributes
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
 4.1 Function of Configuration
Management

Functions
Identify CI for entry into CMDB
Verification of CMDB accuracy
Planning, designing and managing CMDB
Finding relationship among CI
Advantages Of Configuration Management
Managing IT Components and Services

Efficient Problem Solving

Improved Security

More Rapid Processing of Changes

Better Support for Other Processes

Compliance with Legal Requirements

Cost Of Configuration Management

Expenditure Time
People
• Hardware • Amount of time
• Size of
• Software taken
organization
• Configuration • Time for
• License Fee • Level of detail of implementation
the CMDB
• Maintenance and integration
Relationship Of Configuration Management
With CMDB And Other Processes
• Service Level Management
• Financial Management
• ITSCM
• Capacity Management
• Availability Management
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
• Release Management
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3xI97i
1kkE

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT - Learn and Gain

 What is Incident?
• An event or problem which causes or may cause interruption
or reduction in quality of service to the customer or
organization.
• Goal of IM:
– To restore normal service operations ASAP – at cost
effective price
• Maintains continuity of the service level and underlying
service desk function
• Inputs to IM comes from – customer, users, or originate from
management information or detection system.
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cem?topic=p
olicies-example-setting-incident-priority
 What is Incident? (Cont)
• An event in any observable occurrence in a system or
network.
• Events include a user connecting to a file, a server
receiving a request for a Web page, a user sending
electronic mail, and a firewall blocking a connection
attempt.
• Adverse events are events with a negative
consequence, such as system crashes, network packet
floods, unauthorized use of system privileges,
unauthorized access to sensitive data, and execution
of malicious code that destroys data.
 Types of Incidents related with IT
• Denial of Service - An attacker directs hundreds of external compromised
workstations to send as many ping requests as possible to a business
network, swamping the system.
• Malicious Code - A worm is able to quickly infect several hundred
workstations within an organization by taking advantage of a
vulnerability that is present in many of the company’s unpatched
computers.
• Unauthorized Access - An attacker runs a piece of “evil” software to gain
access to a server’s password file. The attacker then obtains
unauthorized administrator-level access to a system and the sensitive
data it contains, either stealing the data for future use or blackmailing
the firm for its return.
• Inappropriate Usage – An employee provides illegal copies of software
to others through peer-to-peer file sharing services, accesses
pornographic or hate-based websites or threatens another person
through email.
 Examples of critical incidents in the
workplace:
• Suicide
• Homicide
• Robbery
• Assault
• Threats of violence
• Worksite accidents
• Industrial and natural disasters
• Organizational changes like restructuring or
reductions in force
 Incident Vs Accident
• Incident can refer to any event – big or small, good or bad,
intentional or unintentional. A bank robbery, a funny or
controversial situation, an argument between celebrities, etc. –
all can be described as incidents.
• An accident is a bad event caused by error or by chance.
• Accidents are always unintentional, and they usually result in
some damage or injury.
• A car crash is one example of an accident. If some equipment
malfunctions in a factory and injures the workers, that is also an
accident.
• Examples of very minor accidents are when you step on
someone’s foot or spill your coffee on someone else. You didn’t
want or plan to do it.
• All accidents can ALSO be described as incidents – but NOT all
incidents are accidents.
INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS
http://findicons.com/files/icons/808/on_stage/128/video.png
 IM Major Activities/Process:
• Detect incident and recording.
• Classify incidents and initial support
• Investigate and diagnose incident
• Resolution & recovery
• Incident closure
• Incident ownership, monitoring, tracking and communication
• Prioritize incidents based upon impact and urgency
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/com
https://www.bmc.com/blogs/impact-
urgency-priority/
 Advantages
• Result of IM will decrease the down time of a user
• Using IM for timely resolution of incidents results in reduced
business impact and increase faith in IT organization
• Reduction of incident may improve quality of IT service
• It is a pro-active problem solution. It makes IT organization more
effective as it decrease the incidents
• Provides improved user and customer satisfaction with better
utilization of support resources
• Provides better understanding of the impacts of the incidents on
SLA targets and allows improved prioritization.
• Provides accurate information on the incidents and eliminates
“lost” incident and service request.
• Supplies increased availability of management information.
What happen if the company does not
implement IM?
• Lack of responsibility
• Improper use of specialized personnel
• More cost
Incident Management
Advantages Of Incident Management

Decrease in down time of a user

Improves quality of the IT service

Makes an IT organisation more effective

Cost Of Incident Management
Initial Implementation Cost:
1. Defining and communicating the processes and the
procedures
2. Training and instructing personnel.
3. Selection and purchase of tools (IMS by Solarwinds, Precision
etc).

Running Cost:
➢ Associated with the personnel and use of the tools.
➢ Depend greatly with incident management structure.
➢ Cost can be reduced by reusing the existing resources.
Relationship Of Incident Management With
Other Processes
• Service Desk
• Service Level Management
• ITSCM (Continuity)
• Capacity Management
• Availability Management
• Configuration Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
Relationship Of Incident Management With
Other Processes

Configuration Management:
▪ Provide and check caller details.
▪ Provide information on CIs.
▪ Classify incidents by pointing out services.
▪ Identify relationship and mutual dependencies between CIs.
▪ Recognise identical or similar CIs comparison purposes.
▪ Find out alternative routes and effective workarounds.
▪ Record changes to configuration items caused by RFCs.
Relationship Of Incident Management With
Other Processes

Problem Management:
Provide to problem management the information required to identify
the existence of underlying problems. Problem management keep the
information regarding existing problems along with known solution.
So, it can be use by incident management to provide quicker
resolution.
Relationship Of Incident Management With
Other Processes

Change Management
Helps in decreasing the amount of changes that have to be backed out
and ensures that the backed out plans are properly documented.
Provide to incident management important information on new
changes, the configuration and reasons.
Relationship Of Incident Management With
Other Processes

Release Management
Plays important role in coordinating and managing release. Release
management provide effective planning, testing and coordination
mechanism to ensure release can be rolled out with minimal incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpWm
4gy-uQo
 What is Problem?
• a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome
or harmful and needing to be dealt with and
overcome.
http://www.graphicsfuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/video-clapperboard-512x512.png
 What is Problem Management?
• Responsible for ensuring that all possible problems and
known errors affecting the IT infra are identified and recorded
properly.
• Assists in investigating and resolving the underlying root
causes of incidents and preventing the similar incidents to
reoccur.
• Problems may sometimes be identified because of multiple
Incidents that exhibit common symptoms.
• Problems can also be identified from a single significant
Incident, indicative of a single error, for which the cause is
unknown.
• Occasionally problems will be identified well before any
related Incidents occur.
 Problem Management
3 PHASES OF
CAUSE
INVESTIGATION
Presumptive Cause (based on
presumption or probability) : Root Cause:
Maybe obvious at the beginning of the The most basic reason for a problem,
investigation or may emerge in the data which, if corrected will prevent
collection process. These are recurrence of that problem.
hypotheses that would explain the Eg. Replaced battery in your TV remote
effects of the problem, but they need Replace light bulb for a lamp
validation. Example: the problem is
cause by a computer virus or not

Contributing Cause/ Critical Causal Factor:

Contributing cause(s), when viewed alone, would not have caused the problem, but they
are important enough to be recognized as needing corrective action to improve the
quality of the process or product. (Contributing causes include secondary causes and
possible causes.)
“Presumptive Cause” Scenario
 “Presumptive Cause” Scenario
• A Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is a critical
error that can be caused by viruses or spyware
or incompatible software, or hardware failures
(motherboard maybe?).
 Why determine Root Cause?
• Prevent problems from recurring
• Reduce possible injury to personnel
• Reduce rework and scrap
• Increase competitiveness
• Promote happy customers and
stakeholders
• Ultimately, reduce cost and save money
 Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis is an in-depth process
or technique for identifying the most basic
factor(s) underlying a variation in
performance (problem).

• Focus is on systems and processes

• Focus is not on individuals
 “Root Cause” Scenario
It was 5 p.m. I (Mary) was frying chicken. My friend Jane stopped by
on her way home from the doctor, and she was very upset. I invited
her into the living room so we could talk. After about 10 minutes, the
smoke detector near the kitchen came on. I ran into the kitchen and
found a fire on the stove. I reached for the fire extinguisher and
pulled the plug. Nothing happened. The fire extinguisher was not
charged. In desperation, I threw water on the fire. The fire spread
throughout the kitchen. I called the fire department, but the kitchen
was destroyed. The fire department arrived in time to save the rest
of the house.

So, what are the root causes that lead to this incident?
 Root Cause Analysis
https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/root-cause-analysis/

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/root-cause-analysis/

https://hippocmms.iofficecorp.com/blog/root-cause-analysis

https://limblecmms.com/blog/root-cause-analysis-rca/
Root Cause Summary Table
 “Contributing Cause” Scenario:
Hard Disk Failure
• Physical Damage – Water, heat and shock all pose serious threats to
internal and external hard drives. Both heat and water can cause
significant physical damage to hard drives' electronic parts, which are not
built to withstand either element.
• Logical Failure – This refers to non-physical failure, or in other words,
when damage occurs in a hard drive's file structure or software rather
than the actual hardware. Many factors can contribute to logical failure,
including malware infections, human error and corrupted files.
• Mechanical Failure – While most components of a computer are
electrical, the hard disk is one of the few mechanical parts. Thus, it will
inevitably fail at some point. This type of failure occurs when the read-
write head or other components become faulty as a result of normal wear
and tear.
 Terms in Problem Management

Incident • Fault or disruption

Problem • Error in the IT infrastructure

• When the cause is known and

Known error related to a fault
Major Activities Of Problem Management

• Defining, investigating and examining the

Problem control problems.

• Monitoring and controlling all known errors

Error control and raising request for change

• Generating report on problems and their

Report generation solutions
Process Involved In Problem Management

**
 ** Problem Classification
• Made by an impact analysis
• Determine how serious is the problem
• Determine what are the effects towards service
• Includes of:
– Category (hardware or software problem)
– Impact (towards biz process)
– Urgency (acceptable period on how long can wait for the
solution)
– Priority (decided based on urgency, impact, risk and
resources required)
– Status (problem? or known error? or resolved error etc)
Advantages Of Problem Management
Improved IT Service Quality and Management
Increased user productivity
Increased Support Personnel Productivity
Improved IT service reputation
Improved incident recording

Cost Of Problem Management

Cost of support
o Includes the cost of support and diagnostic tools
Cost of personnel
o Must be considered while estimating the total cost of
problem management.
Relationship With Other Management
 Incident vs Problem
• One nice thing about ITIL is it provides definitions for almost everything in IT
service management. First things first. We need to define these two terms.
• An incident is an unplanned disruption or degradation of service.
• A problem is a cause of one or more incidents.
• Quite often, in operations, these two terms are used interchangeably. This causes
a lot of confusion. Sometimes people will add another term, "issue" to mean the
same thing.
 What is an Incident?
• Based on the definition provided, an incident is something that needs to be resolved immediately. This can
either be through a permanent fix, a workaround or a temporary fix.
• An example of an incident would be a server crash which causes a disruption in the business process. If a
server is used only during office hours, a crash after office hours is, strictly speaking based on the
definition, not yet an incident since the no service was affected.
• It becomes an incident only when the outage extends to the hours of use.
• If a disruption is planned, for example, a scheduled maintenance, this is not an incident. The outage
should not be counted as part of the unavailability. If the scheduled outage exceeds the planned schedule,
then the over time for the outage becomes an incident.
• If an incident requires changes the emergency change process is normally followed, specially if the service
level is critical.
 What is a Problem?
• Problems however are not incidents. An incident can raise a problem, specially if
there is a high possibility that the incident might happen again. In the case of a
server crash after office hours, the crash is a problem. This is a high priority
problem because if this problem is not resolved, this will become an incident.
• An incident does not become a problem. A problem may be raised because of an
incident and as we've seen in the previous example, a problem may cause an
incident.
• You may raise a problem ticket and refer it to an incident.
• The root cause of the problem may be known or not known. In any case, the
following actions may be taken for problems:
• Do nothing - if the problem does not affect the business, or if the cost of fixing the
problem exceeds its benefits
• Deploy work around if the determination of root cause exceeds the benefits.
• Determine root cause and fix the problem if the benefit is worth it.
 Incident vs Problem
• To illustrate this further, let's take a practical example.
• You are driving your car and you got a flat tire. This is an incident because
it disrupted the service - transportation to a destination. You fix this by
either changing the tire yourself or calling road-side assistance. Once the
tire has been changed, the incident is closed. But now, you have a problem
- you are running on your spare tire.
• To fix the problem, you need to repair the flat tire and put it back.
• Another example would be that you are driving on an almost bald tire.
This is a problem. If you continue to drive your car with that bald tire, you
are bound to have an incident.
• Normally, an incident needs to be fixed within a specific timeline.
Problems can be left indefinitely until an incident happens
 Questions to Help Identify
Incident and Problem
• I work in a maintenance shop and quite often, there is much discussion on
whether something is an incident or a problem. There is only one question
to ask: Should this be fixed now. Of course, when you talk to some people,
they will always say yes. So to help me further, I ask the following
questions:
• Is the service unusable?
• Is there a degradation of the service?
• Is the business process affected greatly?
• Are service levels affected?
• If you answer yes to one of these questions, it is probably an incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-
UVX3GjY34
http://icons.iconarchive.com/icons/hadezign/hobbies/256/Movies-icon.png
http://icons.iconarchive.com/icons/hadezign/hobbies/256/Movies-icon.png
 What is Change?
• Is a movement out of a current state (how things are today), through
a transition state and to a future state (how things will be done).
• Change happens all around us - at home, in our community and at work.
Changes can be internally motivated or externally motivated. (Eg: Change
from i-learn to u-future)
• The change can be a dramatic departure from what we know or it can be
minor.
• Changes can be anticipated or unexpected. But in all cases,
the fundamental nature of change is a movement from the current state
through a transition state to a future state.
 Did you make any changes in your
life?
• Handphone? → From Nokia 3310 to iPhone 15 Pro Max

• Life status? → (Single to married)

• Colour of your lipstick?

• House? → Apartment to bungalow
• Car? → Axia to Merc
 What is Change Management?
• Is necessary because organizational change - moving from an organizational
current state to an organizational future state - ultimately impacts how people do
their jobs (likely many people).
• The newly documented and managed processes are executed by someone.
• The new integrated database will be accessed by someone.
• Employees in the newly merged organization must work differently.
• The new product will impact how someone does their job.
• While change is about moving to a future state, change management is
about supporting individual employees impacted by the change through their
own transitions - from their own current state to their own future state that has
been created by the project or initiative.
http://www.screencastsonline.com/public_images/01-new/SCOM0341-summary-icon-100x100.png
 Change Management
Process involved in change management
 • A person that request a change (RFC)
Change Initiator

• All sources of changes submit RFCs are adequately

Change Request recorded

• Classify the priority and the category of the change

Change classification • Priority (Low, Normal, High, Highest)
• Categories (Minor, Substantial, Major)

• Change must be authorized

Change Authorization • Emergency, Standard, Minor
• All changes must be approved by Change Advisory Board
(CAB)

• Necessary step to plan the change and develop the

Change Deployment
deliverables of change.

• Review process must be conducted to establish whether the

Change Review change had desired effect and has meet the requirement
Advantages Of Change Management
Reduced impact
Better cost Estimation
Better Management information
Improved Personnel Productivity
Increased Ability to Accommodate Changes

Cost Of Change Management

Personnel cost
o Includes cost for coordinating the changes. Additional personnel
cost may be incurred in fulfilling the change manager task.
Tool cost
o Includes cost for hardware and software required to implement
change management.
Relationship With Other Process
Relationship With Other Process (Cont.)
Service level management
o determining impact of the changes on services and business processes

IT service continuity management

o prevention and recovery need to be monitored since changes can
make plan unworkable

Capacity management
o assists change management. Proposes enhancement and changes in
form of RFCs to improve use of existing capacity.

Availability management
o estimating the potential impact of changes as the changes might effect
the availability of service.

Configuration management
o changes are recorded under the control of configuration management.
Relationship With Other Process (Cont.)
Relationship With Other Process (Cont.)
Incident management
o Has 2 sided relationship with change management.
Incident management to counteract the effect of an
incident while on the other hand, the implementation of
changes could still lead to errors and incidents even
though enough precautions have been taken
Problem management
o Relationship between change management and problem
management is similar to that between change
management and incident management.
Release management
o Change result in the development and distribution of a
new set of application or technical infrastructure which are
subject to release management disciplines.
http://icons.iconarchive.com/icons/hadezign/hobbies/256/Movies-icon.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwLH
vY7Ohg
 What is Release?
• Is the distribution of the final version of an
application.
• A software release may be either public or
private and generally constitutes the initial
generation of a new or upgraded application.
• A release is preceded by the distribution
of alpha and then beta versions of the
software.
 What is Release Management?
Performs planning, coordination and implementation(or arranging
for implementation) or software and hardware
It is accountable for designing and implementing efficient
procedures for the distribution and installation of changes to IT
systems.
Manages to release of software into the live environment and its
distribution to remote locations
Responsible for communication with the users and for considering
their expectations during the planning and rollout of new release
Release management is the part of the software management
process dealing with development, testing, deployment and
support of software releases to the end user. The team involved in
this process is referred to as the release management team.
Process Involved In Release Management

Release planning
Release building
Acceptance testing
Release preparation
Release deployment
 Advantages Of Release Management

Minimized errors and risks

Involvement of users in testing
Ensures high quality of releases
Puts checks on illegal software usage
Helps in better planning
Helps in tracking changes
 Cost Of Release Management

Release management is an important part of service support

process. Its implemented costs includes following main
components.
Personnel cost
o Cost that incurred for the staff used in the
implementations of release management.
Storage cost
o Storage cost includes cost for Definitive Software Library
and Definitive Hardware Store, building and testing and
distribution environments.
Tools cost
o Includes the cost of software tools and required hardware
 Relationship With Other Processes

Service level management

o Provides infrastructure hardware with standard software developed
in-house.

Configuration management
o Recording the available software and hardware version in the CMDB
as basic configuration. The software added to the DSL and hardware for
the DHS is recorded in the CMDB at an agreed level of detail

Change management
o Ensure adequate testing of the release. Describes the procedures to
ensure the changes are authorized.
Relationship With Other Processes (Cont.)