February 23, 2020 27 min read

ITIL ITIL4 Practice Guides

Capacity and performance

management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
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This document provides practical guidance for the capacity and performance
management practice.

Table of Contents
1. About this document

2. General information

3. Value Streams and processes

4. Organizations and people

5. Information and technology

6. Partners and suppliers

7. Important reminder
8. Acknowledgements

1. About this document

It is split into five main sections, covering:

general information about the practice

the practice’s processes and activities and their roles in the service value chain

the organizations and people involved in the practice

the information and technology supporting the practice

considerations for partners and suppliers for the practice.

1.1 ITIL® 4 qualification scheme

Selected content from this document is examinable as a part of the following syllabus:

ITIL Specialist High-velocity IT.

Please refer to the relevant syllabus document for details.

2. General information

2.1 Purpose and description

Key message

The purpose of the capacity and performance management practice is to ensure

that services achieve the agreed and expected levels of performance and satisfy
current and future demand in a cost-effective way.
The capacity and performance management practice usually covers service performance
and the performance of the resources which support services, such as infrastructure,
applications, and third-party services. In many organizations, this practice also covers the
capacity and performance of staff, especially when staff are directly involved in service
transactions.

This practice ensures that the requirements for the capacity and performance of services
and resources are understood and fulfilled efficiently, in line with the organization’s
strategy and commitments. To achieve this, the practice is applied throughout the
organization’s product and service lifecycle, from ideation to operations. This practice is
extremely important when products and services are planned and designed; decisions
made at these stages will affect performance-level and other constraints, as well as the
organization’s ability to monitor and manage these aspects.

Capacity and performance are closely connected to service availability, continuity,

information security, and the respective practices. These practices often address the
same characteristics of CIs and services but focus on different aspects of their quality.
Sharing resources across all four dimensions of service management can be significantly
beneficial in these areas. However, a clear separation of responsibilities is required in
some areas, such as externally regulated areas like service continuity and information
security.

2.2 Terms and concepts

Definition: Performance

A measure of what is achieved or delivered by a system, person, team, practice, or

service.

Service performance is usually associated with the rate of service transactions and the
time needed to fulfil service transactions at a given level of demand. Service performance
depends on service capacity; the maximum throughput that a configuration item (CI) or
service can deliver. The specific metrics that are used will depend on the technology and
business nature of the service or CI.

For consumers, performance is an important service characteristic, and therefore it is a

topic for negotiation, agreement, monitoring, and reporting. These activities involve
multiple practices (including the business analysis, relationship management, service
design, service level management (SLM), and measurement and reporting practices, and
others). The capacity and performance management practice is used in conjunction with
these to ensure that capacity and performance are sufficiently and consistently
addressed.

Service performance is a complex characteristic. Analysing service performance is only

possible with multiple measurements and agreements about how those measurements
should be understood. Agreements should depend on the service architecture,
importance of certain transactions and supporting components, quality criteria, and
other parameters. Moreover, performance from the perspective of a user or a group of
users can be different from the performance measured from the provider’s or customer’s
perspectives. For example, service transaction delays that are experienced by 2.5% of
users will be perceived by the 2.5% as poor performance, but the agreed performance
targets might still be being met.

The capacity and performance management practice should ensure a transparent,

consistent, and practical understanding of capacity and performance (expected, agreed,
designed, and actual) among all relevant parties.

When services are provided to thousands or millions of people, there is usually no single
generic agreement on the service performance with customers. However, overall service
performance is critical for the service provider.

2.3 Scope
The capacity and performance management practice ensures that services deliver
agreed levels of performance to meet the needs of customers and users in a cost-
effective way. To achieve this, the capacity and performance management practice
includes the definition, measurement, analysis, and improvement of the capacity and
performance of services, products, and components. It is a centre of expertise for
capacity-related matters and supports other service management practices.

The scope of the capacity and performance management is very broad. Many practices
directly or indirectly contribute to service performance. Table 2.1 lists activities which are
closely related to capacity and performance management. It is important to remember
that ITIL practices are merely collections of tools to use in the context of value streams
and should be combined as necessary depending on the specific organizational, service,
and customer contexts.

Table 2.1 Activities related to the capacity and

performance management practice described in other
practice guides
Activity Practice guide

Negotiating and agreeing the customer requirements SLM

for capacity and performance

Designing capacity and performance controls as a part of Service design

the service model

Aligning capacity and performance controls with the Architecture management

business architecture

Identifying the risks associated with capacity and Risk management

performance

Analysing the impacts of changes on capacity and Change enablement

performance targets

Monitoring the capacity and performance of services Monitoring and event

management

Justifying new capacity and performance controls Portfolio management

Implementing risk mitigation measures and changing Project management,

the service infrastructure to ensure resilience change enablement

Testing the capacity and performance controls during Service validation and
service transition testing

Reacting to events which might affect the organization’s Incident management

ability to meet capacity and performance targets
Managing capacity and performance incidents
 Managing and implementing improvements related to Continual improvement
capacity and performance on an ongoing basis

2.4 Practice success factors

Definition: Practice success factor

A complex functional component of a practice that is required for the practice to fulfil
its purpose.

A practice success factor (PSF) is more than a task or activity, as it includes components
from all four dimensions of service management. The nature of the activities and
resources of PSFs within a practice may differ, but together they ensure that the practice
is effective.

The capacity and performance management practice includes the following PSFs:

identifying service capacity and performance requirements

measuring, assessing, and reporting service performance and capacity

treating service performance and capacity risks.

2.4.1 Identifying service capacity and performance

requirements
Identifying service capacity and performance requirements includes:

Understanding customer requirements for service performance The business

analysis and SLM practices are normally used to communicate with customers in
order to understand their performance and capacity requirements for IT services and
negotiate the service level requirements (SLRs). The capacity and performance
management practice supports and inputs into the SLM, business analysis, and
service design practices. Capacity and performance management can be crucial for
 optimizing a service design to meet increasing capacity demands while deferring an
increase in costs.

Determining performance and capacity criteriaThe line between high and low
performance should be clearly defined. The following factors should be considered
when determining service performance criteria:

service actions/functionality/vital business functions; service performance is

defined by critical service actions

acceptable delays in executing service transactions, which should not be

counted as service degradation; and unacceptable degradation, which should
be treated as unavailability

scale factor: service performance degradation generally means that delays are
experienced by significant numbers of users, not individuals.

Choosing the right set of capacity and performance metrics Metrics should reflect
how service degradation may affect the service provider and customers.

2.4.2 Measuring, assessing, and reporting service

capacity and performance
Performance is one of the most essential indicators of service quality, so it is important
that the service provider can measure, assess, and report performance. Reporting
performance in terms of the lead time and the number of transactions per time frame is
widely accepted practice. However, it is important to ensure that the measurements are
understandable from the users’ perspective, as well as from the technical perspective.
For more on defining meaningful metrics for services, readers should refer to the SLM
practice guide.

When defining suitable measurements, it is crucial to reflect the business impacts of

service degradation, rather than the technical performance of the service components.

Two of the most important objectives of the capacity and performance management
practice are to ensure sufficient capacity and performance monitoring and translate
monitoring data into service performance information.

Incident records can be sources of service disruption data. However, it is often difficult to
obtain reliable performance and capacity data based on these, especially for user-
reported incidents, and to align it with the agreed service performance metrics.
More reliable sources of performance and capacity data are infrastructure monitoring
tools. However, although these can work well for measuring resource-provision type
services, it is almost impossible to correctly measure the performance of service
transactions based solely on the infrastructure monitoring data. Tools such as real user
monitoring and business transaction monitoring can help to overcome this issue.

2.4.3 Treating service capacity and performance risks

The capacity and performance management practice is not only about planning and
monitoring capacity and performance. This practice includes defining and managing
controls to manage a wide range of risks that might impact services’ capacity and
performance. For this, it is used in conjunction with the risk management and other risk-
focused practices, such as the availability management, service continuity management,
and information security management practices. Agreed performance controls are
implemented through the service design, software development and management, and
infrastructure and platform management practices.

In the context of risk management, the risk identification, prioritization, and

measurement stages are key to the capacity and performance management practice.

The capacity and performance management practice ensures that risks will be treated
effectively by:

assessing the impacts of components’ capacity and performance on the end-to-end

performance of products and services and identifying related vulnerabilities and
constraints

assessing the impacts of products’ and services’ capacity and performance on the
user and customer experience

designing effective controls and countermeasures to prevent, detect, and mitigate

capacity and performance risks

monitoring and controlling capacity and performance risks on an ongoing basis and
optimizing risk management activities within the scope of the practice.

2.5 Key metrics

The effectiveness and performance of the ITIL practices should be assessed within the
context of the value streams to which each practice contributes. As with the performance
of any tool, the practice’s performance can only be assessed within the context of its
application. However, tools can differ greatly in design and quality, and these differences
define a tool’s potential or capability to be effective when used according to its purpose.
Further guidance on metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other techniques
that can help with this can be found in the measurement and reporting practice guide.

Key metrics for the capacity and performance management practice are mapped to its
PSFs. They can be used as KPIs in the context of value streams in order to assess the
contribution of the practice to the effectiveness and efficiency of those value streams.
Some examples of key metrics are given in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2 Examples of key metrics for the practice

success factors

Practice success factors Key metrics

Identifying service capacity

and performance
Percentage of products and services with capacity
requirements
and performance requirements clearly
documented in SLAs

Percentage of new or changed operational

products and services that match capacity and
performance requirements documented in SLAs

Timely updates on service capacity and

performance requirements and criteria during
major service changes

Measuring, assessing, and

reporting service capacity
Percentage of accepted business cases for new
and performance
components and architecture designs that are in
line with the performance requirements

Reduction in the use of old (unsupported)

components or architecture designs that cause
breached SLAs due to performance issues

Percentage of products and services:

 with defined capacity and performance metrics

whose capacity and performance is monitored

included in service capacity and performance

reports

Percentage of enacted improvement initiatives logged

by the capacity and performance management
practitioners

Treating service capacity and

performance risks
Number of unplanned capacity and performance
upgrades to products, services, and components

Ratio of actual losses to expected losses due to

insufficient capacity and performance of products
or services

The correct aggregation of metrics into complex indicators will make it easier to use the
data for the ongoing management of value streams, and for the periodic assessment and
continual improvement of the capacity and performance management practice. There is
no single best solution. Metrics will be based on the overall service strategy and priorities
of an organization, as well as on the goals of the value streams to which the practice
contributes.

3. Value Streams and processes

3.1 Value stream contribution

Like any other ITIL management practice, the capacity and performance management
practice contributes to multiple value streams. It is important to remember that a value
stream is never formed from a single practice. The capacity and performance
management practice combines with other practices to provide high-quality services to
consumers. The main value chain activities to which the practice contributes are:

deliver and support

 design and transition

improve

obtain/build

plan.

The contribution of the capacity and performance management practice to the service
value chain is shown in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Heat map of the contribution of the capacity and performance
management practice to value chain activities

3.2 Processes
Each practice may include one or more processes and activities that may be necessary to
fulfil the purpose of that practice.

Definition: Process
 A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs. A
process takes one or more defined inputs and turns them into defined outputs.
Processes define the sequence of actions and their dependencies.

The capacity and performance management practice activities form two processes:

establishing capacity and performance control

analysing and improving service capacity and performance.

3.2.1 Establishing capacity and performance control

This process includes the activities listed in Table 3.1 and transforms the inputs onto
outputs.

Table 3.1 Inputs, activities, and outputs of the

establishing capacity and performance control process

Key inputs Activities Key outputs

Business needs Identifying service Identified, agreed, and

capacity and documented service and
Business process performance component
performance, requirements requirements
transaction volumes
and activity patterns Agreeing service Performance and
and forecasts capacity and capacity measurement
performance requirements
Service component requirements
manufacturer Performance and
requirements and Determining capacity baselines,
standards capacity and metrics, alerts,
performance thresholds, and reports
Service monitoring measurement set up in the monitoring
and measurement requirements toolset
 framework Designing capacity Automated scaling and
and performance load balancing controls in
Service reporting metrics and reports place (where applicable)
framework

SLAs

Existing service and

component
performance data

Figure 3.2 shows a workflow diagram of the process.

Figure 3.2 Workflow of the establishing capacity and performance control process

This process may vary, depending on the type of services and service components to
which it is applied. Table 3.2 demonstrates how the activities may vary for a modern
cloud-enabled services and for the first tier of service support staff.

Table 3.2 Activities of the establishing capacity and

performance control process
Activity Cloud IT infrastructure First tier support staff

Identifying Capacity and performance Where user support is essential,

service capacity management practitioners strong consideration must be
and discover performance needs given to the resources needed for
performance based on activity patterns and the service desk team that
requirements transaction volumes. This handles user enquiries.
information may be already
available from the SLM practice Although other practices, such as
as a SLR, or from business case the service desk and workforce
documents. Ongoing reporting and talent management
can also be useful for identifying practices, may manage staff
unmet scaling requirements. planning and measurement, the
capacity and performance
These needs are then compared management practice can
to the technical capacity provide business patterns and
characteristics of various service transaction volumes to those.
components, such as
computing power, storage, end- Capacity practitioners can also
user device input and output deduce the minimum required
capacity, and network staff numbers, skills, and
performance parameters capabilities to enable optimal
(bandwidth, latency, service speed and quality.
connectivity, and so on).

Capacity and performance

practitioners then suggest the
optimal balance of performance
needs, required component
architecture, and efficient
sourcing models (private,
community, public, or hybrid
options).

The output of this activity is a

proposed architecture design
and plans to supply the required
capacity for medium and long-
term cloud infrastructure
designs. This output is supplied
to the service design and to the
SLM practices for cost-benefit
 analysis.

It is important to differentiate
between the above
requirements and short-term
service demand spikes (such as
an increased user flow to a
website following a marketing
campaign) that in a cloud
environment can be detected
and satisfied automatically via
specialized capacity extension
tools, and do not require
thorough analysis.

Agreeing The SLM practice is responsible Capacity and performance can

service capacity for SLA negotiations, including be an important part of SLA
and capacity and performance negotiations. The practice can
performance service quality criteria. Capacity suggest several combinations of
requirements and performance practitioners staff numbers and capabilities
support this activity with service that will enable different levels of
component expertise. The support at a different prices and
important to balance the costs.
cost/benefit ratio and to
internally communicate the This practice can also suggest
price of the service, which can support tool improvement
vary considerably depending on initiatives that would help to
the architecture options for optimize staff numbers, such as
different capacity. self-service interfaces, online
chats, a social media presence,
and so on.

These analytical efforts underpin

SLA negotiations on the service
support criteria.

Determining In order to analyse, report on, Staff performance measurement

capacity and and improve service for the service support is likely to
performance performance, the service be linked to the duration
measurement provider must measure it. Based parameters, such as time to
requirements on the agreed requirements, respond, time to resolve, direct
reporting policy, customer user contact, and so on. The
reporting requirements, and capacity and performance
monitoring tools, an approach management practice is likely to
 for performance monitoring own relevant measurement tools
should be defined. (such as support phone line
monitoring and reporting tools).
Capacity and performance Capacity practitioners will make
management practitioners these metrics available to other
understand that existing cloud practices for managing
orchestration tools can extend personnel performance.
(or reduce) the existing paid-for
capacity based on a set of
internal or external triggers.
Practitioners can design a set of
thresholds and alerts that will
start automated capacity
altering procedures.

Designing This activity focuses on service

capacity and performance metrics and
performance reporting. Practitioners design
metrics and tools to imitate or manually
reports control the service performance
from the consumer perspective,
deeming any technical
indicators (such as the real-time
network throughput) secondary.
Technical indicators only help to
verify the consumer experience
of the service productivity,
responsiveness, storage
capability, and so on.

3.2.2 Analysing and improving service capacity and

performance
This process includes the activities listed in Table 3.3 and transforms the inputs onto
outputs.

Table 3.3 Inputs, activities, and outputs of the analysing

and improving service capacity and performance
process
 Key inputs Activities Key outputs

Capacity and Service capacity and Improvement initiatives

performance performance submitted to the continual
reports and alerts analysis improvement register (CIR)

New service Reporting on service Service design and

designs and capacity and architecture review and
proposed performance recommendations
architectures
Planning and Ongoing communications
Performance- designing service with service design and
related incident and capacity and operational practices
problem records performance
IT budget planning updates
Change schedule

Figure 3.3 shows a workflow diagram of the process.

Figure 3.3 Workflow of the analysing and improving service capacity and
performance process

This process may vary, depending on the type of services and service components to
which it is applied. Table 3.4 demonstrates how the activities may vary for modern cloud-
enabled services and for a first tier of technical support staff.

Table 3.4 Activities of the analysing and improving

service capacity and performance process

Activity Cloud IT infrastructure First tier support staff

Service Cloud orchestration and load Capacity and performance

capacity and balancing toolsets allow for the practitioners can monitor
performance automated adjustment of cloud technology metrics for the service
analysis resources to meet demand. desk staff and raise alerts (with
 However, trend analyses of the service desk practice) where
business activity patterns may deficiencies occur or thresholds
signal that current service are reached; for example, where
architecture may need to be no new user calls are picked up
changed in order to ensure high because the first-tier support staff
performance while avoiding are busy. This could be caused by
excessive costs. a number of things, but the
technology metric is an objective
fact and is worth investigating.

Reporting on Cloud orchestration toolsets, as Based on the automated

service well as cloud provider reporting, monitoring tools (such as a
capacity and can report on many technical support phone line), capacity and
performance indicators. However, the performance practitioners can
performance analysis in a cloud automate basic technology
environment’s central idea is the metrics reporting and provide
focus on customers’ business reports in as-is or aggregated
processes. Technical component forms to the consumers.
reporting may support the
findings, but it should not be
focus of the final report.

Planning and It can be tempting to use the Other practices can request the
designing virtually unlimited scalability of capacity and performance
service computing power in the cloud management practice help with
capacity and to tackle the volatile and specific calculations upon staff
performance growing demand for services. numbers and capabilities, and
However, it may be more with planning for the automation
prudent to alter the underlying of manual support tasks. The
application, middleware, and outputs of these efforts are
load balancing architecture improvement initiatives. For
when the demand hits a certain example, practitioners can
threshold (for example, altering suggest automated diagnostic
the network design to cater to data being harvested from end
users on a newly acquired user devices in order to save time
geographical market). spent on user questionnaires.
Capacity practitioners possess
the necessary expertise to
suggest these optimizations to
avoid the excessive service costs
that are associated with linear
scaling.

4 O i i d l
4. Organizations and people

4.1 Roles, competencies, and responsibilities

The practice guides do not describe the practice management roles such as practice
owner, practice lead, or practice coach. They focus instead on the specialist roles that are
specific to each practice. The structure and naming of each role may differ from
organization to organization, so any roles defined in ITIL should not be treated as
mandatory, or even recommended. Remember, roles are not job titles. One person can
take on multiple roles and one role can be assigned to multiple people.

Roles are described in the context of processes and activities. Each role is characterized
with a competency profile based on the model shown in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Competency codes and profiles

Competency Competency profile (activities and skills)

code

L Leader Decision-making, delegating, overseeing other activities,

providing incentives and motivation, and evaluating outcomes

A Administrator Assigning and prioritizing tasks, record-keeping,

ongoing reporting, and initiating basic improvements

C Coordinator/communicator Coordinating multiple parties,

maintaining communication between stakeholders, and running
awareness campaigns

M Methods and techniques expert Designing and implementing

work techniques, documenting procedures, consulting on
processes, work analysis, and continual improvement

T Technical expert Providing technical (IT) expertise and conducting

expertise-based assignments
Examples of roles that can be involved in capacity and performance management
activities are listed in Table 4.2, together with the associated competency profiles and
specific skills.

Table 4.2 Examples of roles with responsibility for

capacity and performance management activities

Activity Responsible roles Competency Specific skills

profile

Establishing
capacity and
performance
control

Service capacity MT
and performance
Capacity and Excellent analytical skills
analysis
performance
manager Knowledge of methods
and techniques, such as
Service owner Fault-Tree Analysis,
Component Failure
Technical Impact Analysis, and so
expert on

IT quality Familiarity with

manager analytical tools

Good understanding of
the possible business
impacts of service
outages

Reporting on CA
service capacity
Service owner Knowledge of
and performance
agreements and
 Relationship expectations
manager
Understanding of the
Customer consumer context

Communication and
negotiation

Planning and TM
designing service
Capacity and Good understanding of
capacity and
performance resilience options
performance
manager
Awareness of existing
Service controls
designer
Awareness of technology
Technical available on the market
expert
Good understanding the
Architecture possible business
manager impacts of service
outages

Analysing and Analysing and Analysing Analysing and improving

improving improving service and service capacity and
service capacity capacity and improving performance
and performance performance service
capacity and
performance

Identifying CTA
service capacity
Service or Business analysis
and performance
product owner
requirements
Good knowledge of
Relationship business activity
manager patterns, throughputs,
 Service and markets that
designer generate demand

Customer Good knowledge of

service architecture and
configuration

Communication and
coordination

Agreeing service CA
capacity and
Service owner Communication and
performance
negotiation, and ability
requirements
Relationship to advocate for
manager improvements

Customer Good knowledge of

service architecture and
configuration

Determining TM
capacity and
Capacity and Good understanding of
performance
performance monitoring tools and
measurement
manager techniques
requirements

Monitoring tool Awareness of technology

administrator available on the market
for monitoring and event
Monitoring management
and event
manager

Service
designer
 Technical
expert

Designing CM
capacity and
Capacity and Communication and
performance
performance negotiation
metrics and
manager
reports
Report and dashboard
Service owner design skills

Relationship
manager

IT quality
manager

4.2 Organizational structures and teams

It is unusual to see a dedicated organizational structure for the capacity and
performance management practice, although capacity and performance practitioners
may be supported by formal positions and job descriptions. Service capacity is normally
managed by other organizational functions, where roles can be combined depending on
the nature of the services.

Where service providers are responsible for a limited number of services and
components (such as a service integrator function), there can be a capacity and
performance manager. This role is accountable for coordinating practices, functions, and
organizations to ensure cost-efficient service capacity and sufficient levels of service
performance.

Business and technical knowledge is pivotal to the success of this practice, as well as the
service provider’s staff’s ability to plan, monitor, and report on the performance of
services and components.

Managers and practitioners should complement their technical knowledge with

communication and advocating abilities to ensure that capacity concerns and prognoses
are heard, measured, and addressed during service design, negotiations, and operation.

5 I f i d h l
5. Information and technology

5.1 Information exchange

The effectiveness of the capacity and performance management practice is based on the
quality of the information used. This information includes, but is not limited to,
information about:

component-based reports

service-based reports

performance exception reports

performance and workload forecasts

architecture models for different ranges of service demand

vendor-sizing recommendations and models.

This information may take various forms. The key inputs and outputs of the practice are
listed in section 3.

In most cases, the capacity and performance management practice can significantly
benefit from automation. Where this is possible and effective, it may involve the solutions
outlined in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Automation solutions for capacity and

performance management activities

Process activity Means of automation Key functionality Impact on the

effectiveness of
the practice

Establishing
capacity and
performance
control

Service capacity Infrastructure and Collection of system High

and application and service health
performance monitoring and data, processing and
analysis reporting tools, built-in analysis, dashboard
user behaviour and report design and
monitoring tools, presentation
dashboarding and
reporting tools,
advanced analytics
tools

Reporting on Reporting and Report presentation Low to high,

service capacity dashboarding tools, depending on
and service portals and the volume of
performance apps, email and other services and
communication tools, stakeholders who
social media must be reported
to

Planning and Architecture Determining existing Medium

designing management tools, controls and resilience
service capacity CMDB, change measures.
and initiation and control Improvement-related
performance tools changes initiation and
control.

Analysing and Analysing and Analysing and Analysing and

improving improving service improving service improving
service capacity capacity and capacity and service capacity
and performance performance and performance
performance

Identifying Service catalogue, In order to identify Very high

service capacity CMDB, BPM tools, service and
and CMDB, service models, performance vital
performance performance and business functions,
requirements capacity monitoring analysts should have
and management access to information
 tools, and asset about service
management tools components and
service actions.
BPM tools may provide
information about
consumer’s processes
and operations that
are supported by the
service.

Agreeing service Contracting tools and Selection of alternative Low

capacity and service portals options
performance Communication with
requirements the service customer

Determining Reporting and Report and dashboard Low to high,

capacity and dashboarding tools, template design depending on
performance service portals, and the volume of
measurement apps services and
requirements stakeholders who
must be reported
to

Designing Reporting and Report and dashboard Low to high,

capacity and dashboarding tools, template design depending on
performance service portals, and the volume of
metrics and apps services and
reports stakeholders who
must be reported
to

6. Partners and suppliers

Very few services are delivered using only an organization’s own resources. Most, if not all,
depend on other services. These are often provided by third parties (see section 2.4 of ITIL
Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition for a model of a service relationship). Relationships and
dependencies introduced by supporting services are described in the practice guides for
service design, supplier management, and SLM.
As the service integration model becomes common within modern corporate service
consumer environments, the importance of orchestrating the service performance
becomes apparent. Where multiple external service providers are responsible for
different service components, or even for entire service offerings, the end-user
experience is at risk of being overlooked (especially when it comes to such less-tangible
impressions as ‘waiting for the system to unfreeze’). A service integration and
management body should be responsible for maintaining the end-user focus of all
efforts relating to service capacity and performance by multiple service providers.

Incentivizing service providers to communicate performance issues to a centralized (or

user-focused) entity can help to coordinate service integration efforts. This could be a
dedicated capacity and performance manager, service-desk inbox, or any other body.
Whatever it is, analysing how issues affect the end-user experience enables transparency
and rapid recovery. Such an incentive could be to escalate potential issues quickly in
order to limit liability when things go wrong.

Frequently, in multi-vendor IT environments, service providers limit capacity growth

options to linear models only. Businesses, when their user bases expand rapidly, will often
add resources to the same infrastructure in direct proportion to the growing workload.
Modern public cloud offerings that resemble the ‘shopping cart’ experience may
encourage this behaviour. However, other architectural arrangements may be applicable
for operations of a different scale, and can ensure efficient load balancing, optimal
resource utilization, and even increased system reliability.

Capacity management practitioners should have a strong understanding of modern IT

infrastructure architectures. Where appropriate, they should suggest altering designs to
cater for increased or changed demand and ensure cost savings. The service integration
body can then suggest these alternative models to service providers.

Where organizations aim to ensure fast and effective capacity and performance
management, they usually try to agree to close cooperation with their partners and
suppliers, removing formal bureaucratic barriers in communication, collaboration, and
decision-making. All parties in such relationships should aim for mutual transparency
and visibility of changes that may affect the other parties (see the supplier management
practice guide for more information).

7. Important reminder

Most of the content of the practice guides should be taken as a suggestion of areas that
an organization might consider when establishing and nurturing their own practices.
The practice guides are catalogues of topics that organizations might think about, not a
list of answers. When using the practice guides, organizations should always follow the
ITIL guiding principles:
 focus on value

start where you are

progress iteratively with feedback

collaborate and promote visibility

think and work holistically

keep it simple and practical

optimize and automate.

More information on the guiding principles and their application can be found in section
4.3 of ITIL® Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition.

8. Acknowledgements

AXELOS Ltd is grateful to everyone who has contributed to the development of this
guidance. These practice guides incorporate an unprecedented level of enthusiasm and
feedback from across the ITIL community. In particular, AXELOS would like to thank the
following people.

8.1 Authors
Konstantin Naryzhny

8.2 Reviewers
Roman Jouravlev

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