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IT Essentials — Computer Operations

TOPIC 3: SERVICE MANAGEMENT

Service Management

Service management is a critical component of computer operations. Service management ensures
assets are properly tracked and managed throughout their life cycle. The effectiveness of service
management has a direct correlation to the protection of data and information assets.

Asset, configuration, change, problem, incident, and knowledge management typically fall under
service management. Some organizations also include capacity, continuity, and project
management.

Examples of Service Management

According to The IIA’s GTAG “Information Technology Outsourcing, 2nd Edition,” service
management includes:
 Configuration and Change Management.
 Capacity Management.
 Continuity Management.
 Service Level Agreement (SLA) management.
 Incident and Problem Management.
 IT Program/Project Management.
 Knowledge Management.

Configuration Management

Within configuration management, components of infrastructure and services are referred to as
configuration items, which are maintained in a database, referred to as the configuration
management database (CMDB).
 This is more than just an asset register; it contains information that relates to the
maintenance, movement, and problems experienced with the configuration items, along
with any relationships between configuration items and their associated supporting data
elements (e.g., people and organizations).
 A configuration management database (CMDB) can be a single physical database or comprise
multiple physical databases.

Expectations of Configuration Management

According to The IIA’s GTAG “Information Technology Outsourcing, 2nd Edition,” a well-maintained
configuration management database (CMDB) should be able to:
 Provide accurate configuration items data (including dependencies and relationships) to
other information technology infrastructure libraries (ITIL) and operational processes in a
central logical database.
 Account for all configuration items and their controlled attributes.

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