Bridging the Gap: Fixing the problem of ITSM and ITAM alignment

Building Organizational SuccessBuilding Organizational Success

Bridging the Gap

Fixing the problem of ITSMand ITAM alignment

Building Organizational SuccessBuilding Organizational Success 2

Agenda

• The evolution of ITAM and ITSM• ITAM’s inconsistent position in IT organisations• The current evolution of corporate IT• Challenges with lack of alignment• How ITAM can engage with today’s ITSM• Case study


How did we get here?

IT Asset Management

• Developed regionally in the 1980s and 1990s

• Frequently driven by regulatory or tax obligations (e.g. In France)

• Key sponsor frequently Finance department.

• Built around procurement and/or request fulfilment teams

• Asset-niche focused toolset vendors: Peregrine, StaffAndLine, etc

IT Service Management

• ITIL emerged from the UK Civil Service through early-mid 1990s.

• ITSM platorms proliferated in enterprise, e.g. Remedy

• Maturity path built around CMDB, with little focus on asset financials and lifecycle


ITAM’s Business Position

Within IT Service Management

Other

Within Finance

Direct report to CIO/CXO

Source: The ITAM Review survey: “Where Does ITAM Sit In The Business?, Nov 2011 http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/11/25/itam-integrated-itsm/

http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/11/25/itam-integrated-itsm/


Where are we today?

• Limited engagement between practitioner communities

• Separate conferences, trade groups, publication

• IT under increased demands to show business benefit and cost effectiveness

• Rapidly evolving IT technology landscape


Evolving corporate IT

Consumerizethe front-end

Industrializethe back end

Manage Services


Key IT Trends Shaping ITAM

1980s to mid 2000s...• The PC revolution• Physical devices• Install-based licensing

Mid 2000s to present...• Virtualization• Capacity-based licensing• Outsourcing

2014...• Cloud infrastructure and applications• Mass mobility & BYOD• Usage-based licensing• Multi-sourced IT

?

2015-2020• Hybrid Cloud• The Internet of Things• Consumerisation• IT as a dynamic Service Broker


The rising cost of IT

'00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13$0

$50

$100

$150

$200

$250

SERVER SPENDING

POWER + COOLING

SERVER MANAGEMENT

(PHYSICAL)

SERVER MANAGEMENT

(VIRTUAL)

Source: U.S. and Worldwide Service Shipments and Installed Base, 1996-2011, Dec, 2012, IDC


Alignment is vital for effective IT management

• ITSM can’t fully understand the cost of providing a service without understanding the assets on which the service depends.

• Asset Management can’t optimise spending without understanding what services the assets underpin.


ITIL version 2 – “Asset”

“Literally, a valuable person or thing that is ‘owned’”

Assets will often appear on a balance sheet as items to be set against an

organization’s liabilities.


ITIL version 3 – “Service Asset”

“Any Capability or Resource of a Service Provider”

The ability of an Organization, person, Process, Application,

Configuration Item or IT Service to carry out an Activity.

Capabilities are intangible Assets of an Organization

A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money

or anything else that might help to deliver an IT Service.

Resources are considered to be Assets of an Organization


Aligning with the IT service blueprint

ServiceOptions

Infrastructure Models

ApplicationModel

Offering


Aligning with the IT service blueprint

• Asset information is a fundamental building block of the service

Level Assets Cost type Cost

Application Server Bronze Single Amazon Cloud VM

Opex $25 per month

Silver 4 private cloud VMs, 8 vCPUs, 16GB RAM

Opex $200 per month

Gold 4 dedicated servers, 8 CPUs, 24GB RAM

Capex $8000 per unit


Without ITAM, the service is not fully understood

• Purchase or instantiation costs• Associated contracts • Software license implications• Geographical resilience


Supplier Assets in the infrastructure

• Many supplier assets may need to come under Asset Management– Assets deployed on company site, particularly in

mixed environments– Supplier assets allocated to business users– Supplier assets running licensed company software

• At end of contract, need up-to-date view of on-site supplier assets and their impact.

Building Organizational SuccessBuilding Organizational Success

Aligning multi-sourced IT service provision with Asset data

Line of Business, partners, customers

CUSTO

MER VIEW

Customer

IT, HR, Facilities

Catalog SolutionSU

PPLIER VIEW

Service Org Internal Provider

+ + +ITSM Platform New Assets instantiated

Existing Assets allocated

External ITSM Platform

External Provider

+ + ++

Supplier provided Assets

Private supplier assets


Critical to align ITSM and ITAM for full supplier-service understanding

Detailed, holistic view of costs, performance,

trends.

Strategic / Top-Down

IT Asset Management

Operational / Bottom-Up

• Supplier assets• Software licenses• Asset contracts• Warranties, support and

maintenance agreements• Service costs

Supplier Management

• Enterprise licenses• Supply and lease contracts• Master maintenance and service

agreements• Customer and vendor obligations

Strategic / Top-Down

• Mean time between failure• End user-satisfaction• SLA performance

IT Service Management


“The age of the customer”

• IT is striving to be increasingly customer centric – a key objective cited by CIOs for 2014

• Customers expect more choice and autonomy• Cloud services make independent adoption of

IT services much easier• “Bring your own” culture seen as a significant

productivity driver


Cloud service sprawl• Average of 545 cloud services per company in large enterprises.

• Does your business have more cloud services than it needs?

• 70% feel that a fifth or more could be consolidated

48%34%

2010 2013

YES

Skyhigh Networks: Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, Q3 2013


Challenges of Managing Cloud Services

• Visibility – may need to use unorthodox discovery techniques such as web log capture

• “Shadow purchasing” outside IT• Multiple applications doing same tasks• Business expectations

• The Asset Management function is best positioned to effect better control


Case study – the power of aligning ITAM with ITSM

• The organisation is a large medical research charity in the UK

• They are directly involved in frontline scientific research

• Medical research has significant and specialist IT requirements

• The IT organisation needs to provide excellent capabilities in a cost-pressured environment



• A key requirement is Big Data• This requires specialist equipment• External cloud is not an option, primarily due to

the volume of data transfer

“The problem we’d have for active data is the access speed: A single genome is 100Gb. Imagine downloading that from Google!”



• They need specialist data storage and retrieval equipment.

• Data growth is rapid.• A frequent refresh cycle is expected.

“We buy kit that’ll fit our needs, front-loaded with three years support costs. After that time, you’re invariably needing bigger, better, faster”



• The organisation spotted an opportunity to repurpose, rather than dispose of, the specialist hardware.

“We used the old system for second tier data: desktop backups, old data”



• This required good understanding of upcoming requirements of two very different user groups

• A much cheaper support supplier was found for the older equipment: Backup does not need “gold-standard” support.

• Significant savings were made in not purchasing new equipment for PC backups.



The result:


Summary

• IT is increasingly expected to demonstrate cost effectiveness and value to the business

• There is wide adoption of service orientation and multi-sourcing

• The range of assets in the organisation is rapidly broadening

• Without effective alignment of ITSM and ITAM, it is not possible to give the CIO a complete picture.


Asset can align its internal maturity evolution with ITSM

What is owned? Where is it?Who is it assigned to?How much did we spend on it?

ITFocused

Business Focused

Equipment Focused

ITAM Maturity

What does it support?How can we control changes?How can we discover more?

What is its role in our key services?How can we optimize its use?


Summary

• IT is increasingly expected to demonstrate cost effectiveness and value to the business

• There is wide adoption of service orientation and multi-sourcing

• The range of assets in the organisation is rapidly broadening

• Without effective alignment of ITSM and ITAM, it is not possible to give the CIO a complete picture.


The Asset Manager is ideally placed…

• …to understand how the infrastructure supports the business of IT.

• …to work with Service owners and designers, to understand how IT assets underpin IT services

• ...to work cross-functionally with ITSM teams, to identify opportunities that might otherwise be missed

• ...to provide expert consultancy on the commercial and compliance impact of service design decisions

• …to be a key trusted source of information to the CIO


Any Questions?

@JonHall_

Bridging the Gap: Fixing the problem of ITSM and ITAM alignment

Technology

Transcript of Bridging the Gap: Fixing the problem of ITSM and ITAM alignment