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MOF Executive Overview v3.0
Abstract
ThisMOFExecutive Overview white paper summarizes the content of Microsoft
Operations Framework (MOF) and presents the business value realized by its adoption.MOF describes proven team structures and operational processes and applies best
information technology (IT) practices to improve the efficiency and quality of IT
operations. It has its basis within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), published by theUnited Kingdoms Office of Government Commerce (OGC), and extends ITIL through
the inclusion of guidance and best practices derived from the experience of Microsoft
operations groups, partners, and customers. This white paper explains the business casefor adopting MOF and briefly summarizes the Team Model, Process Model, and Risk
Management Discipline that are its core components. The paper provides a foundation for
understanding the in-depth information provided in companion MOF white papers andguidance documents. To access these other publications, see the MOF Web site at
http://www.microsoft.com/mof.
Top of page
Whats New?
Microsoft Operations Framework version 3.0 represents a significant update to the coreMOF content. This version was developed to make MOF more streamlined and easier to
implement and to align it more closely with ITIL version 2.0 and Microsoft Solutions
Framework version 3.0, among other enhancements. This Executive Overview has beenupdated to highlight the business value realized by adopting MOF and to reduce
redundancy in descriptions of MOF details used in associated documents. The overview
also reflects the recent changes published in MOF version 3.0, including changes to theProcess and Team Models and Risk Management Discipline.
Top of page
Introduction
Microsoft has long recognized the value of industry best practices and standards for IT
operations. In particular, guidance provided through ITIL has been globallyacknowledged as providing a sound basis and de facto standard for IT service
management.
In keeping with ITILs spirit to adopt and adapt, Microsoft has chosen to provide
additional, specific guidance, which is applicable to customers using Microsofttechnologies within their environments. Microsoft created the first version of Microsoft
Operations Framework in 1999. MOF was designed to complement the well-established
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Microsoft Solutions Framework for solution and application development. Together, the
combined frameworks provide guidance throughout the IT life cycle.
Top of page
The Customer Perspective: Operations and the State ofBusiness
Organizations are increasingly dependent on IT to support and enhance the business
processes required to meet their organizational and customer needs. In many cases, ITservices form the basis for the entire business model; in these instances, IT does not
merely support the business it is the business. Yet, despite the importance now
attached to IT, intense competitive and economic pressures on business are oftenreflected through corporate mandates to maintain, or even to decrease, their current IT
budgets. At the same time expectations of IT for quality, innovation, and value continue
to increase. As IT continues to grow in significance to most organizations, it is imperativethat IT groups take a business- and service-oriented approach to operations rather than a
technology-centric one.
IT service management is concerned with delivering and supporting IT services that are
implemented in direct response to the organizations business requirements. While it isessential that an organizations IT servicessupportcore business activities, it is also
increasingly important that these same IT services facilitate change as businesses evolve
and compete in a global marketplace. IT must become a primary stakeholder in thebusiness decision-making process.
Enhancing IT Business Value
In order to establish their credibility and elevate their strategic impact within the
corporate sphere, IT groups must clearly focus on directly supporting the business
objectives of the organization and emphasizing the business value IT provides. IT enables
new ways of doing business and is better managed when considered as an asset to thedevelopment and execution of key business strategies. This requires IT groups to be able
to show how their services make specific, tangible, and critical contributions to achieving
business outcomes. It also requires that IT groups show how they are achieving the levelsof security, efficiency, reliability, and agility that their businesses require.
This approach is more proactive than has been typical in the past. The traditional, perhapslegacy, view of IT has typically been that IT is a significant, potentially strategic
investment, but not one that is expected to drive business value. At best, efficientlymanaged IT operations could be considered to contribute some cost savings to the
organization, but frequently even these benefits cannot be seen or quantified because
there is no mechanism in place to capture the metrics.
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In reality, IT can drive significant value in such non-traditional IT business areas as sales
and customer support, in addition to such traditional IT areas as operational efficiency. In
order to do this, IT groups must embrace a variety of business terminologies, methods,techniques, and concepts that are commonly employed elsewhere in the business world.
Example: MOF and Remote Access Service at Microsoft
One example of how MOF helps drive IT business value was the evolution of Remote
Access Service (RAS) from a non-core, secondary service to a secure, easily usable,highly available, integral component of the Microsoft IT infrastructure. Over a 24-month
period, the Microsoft IT organization undertook a top-to-bottom overhaul of the RAS
infrastructure that included monitoring, alarming, metrics gathering, and the setting ofnew standards for client technologies and applications to access the network. In parallel
to these technology upgrades, Microsoft IT began a phased implementation of MOF to
help manage the upgrade and service improvement projects.
As a result of this technology and service improvement effort, RAS quickly evolved intoa strategic business-enabling service that is used to enhance staff mobility and reduce
business unit costs. The Microsoft IT RAS solution seeks to make the user experience on
a remote access session virtually indistinguishable from a corporate-connected LAN
experience in accessibility, security, and performance. Approximately 8590 percent ofMicrosofts 55,000 workers regularly access the service on a daily basis. According to
Microsoft IT, without a disciplined support model in place across the organization, the
service quality and total cost of ownership goals simply could not be met. MOF hasprovided that level of discipline.
Improving IT Cost Allocation
Without the ability to equate services with costs, it is practically impossible to quantify
IT value to the bottom line. Conversely, exhibiting cost savings can graphicallydemonstrate IT service value. MOF provides a way to capture and present these data.
The table below illustrates a few examples of this concept in other industries. In each
case, costs are allocated to a measurable service task or component.
Table 1
Industry Activity Cost Benefit
Telecom Telephone call cost per minute Ability to build profit margin into customerprice
Automobile Replacement cost of
defective parts
Ability to cost-justify manufacturing process
improvements to remove defects, and toincrease warranty coverage at minimum risk
Consulting Hourly cost per consultant
skill level and per salesagent
Ability to build sales costs into consulting
hourly rate
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Similarly, the table below shows examples of IT service costs and their associated
benefits. These quantified benefits can clearly show the business value realized through
effective operations management.
Table 2
IT Function Activity Cost Benefit
Help desk Cost per incident per user Ability to build help desk staff increases into
project budgets (capital expenditures) basedon estimates of new user/new incident
volumes, thus preventing productivity losses
when users suffer system- or service-relatedwork stoppages and help desk is not
adequately staffed to handle the request
volumes
System
administration
Cost per change type
(major, standard, and soon)
Ability to provide operational cost estimates to
keep applications/systems up-to-date once inproduction
Monitoring Cost per minute/hour ofdowntime per application
Ability to demonstrate value to the bottom lineprovided by problem resolution effectiveness
and by preventative measures
IT must not only translate business requirements into services that meet these
requirements, it must also strive for inclusion up front in the business strategy planning.This ensures that business and IT are aligned from the outset when new initiatives are
established and facilitates IT in guiding business direction on the basis of new technology
as it becomes available. For example, if the business is planning a partnership with
another business, the business strategy would differ based on the business understandingof available business-to-business technology options.
Example: Service Improvement at Microsoft
Microsoft IT is responsible for building, operating, and managing the global Microsoft IT
infrastructure. From this position, Microsoft IT can provide valuable feedback on theapplication and implementation of new Microsoft products to any enterprise business
process. As a result, Microsoft expects Microsoft IT to be its first and best customer.
Microsoft IT is an early adopter of Microsoft products, technologies, and processes, using
the beta releases to provide feedback to improve the quality and functionality of releasedsolutions and products. By implementing and testing new products within the Microsoft
business processes, the business values can be documented to provide prescriptive
guidance and advice to customers. Microsoft IT creates IT Showcase documentation thatdescribes the business scenarios theyve used and provides implementation and
management guidance to ensure that customers can effectively use the new products they
adopt. The guidance and best practices provided by showcasing new products within theMicrosoft IT business processes can help to reduce implementation and deployment costs
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for all customers. As part of its ongoing commitment to utilize Microsoft technologies
and practices, Microsoft IT has made a CIO-level commitment to ensure that all
operations processes are based on MOF. MOF provides improvements in consistency andmaturity for diverse operations processes. In return, Microsoft IT documents both its own
and customers data to improve and enhance prescriptive guidance for future MOF and
product releases.
In late 2002, Microsoft IT conducted a MOF assessment of itsoperations in six of the MOF service management functions
to identify redundant processes and optimize on best
practices, following MOF guidelines to improve processmaturity. Although the assessment demonstrated that
Microsoft IT generally had practices and processes in place
for most common tasks, in many cases they were not well
documented or coordinated. For example, different groups
within the organization had different ways to handle changemanagement, using multiple change management tools.
Microsoft IT has spent the last year running serviceimprovement projects based on the recommendations from
the MOF assessment with dramatic results.
Other Microsoft operations groups, for example MSN and
Microsoft.com, have also embraced MOF principles in structuring and managing theiroperations. These relationships between Microsoft operations groups and the MOF
development group have greatly assisted in ongoing MOF development, through the
ability to rapidly evaluate and capture feedback relating to MOF guidance. As Microsoft
rolls out next generation infrastructure for in-house beta testing prior to release, MOFguidance to deploy, operate, support, and optimize that infrastructure is developed in
parallel.
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Enhancing Your Organization with MOF
The IT Life Cycle and Microsoft Frameworks
Within any organization, the IT services and the applications and infrastructure that
support them have a finite life cycle. This cycle may be divided into three key sets of
activities:
Understand the business and operational needs for the service and create a solution thatdelivers these within the specified constraints.
Effectively and efficiently deploy the solution to users with as little disruption to the
business as the service levels specify.Operate the solution with excellence in order to deliver a service that the business trusts.
The results across the
board from all six
projects showed a
dramatic increase inthe process maturity,
organization, and
execution on theservice management
improvements, which
we expect to bevisible at the TCO
level.
Mike Carlson, Senior
IT Director,Microsoft
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Microsoft provides guidance and implementation packages for the effective employment
of our technologies across the entire gamut of the IT life cycle. This guidance is clustered
into two frameworksMicrosoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and Microsoft OperationsFramework (MOF). MSF addresses the first set of activities (analyzing the need and
creating a high-value solution); MSF and MOF coordinate processes and activities to
deploy the solution in the second set; and MOF addresses the final set of activities untilthe solution is retired. MOF also incorporates and extends a wealth of guidance that is
already available through other existing (and developing) IT standards organizations.
These relationships are summarized in the following sections.
The life cycle and how MSF and MOF interact throughout it are depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The IT life cycle and Microsoft frameworks
The development and deployment of an IT solution typically involves two IT teams. Theproject team is assembled for a limited time to plan, build, and deploy the solution. MSF
provides a flexible and scalable way to plan, design, develop, and deploy successful IT
solutions. MSF guidance consists of principles, models, and disciplines for managing thepeople, process, technology elements, risks, and the trade-offs that most projects
encounter. For more information about MSF, see http://www.microsoft.com/msf.
In contrast, the operations team is permanent and is responsible for the solutions daily
operations and management. MOF is designed to guide the operations teams. It providestechnical guidance that enables organizations to achieve mission-critical system
reliability, availability, supportability, and manageability of IT solutions built with
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Microsoft products and technologies. MOFs guidance addresses the people, process,
technology, and management issues pertaining to operating complex, distributed,
heterogeneous IT environments. For more information about MOF, seehttp://www.microsoft.com/mof.
The two frameworks are complementary, minimizing the time to valuethat is, the timebetween recognition of the need and delivery of the service. Consistency of terminology
and concepts between the two frameworks also supports the delivery of a high-qualityservice.
The two frameworks are also well integrated. For example, the deployment of an IT
solution requires knowledge of the solutions requirements and user controls as well asthe system requirements to operate it. MSF and MOF both include guidance for team
roles and processes that ensure a successful deployment into the production environment.
Throughout development, MSF and MOF emphasize the institution of processes to
ensure that the solution (or any change to the IT environment) is built for operability and
supportability, and that it meets release requirements.
MOF guidance is based on the direct knowledge and experience of Microsoft, its
partners, and consultants in the daily operation of large and small IT environments and
execution of software and IT service development projects. Microsoft also incorporatesand aligns with acknowledged standards from within the worldwide IT industry, often
enhancing and extending generic standards to facilitate their employment in Windows-
based operating environments.
Implementing MOF: Service Improvement Projects and Solution
Accelerators
MOF core guidance, available through white papers and other guidance documents,
provides a solid foundation upon which to deploy and operate successful IT solutions.MOF is also incorporated into prescriptive guidance to enhance IT operations for specific
functions and processes and in business solutions that combine tools and technologies
with MOF operations guidance.
The diagram below illustrates the relationship between MOF and these prescriptive
solutions. Core MOF guidance resides at the center of Microsoft operations guidance.
These core principles are elaborated upon through a catalog of more than 20 service
management function (SMF) documents, each of which describes and provides guidance
on a specific set of IT activities. In turn, the SMFs serve as the foundation forprogressively more prescriptive guidance to achieve specific objectives. This guidance is
available through service improvement project (SIP) guides and solution accelerators.
Each service improvement project (SIP) is intended to provide prescriptive guidance onimplementing or enhancing a particular service management function (or set thereof). For
example, an organization may conduct a SIP specifically to enhance its support functions
by improving help desk operations. MOF has released a SIP guide to provide generic
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assistance in implementing projects of this type and is developing SIP guidance for
specific SMFs for future release.
Solution accelerators combine Microsoft products, additional tools and technologies, andrelated SMFs to provide a packaged solution that adds service capabilities and business
value to your IT organization. Solution accelerators are available that assist in solvingseveral common business challenges, such as ensuring the efficient, reliable deployment
of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and business desktops, patch management, servicemonitoring and control, and others. By basing these solution accelerators on a MOF
foundation, Microsoft enhances the operability of deployed solutions, now and in the
future.
Figure 2. MOF core guidance supports actionable solutions
Currently available MSIM solution accelerators include:
Business Desktop Deployment
Enterprise Messaging
Internet Data CenterService Monitoring and Control
Domain Server Consolidation and Migration
File and Print Server Consolidation and Migration
Patch Management (several versions)
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Windows Server Deployment
For more information on these solution accelerators, visit
http://www.microsoft.com/technet.
MOF and ITIL
MOF aligns and builds on the IT service management practices that have beendocumented within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) maintained by the United
Kingdoms Office of Government Commerce (OGC). The OGC is a U.K. government
executive agency chartered with development of best-practice advice and guidance on the
use of information technology in service management and operations. Microsoft has beenactively involved with the ITIL community since 1999, both using the ITIL content and
contributing to new and updated documentation, including co-authoring several books.
ITIL currently includes more than 40 books. Of these, ten are of particular significance to
a corporate IT organization. Figure 3 illustrates these ten titles and their relationships.
Figure 3. The ITIL publication framework
Each of these ITIL publications is devoted to a function of IT service management andcontains cross-references to its companion publications.
One goal of MOF is to extend and enhance the practices and guidance offered throughITIL in order to provide more detailed prescriptive guidance in specific areas of IT
management.
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MOF is similar to ITIL in several ways:
MOF (in conjunction with MSF) spans the entire IT life cycle.
MOF is based on best practices for IT management, drawing on the expertise of aninternational group of practitioners, including Microsoft World Wide Services,
Microsoft Partners, Microsoft customers, and the internal (and extensive) Microsoft IToperations group.
The MOF body of knowledge is applicable across the business communityfrom smallbusiness to enterprise. MOF is not just for those operating on the Microsoft platform
within homogenous environments.
Like ITIL, MOF has expanded to include more than just a documentation set. MOF is acore component of the MSIM solution accelerators, ensuring that solutions are operable
in your IT environment, post-deployment. Furthermore, a variety of resources have been
developed to support MOF principles and guidance, including self-assessments, ITmanagement tools that incorporate MOF terminology and features, training programs
and certification, and consulting services. These are offered by numerous third-party
vendors and consultants.
MOF expands upon and extends ITIL through the following:
Addition of the MOF Team and Process Models and Risk Management Discipline(summarized subsequently within this document).
Simplification of IT processes into a simple diagrammatic model, with all components
and their relationships visible at a glance.Focus on the service-delivery level of IT management, rather than on IT operations in
their entirety. For example, ITIL identifies individual service functions such as Service
Level Management and Capacity Management; these are described within the ITIL
Service Delivery publication. In contrast, MOF individually recognizes over 20 servicedelivery functions and devotes an entire publication to each of them, providing
descriptions, examples, and best practice guidance.Combination of ITIL collaborative industry standards with specific guidelines for using
Microsoft products and technologies.
Scalability of MOF guidance and principles from implementation within a single service
to implementation across a high-order structure such as a data center or entire operationsenvironment. MOF also extends the ITIL code of practice to support distributed IT
environments and industry trends such as application hosting and Web-based
transactional and e-commerce systems.Top of page
MOF and Quality of Service Improvement Initiatives
IT organizations often implement service improvement programs as a result of feedback
obtained through MOF-based review exercises or other review processes. The questionmay arise, Is MOF compatible with my preferred quality improvement methodology?
Microsoft uses ITIL
both as the basis for
Microsoft OperationsFramework, which is
our structured
approach to helpingcustomers achieve IT
operational
excellence, and inhow we operate our
own systems. We are
proud to have
contributed as leadauthors to the writing
of the Application
Management and the
Planning toImplement Service
Management booksin the ITIL
collection.
Rick Devenuti, CIOand Corporate Vice
President, Microsoft
Services
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In most cases, the answer is Yes. MOF and ITIL can be applied simultaneously with
most of the project management methodologies and standards that are currently
employed for service improvement. The following are some examples of compatibleprograms:
PRINCE2 is a standard project management methodology (developed and madeavailable by the OGC) that can be applied to ensure improvement projects are managed
systematically. Like MSF, PRINCE2 can be used to apply good project managementskills to an operations environment for a structured approach to release rollouts and/or
service improvement projects.
Six Sigma techniques are applicable, for example, to establish project rationales andcharters for quality improvement projects; these techniques can be used to implement
the original design and improvements to it. Total Quality Management (TQM), a related
methodology, can be used in much the same way.Quality-management standards, such as International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) 9000, can be applied in conjunction with ITIL to good effect. (For more
information, see the ITIL publication Quality Management for IT Services.) Quality-management systems, such as the EFQM Excellence Model in Europe and the Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the United States, complement these
efforts.
Capability maturity models (CMMs)such as Carnegie Mellons CMM and CapabilityMaturity Model Integration (CMMI)and ISO 15504, also known as Software Process
Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE), can be used with MOF to
determine the capability of ones MOF SMFs against an industry-standard framework;the MOF Operations Assessment, for example, uses the ISO 15504 standard as its basis.
The IT Governance Institute develops and publishes its guidelines on IT governance as
Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT). Especially with the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, corporate governance and audit are increasingly importantwith businesses of all sizes.
Within MOF, several mechanisms have been included to assist in monitoring and
enhancing quality of service. The Service Level Management SMF provides a means forIT operations to negotiate the service levels they will provide to service customers and to
monitor metrics to evaluate the quality provided. The MOF Optimizing Quadrant, one of
four areas within the MOF Process Model, is dedicated to the assessment andenhancement of quality IT service.
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Getting Started with MOF
MOF provides IT with an internationally recognized body of guidance to facilitate the
management and operation of the IT infrastructure. Guidance may be applied withinorganizations of all sizesfrom small businesses to global enterprises. An IT
organization can begin to apply MOF anywhere in the environment and then branch out
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into other areas. Furthermore, MOF guidance may be applied incrementally, adding
additional components as an organization matures in its operating capabilities.
The MOF Team Model, described later in this document, defines a set of roles thatencompass the full range of activities involved in operating an IT infrastructure. MOF
provides flexibility in assigning these roles within an existing corporate organizationalhierarchy. Similarly, the MOF Process Model groups together common IT processes at
various stages of the IT life cycle and associates them with the relevant roles.
Implementation of MOF may progress toward various levels of maturity. In addition,
different processes and functions within MOF may progress at rates that are best suited
for your business. The first step is to understand your current organizations strengths andweaknesses, and to prioritize your goals for improvement. Following that, organizations
typically implement one or more service improvement projects (SIPs) to upgrade their
capabilities within the desired IT service functions. In short, the flexibility and
modularity of the MOF framework permits you to quickly adapt MOF to fit your needs
and your organizational structure.
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The MOF Components
MOF comprises several components: core knowledge provided through white papers,prescriptive guidance presented through SIPs, SMFs, and solution accelerators, and
training, made available through a network of qualified training partners. All of these
components are based on these foundation elements of MOF:
The Team ModelThe Process Model
The Risk Management Discipline
These provide guidance about people, process, and risk management in IT service
management. Each focuses on enabling technologies and best practices for achievinghigh systems availability, reliability, supportability, and manageability on the Microsoft
platform. They also provide guidance on interoperability with other technology
platforms. The sections that follow discuss the three MOF components.
The MOF Team Model
Overview
The MOF Team Model was developed to provide agility in adapting to the complexitiesof geographically or institutionally distributed teams managing distributed systems.
While maintaining a high degree of flexibility, the MOF Team Model also assigns
specific accountability and responsibility to team roles; this enables a MOF-based
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organization to measure and improve its effectiveness even though service functions may
be spread across multiple locations and even through multiple subgroups.
The MOF Team Model organizes an IT operations organization into several role clusters;these are individuals or groups who perform related activities to accomplish a particular
component of an IT service. These role cluster assignments are based on industry bestpractices for structuring operations teams. MOF then provides additional guidance that
applies collectively and individually to the role clusters, describing:
Key activities and competencies of each role cluster.
Recommendations for scaling the teams for different sizes and types of organizations.
Effective combination of roles for smaller teams.Interaction of MOF operations teams with MSF development teams.
Guiding Principles
Building successful, efficient operations teams requires more than just role andresponsibility descriptions. It also requires shared principles that instill a sense of
business priorities and establish set guidelines for how the team should function. The fiveprimary principles and guidelines that apply to all role clusters within the MOF Team
Model are:
To provide timely, efficient, and accurate customer service.
To understand the business priorities and enable IT to add business value.To build strong, synergistic virtual teams.
To leverage IT automation and knowledge management tools.
To attract, develop, and retain strong IT operations staff.
Team Model Role Clusters
Experience has shown that, to be successful, IT management teams must achieve
numerous quality goals associated with key service functions. The role clusters of the
MOF Team Model are organized around seven general categories of activities andprocesses, each with its own set of quality goals. Role descriptions within a cluster are
focused specifically on activities directed to meet the quality goals; they are not job
descriptions, and they do not imply any kind of corporate organization.
The following diagram maps the seven role clusters to two dozen possible functional
roles or function teams in a typical operations organization. The rest of this sectionsummarizes the functions of each of the seven role clusters.
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Figure 4. MOF Team Model role clusters and examples of functional roles or
function teams
See full-sized image
Role Cluster Details
Descriptions for each of the role clusters are provided in the table below.
Table 3
Role Cluster Description
Release Tracks changes and lessons learned in a corporate knowledge base.
Tracks inventory and changes in a configuration management database(CMDB).
Acts as liaison between the change development team and the operations
groups; it encompasses the ITIL disciplines of configuration management
and software control and distribution.Infrastructure Defines physical environment standards.
Manages physical assets.
Maintains the IT infrastructure and oversees IT architecture evolution.
Coordinates building and office moves, expansions and acquisitions, and
physical environment changes such as wiring, lab space, and userconnectivity.
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Role Cluster Description
Support Provides technical support for internal and external customers, resolving
incidents and problems using highly automated tools and knowledge basesystems.
Provides production support for line-of-business (LOB) applications.
Gives feedback to the development and design team.
Operations Ensures that daily, routine tasks are performed reliably within specifictechnology areas and production systems (messaging, system
administration, etc.).
Performs scheduled and repeatable processes such as data backup,
archiving and storage, output management, system monitoring and eventlog management, and file and print server management.
Partner Defines and manages partnerships in a mutually beneficial and cost-
effective manner.
Includes both the internal manager responsible for the relationships withexternal parties, and those parties themselves.
Security Ensures data confidentiality, data integrity, and data availability.
Influences business policies, such as defining exit procedures to follow
when an employee leaves the company.Service Ensures that all of the IT services being provided to customers are
aligned to the customers need for them.
Maintains a working relationship with customers, understanding theirneed for IT services, and managing the introduction of new services,service improvements, and (eventually) service reductions and
retirements.
The MOF Process Model
Overview
The MOF Process Model provides a functional blueprint and description of the processesthat operations teams perform to manage and maintain IT services. It assumes that the
operations groups main responsibility is managing change in the IT environment. Themost effective way to deal with change throughout the lifespan of a service is to group
related changes together into a package called a release, so that the changes can beplanned and managed as a unit. The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can
be applied to any release and the processes and activities that make up each part of that
life cycle.
Guiding Principles
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The MOF Process Model is based on four guiding principles:
Structured architecture.The MOF Process Model organizes all operational activities
needed for mission-critical computing in a complex IT environment.Rapid life cycle, iterative improvement.MOF supports an iterative IT life cycle that
facilitates rapid assessment and change to respond to evolving business needs.Review-driven management.The Process Model requires operations management
reviews (OMRs) at key points in the life cycle. In these reviews, the team and keystakeholders evaluate performance for release-based activities as well as time-based
operational activities.
Embedded risk management.Since the ultimate business cost of an IT service failure canbe catastrophic,MOF proactively manages risk throughout operational processes.
Process Model Quadrants
The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can be applied to releases of any size
and relating to any service solution. The model groups similar IT management functionscalled service management functions (SMFs)into each of fourquadrants. Each quadrant
owns a specific mission of service.Note that, although the circular aspect of the MOF
Process Model implies that management activities occur sequentially, in fact several
releases, each at a different stage in the IT life cycle, may occur simultaneously within anIT organization. Furthermore, the service management functions described in the
Operating and Supporting quadrants all occur continuously and simultaneously within the
data center. The following diagram illustrates the basic life cycle, including the fourquadrants and the four OMRs.
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Figure 5. The MOF Process Model
The following table lists the mission of service and the OMR for each quadrant.
Table 4
Quadrant Mission of Service OMR
Changing Introduce new service solutions,technologies, systems,
applications, hardware, and
processes.
Release Readiness Review providesapproval to deploy the fully developed
and tested release.
Operating Execute day-to-day tasks
effectively and efficiently.
Operations Review is scheduled
periodically to evaluate IT staffs ability
to maintain a given service, meet service
level requirements, and document its
experience in a knowledge base.Supporting Resolve incidents, problems, and
inquiries quickly.
Service level agreement (SLA) is
performed periodically and evaluates thestaffs ability to meet the service level
requirements defined in the service level
agreement.Optimizing Drive changes to optimize cost,
performance, capacity, and
Change Initiation Review increases
likelihood that proposed changes are in
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Quadrant Mission of Service OMR
availability in the delivery of IT
services.
alignment with business objectives and
operability requirements.
Two of the OMRs are driven by the release schedule. The Change Initiation Review
(formerly the Release Approved Review) is completed before formal development workbegins on a new or updated release, and the Release Readiness Review is conducted
before deploying the release into the production environment. The Operations Reviewand the SLA Review are held at regular intervals after the introduction of a release in
order to assess the internal operations and performance against customer service levels.
As a result, the Operating Quadrant is where MOF will provide the majority of theoperations guidance specific to Microsoft products and technologies. In addition, due to
the focus that Microsoft applies to IT operations, many products are now incorporating
features and functions directly targeted at making them more supportable, reliable, and
manageable. Where applicable, MOF extends the foundational IT SMFs of ITIL with
specific references to Microsoft products and features that either automate or improve thedelivery of the SMF.
The Service Management Functions
Each of the SMFs within a particular quadrant shares a common mission of service, orgoal. Many of the SMFs are based upon the OGCs IT Infrastructure Library. The notable
exceptions are Workforce Management (in the Optimizing Quadrant) and all SMFs in the
Operating Quadrant. Because ITIL is platform-independent, it does not cover these items.SMFs are best practices and typically will require customization to address unique or
specific requirements of a particular operations environment.
The SMFs and the quadrants they belong to are shown in the following figure.
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Figure 6. MOF Process Model and SMFs
Each SMF has specific guidance written for it within MOF. Each guidance document
typically provides:
General principles for the specific service management functional area.
A description of the roles involved in implementing the service function and theirresponsibilities.
Annotated lists of the daily, weekly, monthly, and as-needed tasks required to apply the
SMF in a production environment.
A more detailed overview of the SMFs and their components is provided in the MOFProcess Model white paper.
Process and Team Model Convergence
The MOF Team Model role clusters generally align with the four process quadrants of
the MOF Process Model, as shown in the following diagram. Note that multiple roles
may be involved in a single quadrant, and a single role (such as Supplier or Security) maybe involved in multiple quadrants. The Partner Role Cluster may be involved anywhere
within the Process Model, so is omitted for brevity.
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Figure 7. MOF Team Model role clusters and their alignment to the MOF Process
Model
The MOF Risk Management Discipline
Overview
MOF and MSF collect guidance pertaining to risk management into a body of knowledge
called a discipline. A distinction is made between disciplines and models, since
knowledge contained within a discipline may be applied at any stage of any process. TheMOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines are substantially identical, although
descriptions and examples provided in their detailed presentations may vary.
The Risk Management Discipline for operations applies proven risk management
techniques to the daily problems faced by operations staff. Many models, frameworks,
and processes exist for managing risks. These all share similarities in how they identifyand manage risk. The MOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines improve upon most
of these risk management schemes through the application of key principles, acustomized terminology, a structured and repeatable risk analysis and evaluation process,
and integration into a larger operations framework.
Guiding Principles
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The Risk Management Discipline for operations advocates these principles for successful
risk management in operations:
Assess risks continuously. This means the team never stops searching for new risks, andit means that existing risks are periodically re-evaluated.
Integrate risk management into every role and every function. At a high level, thismeans that every IT role shares part of the responsibility for managing risk, and every IT
process is designed with risk management in mind.Treat risk identification positively. For risk management to succeed, team members must
be willing to identify risk without fear of retribution or criticism.
Use risk-based scheduling. Maintaining an environment often means making changes ina sequence; and, where possible, the team should make the riskiest changes first to avoid
wasting time and resources on changes that cannot be released.
Establish an acceptable level of formality.Success requires a process that the teamunderstands and uses.
These principles are summarized in the wordproactive. A team that practices proactiverisk management acknowledges that risk is a normal part of operations and, instead of
fearing risk, the team views it as an opportunity to safeguard the future. Team membersdemonstrate a proactive mindset by adopting a visible, measurable, repeatable,
continuous process through which they objectively evaluate risks and opportunities and
take action that addresses the causes of risk as well as its symptoms.
Risk Management Process
The following diagram illustrates the steps of the risk management process: identify,
analyze, plan, track, control, and learn. It is important to understand that each risk goes
through all of these steps at least once and often cycles through each of them numeroustimes. Also, each risk has its own timeline, so multiple risks might be in each step at anypoint in time.
Figure 8. The process of managing risk
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