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ITIL Business Process's (IT Infrastructure Library)
Although the UK Government created the ITIL, it
has rapidly been adopted across the world as the standard for best
practice in the provision of IT Service.
Even companies that are no embarking on a ITIL
implementation can benefit from understanding these process's as they
each have impact on the way our businesses work and the efficiencies
that can be gained from implementing these.
The product portfolio selected by NetWorld UK encompasses business
process automation and remediation at heart and are ideally placed to
assist any company or organisation with the complex and time consuming
business of controlling out IT infrastructures
Configuration Management is
the implementation of a database (Configuration Management Database –
CMDB) that contains details of the organisation’s elements that are used
in the provision and management of its IT services. This is more than
just an ‘asset register’, as it will contain information that relates to
the maintenance, movement, and problems experienced with the
Configuration Items.
The CMDB also holds a much
wider range of information about items that the organisation’s IT
Services are dependant upon. This range of information includes:
Hardware
Software
Documentation
Personnel
Configuration Management
essentially consists of 4 tasks:
Identification
– this is the specification, identification of all IT components and
their inclusion in the CMDB.
Control – this is the management of
each Configuration Item, specifying who is authorised to ‘change’ it.
Status
– this task is the recording of the status of all Configuration Items in
the CMDB, and the maintenance of this information.
Verification
– this task involves reviews and audits to ensure the information
contained in the CMDB is accurate
Incident/Problem Management
is the resolution and prevention of incidents that affect the normal
running of an organisation’s IT services.
This includes ensuring that
faults are corrected, preventing any recurrence of these faults, and the
application of preventative maintenance to reduce the likelihood of
these faults occurring in the first instance.
The effective practice of
both Incident and Problem Management will ensure that the availability
of IT services is maximised, and could also protect the integrity and
confidentiality of information by identifying the root cause of a
problem.
Change Management is the
practice of ensuring all changes to Configuration Items eg: PC's,
Switches, Infrastructure Items, Software etc) are carried out in a
planned and authorised manner.
This includes ensuring that
there is a business reason behind each change, identifying the specific
Configuration Items and IT Services affected by the change, planning the
change, testing the change, and having a back out plan should the change
result in an unexpected state of the Configuration
IT Security must be embedded
into the change management process to ensure that all changes have been
assessed for risks. This will include assessing the potential business
impacts should the change produce undesired results.
If Change Management
procedures are not effective, this may result in unauthorised changes to
IT Services, which could have major impacts on the business, including
financial loss, customer loss, market loss, litigation, and in the worse
case scenario, even collapse of the business that the IT Services are
there to support.
The Service/Help Desk plays
an important part in the provision of IT Services. It is very often the
first contact the business users have in their use of IT Services when
something does not work as expected. The Service/Help Desk is a single
point of contact for end users who need help.
Without this, an
organisation could certainly face losses due to inefficiencies.
The two main focuses of the
Service Desk are Incident Control and Communication.
There are different types of
Help Desk, the selection of which is dependant upon what the business
requires. Some Help Desks provide a simple call logging function, and
escalate calls to more experienced and trained staff.
Others provide a
high degree of business and technical knowledge with the ability to
solve most incidents at the time that the business user reports them.
This discipline of IT Service Management is
the management of all software configuration items within the
organisation. It is responsible for the management of software
development, installation and support of an organisation’s software
products.
Software is often not
regarded as a tangible asset because of its intangible nature, which
results in it not being effectively controlled. There can be several
versions of the same software within the organisation, and there can
also be unlicensed and illegal copies of externally provided software.
The practice of effective
Software Control & Distribution involves the creation of a Definitive
Software Library (DSL), into which the master copies of all software is
stored and from here its control and release is managed.
The DSL
consists of a physical store and a logical store. The physical store is
where the master copies of all software media are stored. This tends to
be software that has been provided from an external source.
PC and Server Configuration Management Solutions
NetWorld UK
provides desktop and server management solutions to help you take
control of the technology assets that keep your organisation productive
and will assist your organisation in implementing Business Process's
such as ITIL (IT
Infrastructure Library Business Practices. See ITIL Tab at the top of
this page).
Before you can manage the
computers in your environment, you need to know what you have.
Centennial Discovery or Prism Asset Manager helps you take control of
your IT assets with dynamic inventory and configuration management.
With
Centennial Discovery or Prism Asset Manager, you can discover and keep
track of all your hardware and software assets, so you can make more
intelligent business decisions.
Centennial Discovery or Prism Asset
Manager helps you improve security, comply with regulatory measures and
software license agreements, improve IT department and help desk
efficiency (ITIL Processes. See ITIL Tab at Top of this page), and reduce operating costs and organisational risk. Get the
insight you need to dramatically improve IT management with Centennial
Discovery or Prism Asset Manager.
From provisioning new
computers to keeping existing systems updated and in top working
condition, New Boundary Technologies’ Prism solutions help you do the
job quickly, easily and reliably.
With Prism Deploy® and Prism Pack®,
you can deploy any software or update to any desktop, laptop or server
anywhere. Prism Deploy is a powerful stand-alone solution that gives you
complete control of software distribution.
And Prism Pack is the perfect
complementary packaging solution for boosting the performance of
Microsoft SMS or any other desktop management suite.
Keeping software patched is
a critical part of your IT security strategy. But with so many patches
being issued, keeping up can be a full-time job. And with exploits for
software vulnerabilities appearing faster than ever, speed is crucial.
You have to move faster than ever to stay ahead of the exploits. Prism
Patch Manager™ automates patch tracking, installation and maintenance
across your organisation to keep your computers safe and secure. And
keep you ahead of the hackers.
With their default settings,
most servers, desktops and laptops are wide open to exploits. End users
can compound the problem by installing undesirable software that
includes spyware. Non-standard desktop configurations can make help desk
calls a nightmare.
The key to resolving these and many other issues lies
in configuration management. New Boundary Technologies solutions
leverage the power of Smart Update™ technology to automate configuration
management tasks.
With Prism Suite, you can implement standard desktop
configurations and automatically enforce them to keep unwanted software
out of your environment. And with Policy Commander, you can create and
automatically enforce a wide variety of policies that protect computers
by preventing unauthorised software installations and configuration
changes.
With NetWorld UK’ configuration management solutions, you can
keep all of the computers in your organisation secure and compliant.
It’s a fact of IT life – the
computers you provision today change the minute people start using them.
Unauthorised software gets installed.
Configuration settings get
changed. Any of these changes can create security and liability risks
for your organisation. You need to take back control of the desktops and
laptops in your organisation.
With NetWorld UK's Configuration Management
Solutions, you can create a
set-and-forget environment to automate software remediation and keep
computers compliant with your organisation’s standards/legal
requirements
PC and Server Security Management Solutions:
NetWorld UK Software Solutions arm
you with the insight and automated processes that protect your computers
and the information on them and will assist your organisation in
implementing Business Process's such as ITIL (IT
Infrastructure Library Business Practices. See ITIL Tab at the top of
this page).
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The
ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library Process) consists of 7 sets: Service
Support; Service Delivery; Planning to Implement Service Management; ICT
Infrastructure Management; Applications Management; Security Management;
The Business Perspective.
Configuration Management
