Aligning a Service Provisioning Model of a Service-Oriented System with the ITIL v.3 Life Cycle

Bringing together the ICT and the business layer of a service-oriented system (SoS) remains a great challenge. Few papers tackle the management of SoS from the business and organizational point of view. One solution is to use the well-known ITIL v.3 framework. The latter enables to transform the organization into a service-oriented organizational which focuses on the value provided to the service customers. In this paper, we align the steps of the service provisioning model with the ITIL v.3 processes. The alignment proposed should help organizations and IT teams to integrate their ICT layer, represented by the SoS, and their business layer, represented by ITIL v.3. One main advantage of this combined use of ITIL and a SoS is the full service orientation of the company.Comment: This document is the technical work of a conference paper submitted to the International Conference on Exploring Service Science 1.5 (IESS 2015

Strategic Integration of IT and Business Service Management

BMC Software, Inc., a leading global provider of enterprise management solutions helps companies to automate their Information Technology (IT) and align it to the needs of the business, pioneered the concept of Business Service Management (BSM). This case investigates how BMC provides products and services to help IT organizations incorporate Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) and BSM into business processes. The implementation of this strategy has made BMC a leader in BSM solutions. As a result of its business strategy, between 2002 and 2007, BMC revenue increased from $1,289 to$1,580 (in millions); stock value increased from $11.50 to$36.92

Cloud computing : developing a cost estimation model for customers

Cloud computing is an essential part of the digital transformation journey. It offers many benefits to organisations, including the advantages of scalability and agility. Cloud customers see cloud computing as a moving train that every organisation needs to catch. This means that adoption decisions are made quickly in order to keep up with the new trend. Such quick decisions have led to many disappointments for cloud customers and have questioned the cost of the cloud. This is also because there is a lack of criteria or guidelines to help cloud customers get a complete picture of what is required of them before they go to the cloud. From another perspective, as new technologies force changes to the organizational structure and business processes, it is important to understand how cloud computing changes the IT and non-IT departments and how can this be translated into costs. Accordingly, this research uses the total cost of ownership approach and transaction cost theory to develop a customer-centric model to estimate the cost of cloud computing. The Research methodology used the Design Science Research approach. Expert interviews were used to develop the model. The model was then validated using four case studies. The model, named Sunny, identifies many costs that need to be estimated, which will help to make the cloud-based digital transformation journey less cloudy. The costs include Meta Services, Continuous Contract management, Monitoring and ITSM Adjustment. From an academic perspective, this research highlights the management efforts required for cloud computing and how misleading the rapid provision potential of the cloud resources can be. From a business perspective, proper estimation of these costs would help customers make informed decisions and vendors make realistic promises.Cloud Computing ist ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Digitalisierung. Es bietet Unternehmen viele Vorteile, wie Skalierbarkeit und Agilität. Cloud-Kunden sehen Cloud Computing als einen Zug, auf den jedes Unternehmen aufspringen muss. Das bedeutet, dass Einführungsentscheidungen schnell getroffen werden, um mit dem neuen Trend Schritt zu halten. Solche Schnellschüsse haben zu vielen Enttäuschungen bei Cloud-Kunden geführt und die Kosten der Cloud in Frage gestellt. Dies ist auch darauf zurückzuführen, dass es keine Kriterien oder Leitlinien gibt, die den Cloud-Kunden helfen, sich ein vollständiges Bild davon zu machen, was von ihnen erwartet wird, bevor sie in die Cloud gehen. Aus einem anderen Blickwinkel ist es wichtig zu verstehen, wie Cloud Computing IT- und Nicht-IT-Abteilungen verändert und wie sich dies auf die Kosten auswirkt, da neue Technologien Veränderungen in der Organisationsstruktur und den Geschäftsprozessen erzwingen. Dementsprechend werden in dieser Forschungsarbeit der Total Cost of Ownership-Ansatz und die Transaktionskostentheorie verwendet, um ein kundenorientiertes Modell zur Schätzung der Kosten von Cloud Computing zu entwickeln. Die Forschungsmethodik basiert auf dem Design Science Research Ansatz. Zur Entwicklung des Modells wurden Experteninterviews durchgeführt. Anschließend wurde das Modell anhand von vier Fallstudien validiert. Das Modell mit dem Namen Sunny identifiziert viele Kosten, die geschätzt werden müssen, um die Reise zur digitalen Transformation in der Cloud weniger wolkig zu gestalten. Zu diesen Kosten gehören Meta-Services, kontinuierliches Vertragsmanagement, Überwachung und ITSM-Anpassung. Aus akademischer Sicht verdeutlicht diese Forschung, welcher Verwaltungsaufwand für Cloud Computing erforderlich ist und wie irreführend das schnelle Bereitstellungspotenzial von Cloud-Ressourcen sein kann. Aus Unternehmenssicht würde eine korrekte Einschätzung dieser Kosten den Kunden helfen, fundierte Entscheidungen zu treffen, und den Anbietern, realistische Versprechungen zu machen

How Lean Six Sigma and Agile principles optimize ITIL-based processes

Imagine the potential implications of an organization whose business and IT processes are well aligned and are capable of reactively and proactively responding to the external and internal changes. The Philips IT Infrastructure and Operations department (I&O) is undergoing a series of transformation activities to help Philips business keeping up with the changes. I&O would serve a critical function in any business sectors; given that the I&O’s strategy switched from “design, build and run” to “specify, acquire and performance manage”, that function is amplified. In 2013, I&O’s biggest transforming programme I&O Futures engaged multiple interdisciplinary departments and programs on decommissioning legacy processes and restructuring new processes with respect to the Information Technology Internet Library (ITIL), helping I&O to achieve a common infrastructure and operating platform (CI&OP). The author joined I&O Futures in the early 2014 and contributed to the CI&OP release 1, during which a designed model Bing Box and its evaluations were conducted through the lens of six sigma’s structured define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) improvement approach. This Bing Box model was intended to firstly combine business and IT principles, namely Lean IT, Agile, ITIL best practices, and Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) into a framework. Secondly, the author implemented the modularized optimization cycles according to the defined framework into Philips’ ITIL-based processes and, subsequently, to enhance business process performance as well as to increase efficiency of the optimization cycles. The unique of this thesis is that the Bing Box model not only provided comprehensive optimization approaches and principles for business process performance, but also integrated and standardized optimization modules for the optimization process itself. The research followed a design research guideline that seek to extend the boundaries of human and organizational capabilities by creating new and innovative artifacts. The Chapter 2 firstly reviewed the current research on Lean Six Sigma, Agile, AOP and ITIL, aiming at identifying the broad conceptual bases for this study. In Chapter 3, we included the process of constructing the Bing Box model. The Chapter 4 described the adoption of Bing Box model: two-implementation case validated by stakeholders through observations and interviews. Chapter 5 contained the concluding remarks, the limitation of this research work and the future research areas. Chapter 6 provided the references used in this thesis.Master's thesissiirretty Doriast

Adopting DevOps Principles, Practices and Tools : Case: Identity & Access Management

Adopting DevOps has been of interest for many organizations and practitioners for a while now due to its various benefits for business. However, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding on what is meant by DevOps when it comes to the key concepts, practices, tools, and the benefits and challenges of DevOps adoption. Organizations and teams are missing guidance on how to adopt DevOps in their specific context. This design science research is conducted to understand how to adopt DevOps principles, practices and tools in the Identity and Access Management of a large multinational corporation. The result of this study are the proposed models for adopting DevOps, including the formation of the teams and the processes covering build, test and deployment of identity management system (SailPoint IIQ) and onboarding new applications to the system. Three design artifacts are built and evaluated against identified problem areas in DevOps adoption, providing insights to the research community and industry practitioners

Software defined applications: a DevOps approach to monitoring

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Informatics EngineeringDevOps presents a mix of agile methodologies that allow an application’s release cycle to be shortened. This translates into a faster delivery of value to the stakeholders. However, the value creation chain does not finish at the end of that cycle. It is necessary to monitor the artifacts produced at a system level, and at the application level, in order to ensure the compliance of the functional and non functional requirements. Today, there seems to be a clear separation between the monitoring process and the application development process. As the development and operations processes have merged in DevOps, this dissertation pretends to investigate how to integrate several aspects of monitoring into the regular lifecycle of an application’s development. The inclusion of external services further emphasizes the need to include an observability component into an infrastructure. The main goal of this dissertation is to develop a solution for the deployment of an infrastructure using stateof- the-art technologies and frameworks, while also providing observability to the system and to the applications running on it. To do so, it required the investigation of the methodologies and concepts that are the base of the software development lifecycle, focusing on the latter stages of that process: the deployment, and monitoring phases. These methodologies and concepts were complemented with the study of state-of-the-art technologies and frameworks that aim to ease the burden of setting up an infrastructure quickly and with the necessary tools to evolve it after the initial setup and with each new software release. Furthermore, it also involved the research of tools that enable the collection of metrics from applications, as well as processing such data and displaying it in useful ways for operators and stakeholders. In this context, this dissertation aims to provide a solution for the deployment of MobileID applications at INESC TEC, using the Mobile Driving Licence as the primary case study. The proposed design and implementation with a container orchestration framework and CI/CD pipelines, enables faster development of different MobileID applications, while also providing continuous monitoring to the deployments. With this implementation, it was possible to assess how container orchestration frameworks provide greater flexibility to applications, and how this observability can be augmented with the use of dedicated monitoring systems.DevOps baseia-se na utilização de um conjunto de metolodogias ágeis que permitem encurtar o ciclo de desenvolvimento de uma aplicação de forma a que as alterações efetuadas pelos programadores se traduzam no valor desejado pelas partes interessadas. No entanto, a criação de valor não termina na parte final desse ciclo. É necessário monitorizar os artefactos produzidos tanto a nível de sistema, como a nível aplicacional, de forma a garantir o cumprimento de requisitos funcionais e não funcionais. Todavia, parece existir uma separação entre o processo de monitorização e o processo de desenvolvimento de aplicações. Tal como os processos de desenvolvimento e de operações se uniram no conceito de DevOps, pretende-se também investigar como será possível integrar vários aspetos de monitorização no ciclo normal de desenvolvimento de uma aplicação. O principal objetivo desta dissertação é desenvolver uma solução de operacionalização de infraestruturas de suporte a aplicações com recurso às tecnologias e ferramentas mais adequadas. Esta solução deverá ser acompanhada, em paralelo, por mecanismos de observabilidade dessa infraestrutura e das aplicações que nela são executadas. Para isso, foi necessária a investigação de metodologias e conceitos que formam a base do processo de desenvolvimento de software. O foco esteve nas partes finais do processo: a fase de deployment e a de monitorização. Estas metodolodogias e conceitos foram complementados com o estudo de tecnologias e ferramentas que pretendem facilitar o processo de montar uma infraestrutura rapidamente, bem como permitir a evolução da arquitetura inicial consoante os subsequentes lançamentos de aplicações. Para além disso, também envolveu a pesquisa de ferramentas que permitem extrair e armazenar métricas de aplicações, bem como processar essa informação e disponibilizá-la em formato útil quer para operadores, quer para outras partes interessadas. Neste contexto, esta dissertação pretende desenvolver uma solução que permita efetuar o deployment de aplicações de Identidade Digital no INESC TEC, utilizando a Carta de Condução Móvel como caso de estudo. A arquitetura proposta, e a respetiva implementação com recurso a um orquestrador de containers e pipelines de CI/CD, permite o desenvolvimento mais ágil de novas aplicações de Identidade Digital, e proporciona monitorização contínua a cada iteração do desenvolvimento. A partir do resultado prático obtido, foi possível aferir de que forma os orquestradores de containers permitem melhorar a observabilidade de aplicações, e de que forma ela pode ser aumentada com recurso a sistemas dedicados de monitorização contínua