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

Proposta de recomendações para a aplicação das práticas e processos do ITIL na gestão de riscos de SOA - Arquitetura Orientada a Serviços

Monografia (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, 2013.O presente trabalho apresenta conceitos básicos acerca de ITIL, SOA e gestão de segurança da informação. Devido à versatilidade da tecnologia SOA seus conceitos e princípios têm se difundido, ao mesmo passo em que riscos e situações de insucesso têm sido observados, muitas vezes levando a fracasso na implantação SOA. A literatura aponta que na maioria dos casos de fracasso SOA, a falta de governança adequada foi a responsável. No trabalho são apresentados riscos associados a SOA obtidos por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica. Por fim, como contribuição do trabalho, propomos recomendações baseadas em ITIL para gestão de riscos de SOA.This work presents basic concepts about ITIL, SOA and information security management. Due to the versatility of SOA tecnology, their concepts and principles have been spread at the same time in which risks and situations of failure have been observed, often leading to failure in implementing SOA. The literature shows that in most cases of SOA failure, lack of proper governance was responsible. Are presented risks associated with SOA obtained by means of literature at work. Finally, as a contribution of the this work we propose recommendations based on ITIL to risk management for SO

Diseño de una base de datos de gestión de la configuración basado en los procesos de gestión de la configuración y activos según ITIL 2011, ISO/IEC 20000 y COBIT 5

El alcance del presente proyecto de fin de carrera el análisis y diseño de los procesos que componen el conjunto de ITIL como son: La Gestión de Configuraciones y La Gestión de Cambios; elaborada para el área de TI de la empresa importadora y distribuidora de vidrios y aluminios. El presente proyecto tiene como finalidad establecer una guía de buenas prácticas en el área de TI, la cual pueda ser consultada al realizarse las tareas que involucran los procesos de gestión de configuraciones y gestión de cambios. La presente propuesta está dirigida a todas las organizaciones y/o empresas que manejen recursos de TI. Por lo tanto, las recomendaciones o buenas prácticas tratarán de ser las más genéricas posibles para poder apartase fácilmente a cualquier ambiente. Todos los requerimientos serán tomados de ITIL v3 ya que este constituye un marco de trabajo de las mejores prácticas destinadas a facilitar la entrega de servicios de tecnologías de la información (TI) de alta calidad. Cabe resaltar que no se realizará la implantación de un sistema propiamente dicho en el presente proyecto de fin de carrera dado el tiempo limitado que se tiene para realizar el proyecto y la resistencia al cambio de parte de la gerencia general de la empresa.Tesi

A communication module for capturing events in order to monitor a service-based automated production line

The efficiency, reliability and on time maintenance of a manufacturing process largely relies on a highly efficient and rapidly responsive monitoring system. The increasing demand of uninterrupted continuation of a production process emphasizes the need of anefficient real time monitoring mechanism of the process. The rapid advancements of modern technology especially in the communication field have largely affected every field of daily life as well as the industrial sector. The rise of wireless communication technology has made it possible to develop wireless sensors for industrial monitoring applications and revolutionize the monitoring techniques to a greater extent. The work researches a web based monitoring approach for real time monitoring of service-oriented production assembly with 3D visualization. The implementation deals with the design and implementation of a communication framework for receiving, processing and publishing events information of a service oriented assembly line. The processed information is then linked and simulated with a 3D replica of the actual process over the web in real time. The work demonstrates the usefulness of versatile features of 3D visualization in industrial monitoring applications. The online accessibility of the monitoring application enables all concerned individuals to access and monitor the manufacturing process in real time from any remote location. The developed web application can also be simulated for a given set of historical data. Currently, the research work focuses on capturing and simulating only two types of shop floor messages (Pallet activity notification message and Robot activity equipment change state message), but can be enhanced to include more features of the robotic assembly line in future

IT controls in the public cloud : success factors for allocation of roles and responsibilities

The rapid adoption of cloud computing by organizations has resulted in the transformation of the roles and responsibilities of personnel in managing the information technology (IT) resources (via IT governance controls) that have migrated to the cloud. Hence, the objective of this research is to provide a set of success factors that can assist IT managers to allocate the roles and responsibilities of IT controls appropriately to personnel to manage the migrated IT resources. Accordingly, this study generated a set of success factors from behavioral and information systems (IS) literature. These success factors were validated using in-depth interviews of executives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and ranked using Delphi technique. The empirical intervention suggests that the role allocation is driven predominantly by people’s skills, competencies, organizational strategy, structures, and policies. In addition, the research made clear that the most significant competency and skill for a person allocated to IT controls is to be able to evaluate and manage a cloud service provider, especially in terms of risks, compliance, and security issues related to public cloud technology. The findings of this study not only offer new insights for scholars and practitioners involved in assigning responsibilities but also provide extensions for IT governance framework authorities to align their guidelines to the emerging cloud technology

Tackling the barriers to achieving Information Assurance

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.This original, reflective practitioner study researched whether professionalising IA could be successfully achieved, in line with the UK Cyber Security Strategy expectations. The context was an observed changing dominant narrative from IA to cybersecurity. The research provides a dialectical relationship with the past to improve IA understanding. The Academic contribution: Using archival and survey data, the research traced the origins of the term IA and its practitioner usage, in the context of the increasing use of the neologism of cybersecurity, contributing to knowledge through historical research. Discourse analysis of predominantly UK government reports, policy direction, legislative and regulatory changes, reviewing texts to explore the functions served by specific constructions, mainly Information Security (Infosec) vs IA. The Researcher studied how accounts were linguistically constructed in terms of the descriptive, referential and rhetorical language used, and the function that serves. The results were captured in a chronological review of IA ontology. The Practitioner contribution: Through an initial Participatory Action Research (PAR) public sector case study, the researcher sought to make sense of how the IA profession operates and how it was maturing. Data collection from self-professed IA practitioners provided empirical evidence. The researcher undertook evolutionary work analysing survey responses and developed theories from the analysis to answer the research questions. The researcher observed a need to implement a unified approach to Information Governance (IG) on a large organisation-wide scale. Using a constructivist grounded theory the researcher developed a new theoretical framework - i3GRC™ (Integrated and Informed Information Governance, Risk, and Compliance) - based on what people actually say and do within the IA profession. i3GRC™ supports the required Information Protection (IP) through maturation from IA to holistic IG. Again, using PAR, the theoretical framework was tested through a private sector case study, the resultant experience strengthening the bridge between academia and practitioners

A semantically-enriched quality governance framework in the system of systems context applied to cancer care

Organisations are becoming more complex with diverse businesses, and therefore accomplishing their business objectives entails the need to develop System of Systems (SoS) with new capabilities based on existing monolithic systems of different domains. Regardless of the business objectives of these organisations, they can only be achieved if the right level of quality is ensured across the SoS arrangement. In order to deliver new SoS capabilities, interoperability between the SoS’s Constituent Systems (CSs) is required. Semantic inconsistencies at different levels of SoS’s constituent systems causes various challenges which can degrade the level of quality governance among the SoS arrangement. These inconsistencies mainly are due to the domain process’ heterogeneities, multiple standards followed, policies and varying levels of quality requirements of the CSs, and hence the level of interoperability affecting the anticipated quality.To respond to the above challenges, this research is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of semantically-enriched quality governance in relation to policies, processes, standards and quality requirements of the constituent systems in a SoS arrangement. For this purpose, a semantically enriched framework for the quality governance of SoS, i.e. OntoSoS.QM.Gov (Ontology-based System of Systems Quality Management Governance) has been developed and evaluated incrementally using an adaptation of the Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM). A sufficient and representative case study has been utilised in the DSRM process increments from the SoS cancer care domain, in particular, the Cell Therapy and Applied Genomics (CTAG) at the King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC), Jordan. The OntoSoS.QM.Gov framework consists of four ontological models: (i) the SoS standards ontology model (OntoSoS.Stand), (ii) the SoS quality requirements ontology model (OntoSoS.QR), (iii) the SoS process ontology model (OntoSoS.Process), and (iv) the SoS policies ontology model (OntoSoS.Policy). They are linked together using a fit-for-purpose governance process in managing the semantics of the relevant quality governance areas.The outcomes of demonstrating the OntoSoS.QM.Gov framework using the CTAG case study and evaluating it with the cancer care domain experts revealed the following. First, semantic heterogeneities between CSs and SoS in relation to their policies, processes, quality requirements and standards have been resolved. Second, the fit- for- purpose quality governance process was observed to mostly determining and resolving conflicts with minimum human intervention. Third, the adequacy of the four ontological governance models in capturing the semantics of governance in relation to policies, processes, quality requirements and standards not only for CSs but also as stand-alone models that may further be utilised in different contexts or domains.Finally, this research has to identify further research areas to explore in relation to the governance of change management of constituent systems’ processes, policies, standards where their business processes change

Bioinspired metaheuristic algorithms for global optimization

This paper presents concise comparison study of newly developed bioinspired algorithms for global optimization problems. Three different metaheuristic techniques, namely Accelerated Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO), Firefly Algorithm (FA), and Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) are investigated and implemented in Matlab environment. These methods are compared on four unimodal and multimodal nonlinear functions in order to find global optimum values. Computational results indicate that GWO outperforms other intelligent techniques, and that all aforementioned algorithms can be successfully used for optimization of continuous functions