| |
John Spacey, February 07, 2016 updated on August 09, 2018
IT operations is the process of implementing and delivering information technology services. This typically includes dozens of major processes and hundreds of minor processes that are often heavily automated. The following are the basic elements of IT operations. Note that these processes overlap in countless ways such that they are hopelessly intertwined.
A single point of contact for stakeholders to submit requests and questions regarding IT services. This represents as the customer service interface for all IT operations processes.Request FulfillmentThe process of accepting requests from stakeholders and fulfilling such requests. This often utilizes a ticket management system that allows users to submit requests. Tickets are then prioritized and assigned to individuals or automation for servicing.
Service StrategyThe top level process of assessing customer needs, planning goals and developing strategies for IT services. The design of services to achieve service strategy including elements such as facilities, infrastructure, systems, processes, procedures, information, communications and metrics.
Service TransitionThe top level process of deploying new services and changes to existing services. This includes elements such as change management, release management, deployment management and service testing.The management of facilities such as data centers. This may be handled by an IT operations team or it may fall under a separate facility management department. It is often outsourced.
The process of monitoring and accounting for tangible assets such as computing units and intangible assets such as software and knowledge.Partner ManagementManaging suppliers and outsourcing partners such as infrastructure providers and security monitoring services.
Network ManagementThe process of deploying and operating networks.Management of IT infrastructure including network, computing, power, cooling and security services and equipment.Systems ManagementManaging systems and applications. It is common for development teams to manage their own systems but operations often plays a role in monitoring systems to escalate issues, faults and incidents.
Accepting, reviewing, prioritizing, scheduling, implementing and communicating change.Release ManagementThe process of releasing software to environments.Deployment ManagementManaging the deployment of changes to an environment. An element of release management.Configuration management is the process of capturing, retaining and using information regarding the state of infrastructure, software and knowledge to support processes such as release management, deployment, rollback, incident management, problem management, security management and audit trail. The management of facilities, infrastructure and systems for high availability. This encompasses the end-to-end process of reducing downtime including elements of design, monitoring and testing for high availability.Demand ManagementThe process of predicting and modeling demand for IT services to plan strategy and shape operations.Planning resources such as facilities, infrastructure, licenses and labor in order to achieve strategy and service levels.The end-to-end process of strategy, planning, design, resource allocation, monitoring and event management to achieve service levels for IT services.Performance MonitoringMonitoring the performance of IT services including service desk, infrastructure, platforms and systems.The identification and treatment of risk. Service Continuity ManagementThe management of high impact risks to IT services such as disasters.Security ManagementThe top level process of protecting the confidentiality, availability and integrity of IT services and assets from threats and vulnerabilities. A specialized type of risk management.Security MonitoringThe identification and handling of threats, events and patterns that are relevant to information security.Physical SecurityThe process of securing physical environments such as data centers, offices and infrastructure installations.Access ManagementManaging the authorization and authentication of people and digital entities to grant or deny access to physical and digital resources.Event ManagementDetecting, assessing and handling events and patterns of events. Identifying and fixing issues with IT services. Often results in a quick and temporary fix.The process of addressing the root cause of incidents so that they do not recur.Backup & RecoveryBacking up environments and data and recovering them as required.Processes for developing, capturing, securing, sharing and using knowledge.Service TestingTesting services against requirements and specifications. Often heavily automated. DevOps is the practice of automating IT operations. In the past, operations teams were viewed as administrators. Devops is a shift whereby operations teams are often developers who reduce toil with code.
IT Operations
This is the complete list of articles we have written about it operations.
If you enjoyed this page, please consider bookmarking Simplicable.
© 2010-2023 Simplicable. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of materials found on this site, in any form, without explicit permission is prohibited.
View credits & copyrights or citation information for this page.
|