Tuesday Jul 10, 2007
Interesting "panel discussion" about ITIL V3 (it's more like a chain letter, in reality) published on the ITP site. This article is "hosted" by Sharon Taylor, the ITIL V3 Chief Architect. It carries comments from various people such as Michael Nieves, one of the V3 authors, and.... Paul Gostick, formerly of Sun.
Worth a read, as a more balanced and weighty set of views than my last post (or rant, to be accurate).
Thursday Jun 28, 2007
I need to preface this posting with a caveat that this really is a personal observation, not the view of Sun. And I'll probably change this opinion at a future date!
Earlier this month, we saw the much vaunted launch of ITIL Version 3. If you are not familiar with it, then you can read all about it on the itSMF International site, or the itSMF UK site. ITIL was well overdue an update, and the new version "...makes the link between ITIL's best practice and business benefits both clearer and stronger. The main development is that V3 takes a lifecycle approach to guidance, as opposed to organising according to IT delivery sectors..." - which is A Good Thing.
But hold on.
"....the interface between old and new approaches is seamless so that users do not have to reinvent the wheel when adopting it...". There is not better mousetrap here: the original guidance for Change Management, Incident Management etc. still applies. So, what is the actual, tangible benefit in moving to V3? Yes, I reiterate - I do support the business integatation and lifecycle approach - but what is the business benefit?
I ask, not because of the cost of the books, at £300 a pop, but because of the flood of marketing that I see on the back of this new version. Virtually every day, I receive an email about V3 conversion courses, software tools with "exciting new V3 capabilities", teaser webcasts from "experts", and charged-for book launches from the OGC (the owners).
Behind all this frenzy in the ITIL ecosystem, I worry about what we are implicitly accepting. From the viewpoint of Sun (as an open-source company) collaboratiave, community development seems natural. And that was how V2 felt. But V3 feels like it is more like a proprietary approach.
The parallel I see is the recent launch of Windows Vista. The week of that launch, a UK PC retailer had a 2 page newspaper spread for "Vista-ready" products, such as "Vista ready printers". I'm sure I'm missing something here - a printer is a printer isn't it? I thought we cracked the problem of the O/S being able to talk to printers at least 25 years ago?
I digress. It would be a cynic who would view the current hype from systems tools, training and consulting suppliers as merely an attempt to drive more business out of a maturing market. I'm sure that people will get a real business benefit as they adopt V3.
And maybe 6 -12 months from now, I'll be a V3 zealot, giving presentations about it on my Vista laptop.
Maybe.
Thursday Jun 14, 2007
In my previous posting on Sun & ITIL, I overlooked the ITSMO service we've been developing - a rapid deployment, web-based approach for delivering ITIL process definitions.
Tuesday Jun 12, 2007
Within the larger field of IT Service Management, does Sun have anything to say, anything to offer, regarding ITIL? I'm sometimes asked "why should Sun be interested in ITIL? - Sun is a technology company"; and "why would anyone come to Sun for advice on ITIL?"
I'll leave the discussion about Sun's use of ITIL and CoBIT internally for now - subject for a later posting - but you may want to refer to the ISACA case study on Sun
The importance of ITIL is as an "enabler" for our customers – it's something we can use to help them. If they are looking to improve they way in which they are delivering IT services to their users, or to drive towards some goal related to operation excellence, ITIL provides a framework for that. The term “best practice” is used and abused; it's really just plain good practice- if you want to support business, support your users, ITIL gives some ideas about how to go about it.
As an aside – ITIL is not a rule book, it's a framework. Brad Vaughan has captured it nicely in his blog - “"ITIL cannot be implemented"
But I've still not answered why Sun would be interested. It's really about making sure that our customers are able to get the best out of their investment in our technology. Some of our technology is complex, and we have teams of experts to help our customers architect and implement large scale infrastructures. However - all too often the focus is on “getting it up and running” - then what? To look at the flip side: there are lots of anecdotes out there of major system outages; (not on Sun kit specifically!) that have ultimately been caused by a failure of process, not technology. Wrong patches applied, no change approval, no backout plan.... and so on.
So, in a way Sun's interest in ITIL could be seen as analogous to why we provide training courses, or work with open source communities: it is to enable our customers to make better use of our technology.
We don't promote ITIL on its own, as a specific offer. Firstly we are a technology company. Secondly, ITIL is systemically embedded into a number of our services, such as OCA and Managed Operations – back to Brad's point. ITIL is a means, not an end.
What is different about Sun's approach here is that we are not specifically trying to sell consulting, training, or systems management software (unlike most other vendors with an ITIL “play”). Sure – we will charge – we are a commercial company. But we are not doing this to hook our customers into endless consultancy, or “advise” them to buy our management software. It's about our customers getting the best use from what we are providing them.
So ITIL is important; but not a “core” offer for Sun (part of the reason for the name of this blog)
Does Sun have any credibility / track
record in ITIL?
Well, since we started taking a more systematic approach, about 8 years ago, we've moved to a point where all our Services personnel have some level of awareness. More and more staff are achieving ITIL Masters; I even come across Sales people who've been certified (in ITIL, that is!). We also have a number of staffers who've joined Sun with deep, lengthy experience (in other words
they're really old ;-) )
Sun has also been an active sponsor of the itSMF for a number of years. We were one of the first Global sponsors, in 2002,and have provided speakers to events such as the global conference in 2003 - Lesley Lambert / Bobbi Burn's presentation ( you may need to be logged into the itSMF portal to get access)
In addition, Sun staff have been instrumental in getting local chapters going in France, Norway, Venezuela.
In the past, Sun's point of reference for ITIL was based around SunTone. Now that we've retired SunTone in favour of ISO/IEC 20000. As we move forward we will be addressing that standard; and transitioning to ITIL version 3 . More about these two another day.
Wednesday Jun 06, 2007
When the SunTone program started in the late 1990s, at the height of the dot.com boom, it was a an innovative approach to trying to ensure that the emerging Internet services met criteria to deliver reliability. These criteria were around areas such as security and availability.
The Program was a classic example of a community effort, with leading Service Provider partners contributing, to create a form of “opensource” specification. For Sun, the program became a way of developing the service provider market by driving a certification scheme for SunTone: those organisations whose services met the requirements could brand those services as “SunTone Certified”.
At the program's height, joint marketing activities and funds were available to certified Sun partners. At one point certification covered a number of categories – Services Providers, Integrators, Enterprise Services and Applications. These variances created a little confusion, but the overall number of organisations that have had a service or application SunTone Certified is over 250. In addition, at any one time, another 250 organisations may have applied for certification.
The specification for SunTone was evolved over the years by the member-driven Architecture Council.
The specification defines the Organisational, Architectural, and Process aspects for best practice in network computing. As such, it has been a unique model in the industry: broader than just IT management processes (ITIL) or operations (MOF). The latest version (version 3) developed in 2005 incorporated the BS15000 requirements. In addition, SunTone was linked to application development to create the SunTone Architecture Methodology.
The specification and program was well respected by industry experts. For example, SunTone has often been cited by Gartner as an example of Sun being able to offer unique intellectual property to its customers and partners. In some GEMS (notably SEE) SunTone has been used as part of a marketing and sales campaign to provide an entry, a proof point of Sun's expertise. There are also some individual case studies where SunTone has been used as part of an overall IT improvement program.
But in 2006, the decision was taken to end the program.
In recent years we saw emergence of BS15000 and now ISO20000, and an increasing adoption of COBIT within the industry. Now that these open industry standards exist, is seems no longer necessary for Sun, a leading advocate of open standards, to continue to maintain our own certification scheme.
The reference model developed as part of SunTone will continue to evolve and become a foundation for future Sun products and services.
Customers and partners who had existing (current) SunTone certification received formal notifcation of the end of the program in August 2006.
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