Cloud computing is changing the IT landscape in companies and shifting the focus in IT service management: away from operational, to user-centered, more on-demand support processes.
With the increasing use of standardized, automated cloud services instead of individualized IT services, the classic, operational triad of incident, problem and change management has become less important. Companies are faced with the task of transferring the "cloud" principle to their IT service management.
Since the publication of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) in the 1980s, which is now being used in the third version by almost all companies, classic IT service management (ITSM) focuses on three main pillars: Incident Management dealing with troubleshooting, problem management, which investigates the causes of recurring disruptions, and change management, which deals with changes in the IT landscape.
The increasing use of cloud services, be it private cloud, public cloud services, or a combination of both in hybrid cloud environments, presents a challenge for IT departments: they need to manage cloud services in addition to traditional on-premise infrastructures.From business to user centered IT support
But it is not just the changing IT infrastructures that require a paradigm shift in the ITSM. Other drivers that are driving companies to rethink are the increasing speed with which specialized departments are demanding new IT services, the growing shortage of skilled workers, which means that fewer and fewer experts are available to manage IT landscapes, and growing cost pressures in the IT sector , For these reasons, organizations need to increasingly standardize and automate IT services.
As a result, the focus in the ITSM is shifting from classic IT to cloud support processes. Instead of the highly operational processes of incident, problem, change and possibly also configuration, other processes take center stage:
Service Request Management: How are requests and approvals of services handled via a self-service portal?
Service Catalog Management: How is the service catalog structured and what services should be offered?
Service Level Management: On which quality standards are the services measured?
Financial Management: How are the services financed - in such a way that the financing serves as a corrective and prevents all employees from ordering only the most expensive services, if cheaper ones would help them as well?
In addition, other new topics are gaining in importance, such as capacity management, which flexibly balances peak loads, for example at the end of the month or year, through so-called cloud bursting - the ad hoc expansion of own cloud capacities through public cloud services - allows.
