At X the words “Change management” are read and heard at various times during the day in the from emails of scheduled changes, change management procedures, to the weekly change management committees. Why? What are they trying to achieve?
The objective of Change Management in this context is to ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt handling of all changes to controlled IT infrastructure, in order to minimize the number and impact of any related incidents upon service. (Wikipedia, 2010) – So these procedures make changes in a more efficient way while minimizing the impact to Santanders services which is what they provide to there customers.
A summery Santander Change Management and Procedures is shown bellow:
| ITIL Model | Procedures for Change Management | Tools |
Change Management
Incident Management
Problem Management
Release management
Configuration Management | Filtering changes
Managing changes
Change Advisory Board (CAB) and Emergency committee
Reviewing and closing of Requests for Change (RFCs)
Management reporting | Remedy, Tacacs
TFT server, Wiki website
Spectrum, Microsoft Visio,
Ping, Traceroute, Cisco show commands, CACTI |
| X - Models, Procedures and tools - (Troubleshooting and maintaining Cisco IP networks (TSHOOT) foundation learning guide, Cisco Press, pg 5) |
X uses the ITIL model – which is a IT service management framework describing best practices that help provide high-quality IT services that are aligned with business needs and processes. (Ranjbar A., 2010)
The above ITIL model implemented at X is a Structured driven approach with the impact been high availability and reliability. Changes are carefully planned and design and controlled by the CAB and later reviewed to see if the changes have completed there objectives i.e. (To provide better Service). Tools such as Remedy change management are linked to ether new implementations or incidents that have become problems and scheduled for a change i.e. (A reactive approach, Filtering and Managing changes).
The “Network Monitoring Department”, uses a preventative approach, with tools Spectrum, TACACS, CACTI. Investigation of alerts from these tools using command such as “show logs” i.e. (Requesting changes if needed). Commands such as “show controller”, “show interface X” are used to confirm that changes have been implemented. i.e.(Review of changes)
The below table shows how the ITIL business needs are linked to processes. Reducing the impact of changes and increasing service levels:
| Needs | Processes |
| Resilience | Redundancy – Duplication of lines, servers, etc. |
| Reliability | SLA (Service level agreements), MTBF (Mean time between failures), MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) reports by management. |
| Maintainability | Monitoring, Auditing, Backup and Roll-backs by staff and departments. |
| Serviceability | Telefonica, Indra and Orange and reports on compliance with SLA`s. i.e. (management reports from “Table - Models, Procedures and tools”) |
| Security | Authorisation, Authentication and Accounting of Routers, Servers and Systems of users. |
| Santander – Business Needs and processes – (Wikipedia – Change Management, 2010) |
Natural Disasters
However the use of ITIL and tools along with change management doesn't mean that the network never has interruptions. Service providers have unplanned maintenance, routers simply crash after running perfectly for 5 years or natural disasters cut fibre optic lines cutting off whole countries. i.e. (interrupt or incident driven approach)
The result been that change management ,can't guarantee a 100% up time.
e.g. (An earthquake in Chile disconnected the network )
NOTE: Regular incidents which become problems become part of the change management process. Incident management is a solution to interrupts and real time problems however still does not guarantee 100% up time.
Cost Factor
In general X aims to reduce the MTTR to less than 48 hours and this is reflected in the SLA agreements with service providers such as Y and Z.
However this dose not always make economic sense. The marketing department might calculate that country x has more potential for profit than country y reallocating resources from country y to country xe.g. (Swapping a higher capacity router in country y for a lower capacity router so that country x can have more higher capacity routers) . Resulting in changes in y been slower because of lack of funding.
The result been better Service is not always the only objective.
Political factor
Department x is going to be phased out because they are not part of X new strategy so MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) is much longer for department x. i.e. (Why install a new router when you going to remove it in 6 weeks!)
The result been MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) is not always minimised because the objective is not to improve service in department x.
Conclusion
Change management and ITIL is not a flawless framework that guarantees perfect services and 100% uptime but it does manage changes and has both a structured i.e. (change management) and interrupt driven i.e. (Incidents and problems) approach. Which does minimise impact therefore increasing service levels.
Natural, Political and Cost factors might cause services to be effected. X might simply not want to improve service because it is not part of there objectives. X can't control the environment, resulting in real world problem solving and problems that ITIL can't solve so a common sense approach is still very relevant.
Business objectives and common sense still matter over ITIL.
