Service Transition
Service Asset and Configuration Management
Introduction
SACM plays an important role in protecting the integrity of Service Assets and Configuration Items as
well as provide accurate information about assets and Configuration Items that supports
the service management
processes.
Purpose and Objectives
Service Asset and Configuration Management is a process that manages the service assets in order to support other service management processes.
The purpose of the Service Asset and Configuration
Management process is to ensure that the assets required
to deliver services
are properly controlled, and that accurate and reliable information about those assets is available when and where it is needed.
The objectives of SACM are to:
• Ensure
that
assets under the control of the
IT organization
are
identified, controlled and properly cared for throughout their lifecycle
• Identify, control, record, report, audit
and
verify services and
other
configuration
items
(CIs), including versions,
baselines, constituent
components, their attributes and relationships
• Account for, manage and protect the
integrity
of
CIs
through
the
service lifecycle by working with change management to ensure that only authorized
components are used and only authorized changes are made
• Ensure the integrity of CIs and configurations required to control the services by establishing and maintaining an accurate and complete
configuration
management system (CMS)
• Maintain accurate
configuration
information on the historical, planned
and current
state of services and other CIs
• Support efficient and effective
service management
processes by providing
accurate configuration information to enable
people to make decisions at the right time
Scope
Service assets that need to be managed in
order to deliver services
are known as configuration items (CIs). Other service assets may be required to deliver the service, but if they cannot
be individually
managed
then they are not configuration items. Every CI is a service asset, but many service assets are not CIs.
The scope of SACM includes
management
of the complete lifecycle of every CI. Service asset
and
configuration management ensures that CIs are identified,
baselined and
maintained and that
changes
to
them are controlled.
The
scope includes interfaces to internal and external service providers
where there are assets and configuration items that need to be controlled.
Activities
The basic activities of Configuration Management are as follows:
• Control: Ensuring that only authorized
and identifiable
CIs are accepted
and recorded, from receipt to disposal.
It ensures that no CIs are added, modified,
replaced or removed without appropriate controlling documentation, e.g. an approved change request, and an updated specification.
• Planning:
Planning and defining
the purpose, scope,
objectives, policies and procedures, as well as
the organizational and
tech-nical context,
for Configuration Management.
• Verification and Audit: Configuration verification and audit comprises a series of reviews and audits that verify the physical existence of CIs, and checks that the CIs are correctly recorded in
the CMDB and controlled libraries. It includes the verification of release and configuration documentation before changing the live environment.
• Status Accounting:
The reporting of all current
and historical data of each CI throughout its life cycle. This enables changes
to CIs and their records
to be traceable, e.g.
tracking the status of a CI
as
it changes from one state
to another e.g. “under development”, “being tested”, “live”, or “withdrawn”.
• Identification:
Selecting
and identifying the
configuration structures for all the infrastructure's CIs,
including
the CI
“owner”, their relationships
and configuration documentation. This includes allocating identifiers and version numbers for CIs, labelling each item, and entering it
in the Configuration
Management Database
(CMDB).
CMS Components
There are several important
components in Service
Asset and Configuration
Management.
• Secure Library
A collection
of software, electronic or document
CIs of a known type
and status. Access to the secure library is restricted.
• Secure Store
A warehouse for IT assets. The store maintains reliable access to equipment
of known quality.
• Definitive Spares (DS)
The physical storage
of all spare IT components and assemblies maintained at the same level as within the live environment.
• Snapshot
Snapshots are documentation
of current
state of Configuration Items or an environment which serves as a fixed historical record
for
Problem Management to analyze evidence as well as to facilitate system
restore.
The snapshot enables:
• Problem Management
to analyze evidence in respect of the situation
pertaining to the time incidents actually occurred
• Facilitates
system restore to support security scanning software
Roles
There are two main roles within Service Asset and Configuration Management.
• Service Asset
Manager: Responsible for
Asset Management System including the policy, plan, process, people, tools, reports
in the system.
• Configuration Manager: Responsible for
Configuration Management
System including
policy, plan, process,
people, tools, reports in the system.
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