WINDOWS IN THE ENTERPRISE
Incident management made easier with Microsoft Service Desk
Stuart D. Galup, Contributor
06.14.2007
Rating: -2.83- (out of 5)
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If you've heard the buzz about Microsoft's new help desk and incident management software, code-named Service Desk, you may be wondering how this software and the other tools of the Systems Management Software suite will affect your organization.
First, it is important to understand the reason for Microsoft's push to expand the products' functionality. The Systems Management Software suite is based on Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), which is a prescriptive approach to delivering IT services. It provides operational guidance on system reliability, availability, supportability and manageability of Microsoft products and technologies. The company based MOF and the new ISO/IEC 20000 standard on the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
Microsoft's Service Desk software helps automate the service desk function and incident management process, two of the most critical aspects of the MOF Process Model Supporting Quadrant. The second process that is integral to the quadrant is problem management, which focuses on root cause analysis. Problem management has a direct effect on the suppression of incidents and the speed with which incident management resolves disruptions.
A corporation's service desk is the single point of contact for all incidents and service requests. An incident is defined as any event that is not part of the standard operation and may or does cause a disruption in normal service levels as defined in the service-level agreement (SLA). Service requests relate to solving issues and problems across a vast array of applications, communication systems, desktop configurations and facilities. A corporation's service desk is a key component of customer relationship management, so staffing the desk with the right personnel is critical.
Incident management is the process of managing the lifecycle of an incident. It includes managing an
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d controlling faults and disruptions in the use or implementation of IT services. The primary goal of the incident management process is to restore normal service operations as quickly as possible and to minimize any adverse impact on business operations. The process groups incidents into minor and major incidents. It handles major incidents differently because they require a response above and beyond what's provided by a normal incident response process. The service desk uses the management process and, in most organizations, the service desk manager is the incident management process owner.
Microsoft's Service Desk software supports the handling of incidents by enabling the recording and coordination of the following process steps:
The incident management process is a detailed and complicated process that interacts and depends on many other processes in the MOF, such as change management, configuration management, release management, service-level management, capacity management, availability management, service continuity management, security administration and service monitoring and control.
MOF is a quality management framework that follows the plan-do-check-act method of continuous improvement. If you plan to implement incident management or already have a working process, you need key performance indicators to measure how well you are doing the process. Remember, it's not a question of whether you are doing the process. It's a question of how well -- or poorly -- you are doing it.
Dr. Stuart D. Galup (D.B.A., Nova Southeastern University) is an associate professor of computer information systems at Florida Atlantic University. He is a Certified Computing Professional and is certified in ITIL. He has held a number of senior information technology positions and holds a U.S. patent. Galup has authored more than 45 academic publications and two books.
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