Third-Party White Paper by EMA: ASG Service Dependency Mapping

ASG Service Dependency Mapping
Making the Link between IT and the Business
®An ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES (EMAT) White Paper Prepared for Allen Systems Group (ASG)
July 2008
IT Management Research, Industry Analysis, and ConsultingASG Service Dependency Mapping:
Making the Link between IT and the Business
Table of Contents
Executive introduction................................................................................................................................................ 1
Crossing the Chasm from Technology to Business Services............................................................................... 2
ITIL, Configuration Management, and a Service-Driven Approach................................................................. 4
Service Dependency Mapping................................................................................................................................... 5
ASG and Its Place in this Market ............................................................................................................................. 7
EMA Perspective.......................................................................................................................................................... 9
About ASG | www.asg.com.....................................................................................................................................10
©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. IT Management Research, Industry Analysis, and ConsultingASG Service Dependency Mapping:
Making the Link between IT and the Business
Executive introductionCost, complexity and change are defining characteristics of today's Information Technology (IT) deployments. The industry-wide transformation from centralized business applications to modular, distributed business services has been accompanied by ever-higher business criticality. Today's business applications are driving enormous amounts of revenue and are becoming increasingly central to the way entire industries do business. This combination of criticality and complexity has serious implications to IT budgets. While the average IT budget remains relatively flat, While there is increasing awareness with an estimated 3% growth rate for 2008, the cost of administer-ing and supporting these business applications continues to escalate. of the need for IT to evolve to Companies relying on IT as a strategic asset are growing budgets at a a more service-focused view of slightly higher rate - 4% instead of 3% - however this added invest-the enterprise, this is easier said ment is largely earmarked for the development of strategic services, not for support. Today's businesses expect to see tangible value from than done. Both support processes their IT investments, and it is difficult to convince a cost-conscious and management products CEO that pumping additional money into administration and support have traditionally focused on is a good use of limited resources. With support costs already hover-ing between 60 and 80 percent of budget, IT is being called upon to technology silos. Evolving to a more support ever higher levels of scale, complexity, and business criticality business focused and automated - with few or no additional resources.
approach requires evolution of One of the primary reasons for rising support costs is because IT and both processes and tooling. the business see business applications from very different perspectives. IT sees the trees - the servers, routers, and data bases underlying busi-ness applications. The business sees the forest - the technology-based business services delivered to users and customers. While there is in-creasing awareness of the need for IT to evolve to a more service-focused view of the enterprise, this is easier said than done. Both support processes and management prod-ucts have traditionally focused on technology silos. Evolving to a more business focused and automated approach requires evolution of both processes and tooling. In the absence of such an evolution, IT is left to solve service-related problems with the one course of action that has worked in the past - added head count. However, today's business services are so mission-critical, complex, and dynamic that, in many cases, even this doesn't solve the problem. The business con... [download for more]