Authors:
Jurriaan Kamer
and
Harald Vranken
Affiliation:
Open Universiteit, Netherlands
Keyword(s):
Virtualization, ITIL, IT service management, Cloud computing.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Cloud Computing
;
Cloud Computing Enabling Technology
;
Cloud Risk, Challenges, and Governance
;
Fundamentals
;
Virtualization Technologies
Abstract:
Server virtualization influences all aspects of IT service management, and is a key enabling technology for cloud computing. In this paper we focus on the impact of server virtualization on service delivery and service support as described by ITIL. We identify advantages, disadvantages, and risks of server virtualization for capacity, management, availability, costs, and security of IT services, and relate these aspects to the ITIL processes. We validated our results using an empirical test within four different organizations. Our main conclusion is that server virtualization does not change the ITIL processes themselves, but it does change the way the processes are executed. Server virtualization is no silver bullet for solving problems in IT operations and management. If server virtualization has been properly introduced, it can offer faster and better execution of the ITIL processes. The impact is most significant on the Financial Management process, while also Service Level Manag
ement, Incident Management, Change Management, IT Service Continuity Management and Availability Management are affected considerably. The impact is less prominent for Application Management, Software Asset Management, Release Management, Configuration Management and Security Management.
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