Actionable Service Catalog: A service catalog is an organized and curated collection of any and all business and information technology-related services that can be performed by, for, or within an enterprise. An actionable service catalog enables self-service and a user can request for the services on demand. To maximize the value of automation, it should be exposed to users as services and positioned in the enterprise service catalog. Care should be taken to make sure accessibility and security of the service is taken care by exposing the services to appropriate users or user groups.
Service Asset and Configuration Management: One of the most critical integrations for automation with respect to ITSM is with the CMDB and AMDB. Having the CMDB up to date at all times is important and automation should take care of the same, and not just focus on the physical object. Integration also results in improved accuracy as the CI details and asset details that are used in the automation library are sourced from the CMDB which is the approved repository.
IT Financial Management: IT as a business is no longer a buzzword. And having an integration between IT Automation and IT Financial Management enables service or portfolio owners to drive demand behavior and also provide monthly chargeback reports easily. A mature service cost model will be needed to appropriately determine the price of an automated value flow.
Change and Release Management: One perspective is that ITIL is aligned with change management. Release management is limiting automation due to its emphasis on processes and procedures. However, change management is extremely important and automation should not bypass the same. Change tickets need to be opened from automation and from an audit or compliance perspective, each and every automation request that changes a state of a production CI needs to have an associated approved change ticket.
Service Reporting and CSI: Automation is not a one-time initiative. It is best implemented in phases and performed incrementally to achieve the CSI spiral. ITSM tools and enterprise BI tools need to be integrated to provide the much needed service assurance dashboard to enable automation/service managers to keep track of automations and govern them successfully. Speed and agility are the essence of automation and automated service reporting is needed to ensure accuracy of fulfilled automation requests. The CSI program and the governance process should be extended to automation, to ensure scalability and sustainability of automation in enterprise IT.
