I’m reading Service Delivery, one of the two core ITIL core books. It describes Service Level Management, IT Financial Management, Capacity Management, IT Service Continuity Management, and Availability Management. Work bought the book.
So far in this book the capacity management section appeals the most to me. We do very little historical monitoring, so capacity management might be one of the first areas to mention to others. We don’t have good capacity growth plans, and an annual or quarterly Capacity Plan would help us with our capital planning.
I’ve ordered The Visible Ops Handbook, which I think I saw at LISA 2005.
I’ve also asked LOPSA about whether ITIL is all it’s cracked up to be. Two people wrote in about their horrible experiences, where either management forced a “strict” implementation of ITIL where they created 17 “managers” for each management area, or where the operational folks were forced to use counterproductive tools. The one or two people who spoke in favor of ITIL underscored that you must adapt ITIL’s processes to make them fit your needs.