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ITIL Application Management
The What And The Why Of It

Before we get into ITIL Application Management, we need to explain what ITIL is.

In fact it boils down to a comprehensive set of documentation (series of books) of best practices of IT Service Management.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) was developed because of the growing dependencies of companies on IT to satisfy their corporate goals and meet their business needs.

Within the ITIL Service Management framework there are several components, one of which is ITIL Application Management. This provides the best practices as to how business applications are developed, managed, and supported throughout the life-cycle of software development projects.

The Life-Cycle Components

Requirements - identify the business process requirements, identify service level requirements.
Design - the requirements are translated into a solution that includes development costs, Service Level Management, Capacity Management and Financial Management.
Build - once the design is approved, application coding, testing and user sign-offs take place. User sign-off is an important aspect of this process because it must take place at individual modules, overall system modules and quality assurance.
Deploy - Only when we have final user sign-off, do we begin user training and move the application into production.
Operate - this covers the day-to-day operation of the product. Service levels are monitored, application performance is measured, any changes are addressed. The goal here is to minimize the impacts on the business.
Optimize - it is here that Performance Management people look at any potential performance improvements, Capacity planners uncover future application bottlenecks, Application staff ensure the process flows and satisfies the needs of the customers and end users.

Importance Of ITIL Application Management

Many executives see this as "all well and good in theory" and then ask "Is all this really necessary?" The answer is yes, when you realize that:

80% of system outages are self inflicted, caused by people and process issues, poor change management practices.
20% are caused by technology failures and disasters.
Average organizations (those not following best practices) spend 35-45% of their time on unplanned unscheduled work and service restoration.
Whereas high performing companies following these best practices spend less than 5% of their time on unplanned, unscheduled work.
Organizations that have implemented ITIL have experienced significant improvements in their IT operations that are directly related to business benefits.

Fundamental Questions

Where does your organization fall within these statistics? Does your IT department keep track of these statistics?
How well does your organization follow best practices in IT Management?
Can you list the top 10 best practices in IT Application Management?
Have you discussed ITIL with your auditors?
How knowledgeable is your staff in ITIL and are they following those best practices?
What would it cost you in time and resources to train, hire and develop this expertise within your organization versus looking to employ IT project outsourcing to professionals who are certified in ITIL?

At the end of the day, do
what's right for your organization!

There's More To Learn!

To better understand ITIL Application Management and its many components, you can peruse the Official ITIL website, which is an unbeatable reference.

Another very useful site for any IT Manager wishing or needing to become a ITIL Practitioner or ITIL Manager, is the ITIL Survival website.

ITIL CMMI

Do you know the difference between an "improved" IT process versus a "mature" IT process and how it impacts your organization? If you're not sure, you might want to learn more about ITIL Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).

Learn more at our ITIL CMMI page.

ITIL Benefits

Okay, you've come this far. There's a lot to absorb about ITIL Application Management and you undoubtedly have questions.

You may be wondering is it worth it? It's easy to say "ITIL is the most widely used IT service management best practice approach in the world," but "How will it benefit my organization?" you ask.

Learn more at our ITIL Benefits page.

Is ITIL Certification Necessary?

What is ITIL certification? Why does my organization need ITIL? What are the benefits to certification?

Get answers to such questions by visiting our ITIL Certification page.

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ITIL Application ManagementThe What And The Why Of It