In case you haven't followed the ITIL v3 news, the concepts of a CMDB have been "corrected". No longer is the definition so rigid as to say a single database for a CMDB. There are many trusted sources for configuration information within a company and...

Have not posted in quite awhile due to some responsibility changes. I am hoping to be posting a little more regularly now that things have settled. In case you missed it, Microsoft has updated the MOF Self Assessment tool . Tool Overview The Microsoft...

Came across the http://www.itilpeople.com/ site today and it is a good way to start if you are unfamiliar with ITIL concepts and want to learn more. On this site are links to concepts, training, products, forums, and more.

I had the great pleasure of attending training this week at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) . I attended the summer session at CISR which comprised classes on: IT Portfolios and Business Agility Enterprise Architecture...

Mike Turner has an MS Press book coming out soon on the Microsoft Solutions Framework . I encourage you all to get a copy when it is available. Mike has long been an expert on MSF and his learnings will provide some great insight into understanding and...

Pretty good article here on ITIL adoption and MOF implementation . To quote from the article: “In February 2004, Microsoft consultants descended on ACC’s operations center for a one-week assessment of help-desk procedures for managing problems...

Tony put up a great list of ITIL and MOF links in a recent post. If you have others that aren’t listed, please let one of us know. You can find the list by clicking here .

One of the common results to a service improvement project is the stagnation that takes place after the initial assessment, design, and implementation. A “version 1” is typically realized but once the process changes are in place, the ball...

If you are currently using the free Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) solution for SMS 2003 or are evaluating this functionality, there is a great blog on MSDN which digs into the technical details of this software. In case you are unfamiliar...

Just came across a great article at www.govtech.net on ITIL adoption in the US. The author, Chad Vander Veen , delves into why this has taken off so much in the US the last few years, the expanded adoption in government IT, and where things are going...

Need sound operational and technical assistance to setup a production emulated development and test environment? Need this environment to support change and release management? If the answers are yes, then I highly recommend you examine the WSSRA (Windows...

Evergreen Systems , a consulting firm based in Sterling, VA, recently reported its findings from an ITIL benchmark study. They surveyed 167 people representing 108 companies and organizations at the 5th Annual IT Service Management Forum annual conference...

Are you very familiar with ITIL concepts and wonder why implement MOF? A new white paper on MOF: An Actionable and Prescriptive Approach to ITIL has been published to the Microsoft Download Center. This white paper explains how MOF builds on and extends...

From the Desired Configuration Monitoring user guide … “Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) enables you to author desired configuration manifests, and to monitor and report on compliance of your computers against a desired configuration. DCM thereby...

I saw an email recommending ITpreneurs.com as an excellent source for training classes. They offer traditional classroom delivered, e-learning (self paced, virtual instructor led), and Virtual Classroom style training. They have courses on: MOF...

Keith Combs presented a great webcast on a “ more secure and well-managed infrastructure ” by outlining effective implementation and optimization of MOF principles. Keith posted about this in a recent blog entry which outlines details from the webcast...

In a recent article in ict*World , Russell Steyn wrote about the “ love triangle in ITIL – configuration management, change management, and release management .” Interesting that this image arises as within the MOF training curriculum , there is a graphic...

To continue discussion from previous post on risk management tied to IT decision making … First the “why”. There are many reasons listed in the MOF Risk Management Discipline white paper for why risk management is important to an organization. One...

If you organization is like most, Risk Management is a discipline that is not given a lot of attention. Quite often companies take a very basic approach and place risk management into a cloud of high, medium, and low without further definition. Other...

See the full article here . Moira Stepchuk, of Fox IT , was my ITIL Essentials trainer several years ago now. She was a great trainer and very knowledgeable with ITIL and MOF. Fox IT has many quality offerings for ITIL and MOF services. Be sure to check...

I have recently been dealing with an issue surrounding a lead time notification requirement to the CAB for changes at a significant level. There was much discussion on lead time for authorization of the change vs. lead time for release readiness review...

Boris Pevzner has a good blog going on IT Service Mgmt and ITIL topics, entitled " The Boris Files - Secrets of Successful CIOs ". You should check it out. A post he made back in July on best practices for Service Management is well worth the time...

In a recent post on Scott’s ITIL Blog , a question was asked, “ How can you develop and advertise a Service Catalog if you can’t guarantee delivery or cost? ” This question came from a company considering ITIL adoption. I agree with Scott that one of...

In a strong article by George Spafford on Datamation , entitled " The True Value of Change Management ", many good thoughts around change mgmt are listed. Some of the points mentioned are: Change is always constant, be prepared to deal with...

I came across an interesting article on MOF / ITIL in Computerworld by Stevie Sacks , titled “ Reducing IT Costs, Step 6: Design a Service Catalog .” Stevie mentions having two catalogs. One catalog being high level and public facing used for better customer...