ITIL Capacity Management Book

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxv

About the Author xxvii

Part I Concepts in Managing Capacity 1

Chapter 1 Introduction to Capacity Management 3

The ITIL Life Cycle 4

The Overall Library 4

The Service Management Life Cycle 4

The Purpose and Goals of Capacity Management 6

The Major Purpose 6

Other Purposes 7

General Goals for Capacity Management 7

Defining Specific Goals for Your Organization 8

Interfaces to and Dependencies on Other ITIL Processes 8

Capacity Management and Service Continuity 9

Capacity Management and Configuration Management 9

Capacity Management and Release Management 9

Other Interfaces 9

The Business Case for Capacity Management 10

Cost Avoidance 10

Business Agility 11

A Great Start for Financial Management 11

Important Risks to Consider 12

Missing Business Capacity Data 12

Inconsistent Component Capacity Data 12

Lack of Analysis Skill and Tools 13

Summary and Next Steps 14

Chapter 2 The Geography of Managing Capacity 15

Capacity Pools and Component Capacity Management 15

Defining Capacity Pools 16

Boundaries of Capacity Pools 16

Granularity of Capacity Pools 17

Managing Capacity Pools 19

Capacity Streams and Service Capacity Management 19

Defining Capacity Streams 19

Confluences and Shared Capacity 20

The Value of Capacity Streams 21

Managing Capacity Streams 22

How Virtualization Affects Capacity Management 22

Virtualization Creates Subpools 23

Managing Virtual Capacity Pools 23

Sharing Virtual Resource Pools Between Streams 24

Over-Subscription and Risks of Virtualization 24

Summary and Next Steps 25

Chapter 3 Understanding Capacity Demand 27

Trend-Based Forecasts 27

Component-Based Trends 27

Service-Based Trends 29

Business-Based Trends 29

Portfolio-Based Forecasts 30

Business-Driven or “Top Down” Portfolio 30

IT-Driven Portfolio 31

Innovation-Driven Portfolio 32

Business Event Forecasts 32

The Blended Capacity Forecast 33

Using the Forecast for Cost Management 35

Cost Avoidance Through Increased Utilization 35

Cost Reduction Through Decommissioning and Recovery 35

Projecting and Tracking Cost Avoidance and Cost Reduction 36

Summary and Next Steps 36

Chapter 4 Dimensions of Capacity Growth 39

Grow the Base 39

Growth by Demand 40

Growth by Refresh 40

Grow the Business 42

Project-Based Growth 42

Service-Based Growth 45

Summary and Next Steps 45

Part II Best Practices in Capacity Management 47

Chapter 5 Establish the Capacity Management Information System 49

Purpose of the Capacity Management Information System 49

Repository of Capacity Information 49

Interface to Integrated Service Management 50

Reporting and Decision Making 52

Contents of the Capacity Management Information System 52

Utilization Data 52

Capacity Data 54

Capacity Plans 56

First Steps to Implementation 57

Define Requirements 57

Select Tools 58

Gather Data 58

Implement Processes 59

Train Staff 59

Using the Capacity Management Information System 60

Forecasting Capacity Needs 60

Making Capacity Decisions 60

Integrating Service Management 60

Summary and Next Steps 61

Chapter 6 Define and Manage Capacity Plans 63

Scope of a Capacity Plan 63

Service Capacity Plans 63

Component Capacity Plans 64

How Many Plans? 65

Format of a Capacity Plan 66

The Essential Elements 66

The Right Level of Detail 69

Maintaining Capacity Plans 69

Periodic Reviews 70

Coping with Major Changes 71

Storing Capacity Plans 72

Format of the Plans 72

Maintaining Version Control 73

Summary and Next Steps 74

Chapter 7 Staff the Capacity Management Team 75

Implementation Roles 75

Capacity Process Owner 76

Capacity Management Information System Designer 77

Process Engineer 78

Project Manager 79

Operational Roles 81

Capacity Service Owner 81

Capacity Analyst 82

Capacity Data Manager 83

Capacity Planner 85

A Word About Skills 86

Skills, Roles, and Staffing 86

Developing Capacity Management Skills 87

Skill Maturity and Team Composition 87

Summary and Next Steps 88

Chapter 8 Implement the Capacity Management Process 89

The High-Level Process 89

The ITIL Process 90

Adopting and Configuring a Process 91

Attributes of a Good High-Level Process 93

Defining and Documenting Capacity Policies 94

Capacity Monitoring Policies 95

Capacity Acquisition Policies 96

Policy for Capacity Incidents and Changes 97

Policy for Capacity Planning on New Projects 98

Creating Capacity Procedures 98

Process Steps Create Procedures 98

Procedures for Capacity Reviews 99

Procedures for Improving Capacity 100

Procedures for Capacity Planning 100

Managing Capacity Process Assets 101

Document Format and Storage 101

Reviews and Process Approvals 102

Making Updates and Tracking Revisions 103

Summary and Next Steps 103

Chapter 9 Relate Capacity and Performance 105

Performance Is Capacity in a Moment 105

Definition of Performance Management 106

Time Scale for Performance Testing 106

Performance Management in the Capacity Management Process 107

Expand Capacity to Improve Performance 109

Techniques to Measure Performance 109

Techniques to Improve Performance 110

Diagnosing Performance Problems 111

Understanding Peaks and Valleys 113

Creating a Performance Profile 114

Measuring Performance Trends 116

Integrating Performance into the Capacity Plan 116

Virtualization’s Impact on Performance 117

How Hypervisors Improve Performance 117

How Virtualization Automates Performance Management 117

Summary and Next Steps 118

Chapter 10 Choose Capacity Management Tools 119

Tools to Track Component Capacity 119

Specific Requirements in This Class 120

Available Tools 121

Specialized Tools Approach 122

Generalized Tools Approach 123

Tools to View Service Capacity 123

Specific Requirements in This Class 124

Available Tools 124

Build or Buy 125

Performance Management Tools 125

Specific Requirements in This Class 126

Available Tools 127

Tools for a Capacity Management Information System 128

Specific Requirements in This Class 128

Available Tools 129

How to Choose the Best Tools 129

Summary and Next Steps 131

Chapter 11 Produce Capacity Reports 133

Capacity Reports 133

Component Exception Reports 134

Component Trending Reports 135

Service Trending Reports 136

Capacity Management Reports and Process Metrics 138

Measuring Capacity Trend Accuracy 138

Tracking Capacity-Related Incidents 139

Evaluating the Completeness of Capacity Plans 140

Summary and Next Steps 141

Part III Common Issues in Capacity Management 143

Chapter 12 Business Capacity Planning 145

The Scope of Business Capacity Planning 145

Defining Business Capacity 146

How to Measure Business Capacity Utilization 147

Predicting Business Capacity Needs 149

The Challenge of Planning Business Capacity 150

Effort Versus Benefit 150

Getting Agreement on Measurements 151

The Place of Business Capacity Planning in Business Strategy 152

Integrating Business Capacity Planning with IT Capacity Planning 153

The Business Component Hierarchy 153

The Line Between IT Services and Business Processes 154

Integrated Utilization 155

Integrated Capacity Plans 155

Managing IT Capacity without Business Capacity Information 155

Summary and Next Steps 156

Chapter 13 Smoothing the Order Cycle 157

Establishing Capacity Buffers and Reorder Levels 157

Determining Capacity Buffers 157

Establishing Reorder Levels 158

First Guesses and Fine-Tuning 159

Factors Affecting Reorder Levels 159

Deployment Time 160

Process Maturity 160

Vendor Packaging 160

Virtualization Standards 161

Cost-Containment Efforts 162

Ordering the Right Amount 163

Ordering Individual Units 163

Ordering Hardware for Virtualization 163

Volume Ordering 165

Finding the Right Balance 165

Reclaiming Capacity Instead of Reordering 166

How Reclaimed Capacity Affects Capacity Demand 166

How Reuse Affects Reorder Levels 166

Creative Ways to Reuse Capacity 167

Summary and Next Steps 167

Chapter 14 Capacity Management in a Project Context 169

Capacity Plans as Project Deliverables 169

Adding Capacity Requirements in Project Definition 170

Considering Capacity and Performance in the System Architecture 171

Defining and Executing Capacity Test Cases 172

Building the Capacity Plan at Project Time 173

Testing and Estimating Capacity Utilization 173

Architecting for Capacity Growth 174

Engaging Capacity Management in the Project 175

Turning the Capacity Plan Over to Operations 177

When Capacity Management Has Been Engaged 177

When Capacity Management Was Not Engaged 178

Essentials of Operational Turnover 179

Summary and Next Steps 179

Chapter 15 Integrating Capacity Planning with IT Processes 181

Integrating with Availability Management 181

Process Linkage 182

Data Linkage 183

Benefits of Integration 183

Integrating with Configuration Management 183

Process Linkage 184

Data Linkage 184

Benefits of Integration 185

Integrating with Change Management 185

Process Linkage 186

Data Linkage 187

Benefits of Integration 187

Integrating with Incident Management 187

Process Linkage 188

Data Linkage 188

Benefits of Integration 189

Integrating with Service Continuity Management 190

Process Linkage 190

Data Linkage 191

Benefits of Integration 192

Integrating with Release and Deployment Management 192

Process Linkage 192

Benefits of Integration 193

Chapter Summary 193

Index 195