12 Related Standards and Complementary Books

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ITIL consists of modules containing advice and guidance on “best practice” relating to the provision of IT services. ITIL has subsequently been used as the basis for the development of a British Standard for Service Management. The standard and ITIL are aligned and the standard has itself been recently revised and is now documented in the following set of documents:

• BS 15000-1:2002, IT Service Management (Part 1: Specification for Service Management)

• BS 15000-2:2003, IT Service Management (Part 2: Code of Practice for IT Service Management)

• PD 0005:2003, IT Service Management – A Manager’s Guide

• PD 0015:2002, IT Service Management – Self Assessment Workbook.

These documents provide a standard against which organisations can be assessed and certified with regard to the quality of their IT Service Management processes.

A BS 15000 Certification scheme was introduced in July 2003. The scheme was designed by the itSMF and is operated under their control. A number of auditing organisations are accredited within the scheme to assess and certify organisations as compliant to the
BS 15000 standard and its content. The BS 15000 standard is now progressing towards an International (ISO) standard on Service Management.

A complementary book on Software Asset Management (SAM) has also been added to ITIL. This concentrates on the specific demands of managing software assets within an organisation and the related issues associated with the use of those software assets. The book definition states that “SAM is all of the infrastructure and processes necessary for the effective management, control and protection of the software assets within an organisation, throughout all stages of their lifecycle”.

The overall objective of all SAM processes is good corporate governance, namely to manage, control and protect an organisation’s software assets, including management of the risks arising from the use of those software assets. An overview of the process areas for SAM is shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13: The SAM Process Areas

The objective of the Overall Management processes is to establish and maintain the management infrastructure within which the other SAM processes are implemented. Each of the other process areas can then achieve their objectives as follows:

• Core Asset Management processes: to identify and maintain information about software assets throughout their lifecycle, and to manage physical assets related to software

• Logistic processes: to control all activities affecting the progress of software through its lifecycle

• Verification and compliance processes: to detect, escalate and manage all exceptions to SAM policies, processes, procedures and licence use rights

• Relationship processes: to manage all relationships within the business, and with partners and suppliers, to agreed contractual, legal and documented service terms and targets relating to the use of software.

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