How’s this for an ambitious agenda: Cut costs, bolster security and improve end-user satisfaction. Each of those items is hard enough to address in isolation, but some federal agencies aim to achieve all three goals through an approach known as IT service management.

ITSM establishes a consistent, core set of processes for managing the delivery of IT services, and related software automates those processes. Industry executives contend that automating formerly manual activities helps organizations trim expenses, while system security and availability stand to improve with more disciplined and less reactive management approaches. Overall, standardizing IT delivery tasks should, at least in principle, ratchet up the level of quality.

Agencies have two primary options for ITSM: in-house deployment or turning to the cloud. Traditionally, vendors have offered ITSM as on-premise software, but in the past 18 months, the market has shifted toward cloud-based software as a service (SaaS). That approach could lower the cost and complexity of ITSM adoption, but buyers must first overcome security concerns.

Why it matters

Federal interest in ITSM is growing for a couple of reasons. One is data center consolidation. Multiple data centers typically mean multiple service desks and supporting technologies. Consolidation gives agencies a chance to pursue a focused ITSM effort.

SOURCE: fcw.com