Agile is not the absence of ITIL!

The Time is Now for 21st Century Leadership

By G C Network | November 10, 2013

I’ve just had the opportunity to preview my good friend Melvin Greer’s newest effort, “21st Century Leadership: Harnessing Innovation, Accelerating Business Success“. Now in pre-release, this book highlights the compelling…

Public Cloud IaaS : A Price/Performance vs. Security Analysis

By G C Network | October 25, 2013

Industry’s transition from custom made, one-of-a-kind IT infrastructures to the standardize, commodity based cloud paradigm is well on it’s way. IBM’s recent “Under Cloud Cover” study highlights the rapidly of…

Catch the Cloud with DorobekINSIDER LIVE!

By G C Network | October 17, 2013

  Yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed an opportunity to participate in the DorobekINSIDER LIVE edition on cloud computing.  The conversation was both lively and informative.  Joining me on the show were:…

Cloud Shines Brightly as Future of Disaster Response IT

By G C Network | September 14, 2013

The call for help began as a rumble. Twenty miles beneath the ocean’s surface, a rupture in a massive tectonic plate ripped a 310 mile-long break in the sea floor,…

NCOIC/NGA Demonstrates Use of Cloud in Disaster Response

By G C Network | September 5, 2013

     When the world’s next major earthquake, tsunami or other disaster hits, military, government and civilian NGA project is available on the NCOIC website. responders will need to manage and…

NBC4 Puts On A Great GovCloud Show !!

By G C Network | August 25, 2013

NBC 4 in Washington, DC highlighted government cloud computing today as part of their GovInnovate show. Below is just a taste of the informative public service they provided.  Go to…

OMB’s Evidence Memo: A Call for Cloud Services Brokerage

By G C Network | August 21, 2013

by Ray Holloman and Kevin Jackson In a late July memo the Office of Management and Budget requested cloud services brokerage. Well, not in so many words. Rather, OMB requested…

Cloud Services Brokerage Lessons From Alex Rodriguez, Baseball’s Trade Deadline

By G C Network | August 8, 2013

( A guest post from Ray Holloman, NJVC Corporate Communications) Two stories sat atop baseball’s marquee in the final days of July. The first was the non-waiver trade deadline, baseball’s…

Lessons Learned: VA Cloud Email Termination

By G C Network | July 17, 2013

According to a Federal Computer Week article by Frank Konkel, The Department of Veterans Affairs terminated its five-year, $36 million cloud computing contract for email and calendaring services with HP…

Deconstructing Cloud: An Excellent Guide to the Cloud Computing World

By G C Network | July 15, 2013

On an almost daily basis, I’m approach for my views on “cloud computing technology”.  Although typically innocent in nature, I always cringe at the thought of enduring yet another hours…


 by
Jodi Kohut
ITIL (formerlyknown as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library) has been the best management practices framework of choice for world class IT Operations organizations.  The 5 stage framework: Service Strategy, Design, Transition, Operation, and Continual Service improvement allows for structured processes that support Enterprise Architecture, Service Delivery, and Security initiatives.  Structured and controlled planning and change are the bywords here.

 

A major driver of the cloud is efficiency and a betterallocation of technical resources. As a result, executives are considering more use of Agile or DevOps frameworks to speed up the delivery of valuable services to end-users. I’ve heard more than one of my colleagues speculate that this shift signals a move away from ITIL.  After careful consideration, I suggest there are three reasons why a “both and” approach will provide more benefit to the organization:


1.) Agile improves the delivery time of an ITIL- inspired service.  Using mature service strategy and design processes of ITIL, Agile teams can validate the architectural and SLA requirements prior to developing and releasing a product or change. 

2.) Continuous delivery means less risky changes for Service Transition.  Agile allows for the riskiest changes to take place first, and within a controlled development environment. Operations personnel are working more closely with Agile teams up front during service design and can have their needs considered during development. In short, continuous integration promotes (forces?) collaboration.

3.) Security operations are improved. The collaboration that using Agile within the bounds of ITIL necessitates enables security considerations to be embedded into the Service Strategy and Design processes.  Agile teams can deliver based on security aware requirements, rather than security teams having to secure an already developed service.

Contemporary cloud services provide the ideal place for Agile and ITIL to meet. First, teams can quickly provision cost-effective pre-production environments where building a continuous integration pipeline is possible.  Second, this cloud based pre-production environment provides a collaboration space for development and operations teams to work together to transition a service to the Operations team, already tested and secured. 

Organizations that find a way to integrate Agile and ITIL will likely see a realization of improved collaboration, resulting in less time to release secure and compliant services to end-users.

(This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis about the evolving world of tech. To learn more about tech news and analysis visit Tech Page One. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are our own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies.)

Bookmark and Share

Cloud Musings

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS – © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
Posted in

G C Network