Agile is not the absence of ITIL!

Mr. Jeffrey Kaplan Talks About The Cloud Channel

By G C Network | October 6, 2011

This afternoon I had a very interesting discussion with Mr. Jeffrey Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies and founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace. His firm is focused entirely on the…

The Economic Benefit of Cloud Computing

By G C Network | October 2, 2011

(The following is the Executive Summary of a recent NJVC Executive Whitepaper. The full version is available at NJVC.com ) Cloud computing, as defined by the National Institute of Standards…

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies: Part 4 – Cloud Computing for Defense and Intelligence

By G C Network | September 15, 2011

(This is part 4 of the series entitled “Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies”. First published on Forbes.com, this series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently…

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 3 – Cloud Transition Lessons Learned

By G C Network | September 13, 2011

(This is part 3 of the series entitled “Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies”. First published on Forbes.com, this series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently…

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 2 – Challenges of Cloud Computing

By G C Network | September 9, 2011

(This is part 2 of the series entitled “Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies” that first appeared on Forbes.com. This series provides the content of a whitepaper I…

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 1-Introduction

By G C Network | September 8, 2011

(This post first appeared on “Cloud Musings on Forbes”. This series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently authored. A copy of the complete whitepaper is available at NJVC.com…

FedPlatform.org Focuses on a Government PaaS

By G C Network | August 26, 2011

   With GSA now issuing ATOs and Amazon launching it’s own government specific cloud, IaaS for government agencies is now a reality.  This next step in this “Cloud First” march…

On The Frontlines: GovCloud and Cybersecurity

By G C Network | July 28, 2011

My friends at Trezza Media recently published a couple of great online documents on GovCloud and Cyber. Your should especially check out the “Cloud Chopping Made Easy” by David McClure…

GovCloud Is Now For Real !!

By G C Network | July 3, 2011

On Friday July 1, Infrastructure-as-a-Services for the US federal government became a reality with Authority to Operate (ATO) approval for the following vendors: Web Hosting CGI Federal Computer Literacy World…

The Economic Impact of GovCloud

By G C Network | June 26, 2011

What a month! June has really been busy!! Just now getting around to doing a post about CloudExpo 2011 in New York.With over 5000 delegates in attendance, it was just…


 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.)

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