Agile is not the absence of ITIL!

OMG Cloud Standards Summit

By G C Network | July 2, 2009

July 13-15, 2009, in Arlington, VA, the Object Management Group, is holding a Standards in Government & NGO’s Workshop. During the first day, the Cloud Computing Standards Summit will focus…

NDU IRM Cloud Computing Event “Sold Out”!!!

By G C Network | July 2, 2009

Hope you’ve already registered for the “The Cloud Computing Symposium” , Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at the National Defense University in Washington, DC! This promises to be the premier government…

SSA’s Jim Borland on Healthcare Information Technology

By G C Network | June 25, 2009

Today, on this week’s Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum webcast, Mr. Jim Borland, Special Advisor for Health IT, Office of the Commissioner, Social Security Administration(SSA), will discuss the value…

Dr. Leslie Lenert of CDC Speaks on Healthcare IT

By G C Network | June 24, 2009

During this week’s Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum pre-recording, Dr. Leslie Lenert, Director, National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),…

Linda Fischetti on VHA Healthcare

By G C Network | June 23, 2009

This week pre-recording of Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum featured Linda Fischetti , Health Informatics Architect at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). During a panel discussion, her comments on…

Vish Sankaran, HHS, Speaks on Healthcare IT

By G C Network | June 22, 2009

During the pre-recording of this weeks Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum, Vish Sankaran, Program Director of Federal Health Architecture, discussed the role of information technology in improving the country’s…

Iranian Protests Showcase Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (and Cloud Computing) !

By G C Network | June 21, 2009

In covering unfolding events in Iran, the world’s most powerful news outlets have been entirely dependent on the Twitter-provided flow of text, images, and video. While this has definitely showcased…

Two Days with AWS Federal

By G C Network | June 18, 2009

Today, I start two days of training with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Federal. If that’s the first time you’ve ever heard about an AWS Federal division, your not alone. Held…

Maneuver Warfare in IT: A Cheerleading Pundit

By G C Network | June 15, 2009

The Twitter conversation between Christofer Hoff and I went like this: Christofer – I haven’t formally blogged a resp. (yet) to @Kevin_Jackson on his ‘maneuver warfare in IT’ Not just a cultural shift but a…

Expanding Maneuver Warfare in IT

By G C Network | June 12, 2009

Earlier this week I published “Cloud Computing: The Dawn of Maneuver Warfare in IT Security” via Ulitzer. In publishing the article my intent was to explore the more dynamic approach…


 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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