Technical Infrastructure Management
The Technical Infrastructure Management (TIM) capability is the ability to manage an organization's IT infrastructure across the complete life cycle of:
- Transitional activities including building, deploying, and decommissioning infrastructure.
- Operational activities including operation, maintenance, and continual improvement of infrastructure.
- IT infrastructure is comprised of:
- Physical devices — for example, servers, storage, and mobile devices.
- Virtual devices/resources — for example, virtual storage and virtual networks.
- Infrastructure-related software — for example, middleware, operating systems, and firmware.
- Communications components — for example, LAN/WAN, Wi-Fi, MPLS, and voice infrastructure.
- Platform services — for example, content management and web services.
- IT infrastructure governance — for example, asset management and configuration management.
Structure
TIM is made up of the following Categories and CBBs. Maturity and Planning are described at both the CC and the CBB level.
- AOverarching Activities
Manages activities applicable or common to all IT infrastructure components — for example, integration, problem management, and change management.
- A1IT Operations Management
Manage IT infrastructure activities in support of business activities — for example, the processing, storage, and transmission of data.
- A2Infrastructure Integration
Develop skills, policies, and approaches to enable the infrastructure to work cohesively as a whole.
- A3Incident and Problem Management
Implement workarounds, repairs, and root cause analysis (where needed), facilitated by appropriate diagnostic practices.
- A4Infrastructure Performance Management
Manage infrastructure performance in support of service levels agreements (SLAs) — for example, in relation to availability and response time.
- A5Asset Management
Manage the deployment and utilization of IT infrastructure assets, including software licenses, networks, physical devices, and virtual devices. Redeploy, retire, and acquire assets as needed.
- A6Infrastructure Change Management
Manage major technology infrastructure changes — for example, the transition to cloud, major hardware refreshes, firmware upgrading, introduction of a bring-your-own-device policy, and so on.
- A7Data Centre Environment
Manage all aspects of the data centre environment, including power efficiency and availability, network, cooling, fire-suppression, physical access controls, and security.
- A8Business Continuity Planning
Manage IT infrastructure to support business continuity planning.
- A9Configuration Management
Implement overarching policies, approaches, and tools for joined-up configuration management across the IT infrastructure — including, for example, allocation of CPU, memory, and storage to a virtual server, configuration of the laptop build image for a group of end customers, and so on.
- BDecentralized Infrastructure
Manages IT infrastructure items that are not located in central IT facilities — for example, hardware, software, configuration switch settings, and firmware.
- B1Support Infrastructure
Develop overarching approaches and policies for the life cycle management of decentralized infrastructure equipment.
- B2User, Mobile, and Personal Devices
Implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of mobile and personal devices.
- B3Peripherals
Implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of peripherals and consumables — including, for example, printers, scanners, monitors, and other devices.
- B4Endpoint Devices
Implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of endpoint devices — including, for example, thin clients, POS terminals, and so on.
- CCommunications Infrastructure
Manages all of the components that provide the telephony, computer, and wireless networks for voice, data, and audio-visual services.
- C1Wide Area Networks (WAN)
Develop and implement policies and procedures for the life cycle management of in-house and vendor services and the associated equipment — including for example routers, firewalls, and so on.
- C2Local Area Networks (LAN)
Develop and implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of local area networks, including Wi-Fi.
- C3Voice, Video, and Convergent Services
Develop and implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of voice, video, and other services where technology convergence is a factor.
- DData Centre Services
Plans, designs, integrates, and operates the IT data centre environment.
- D1High Performance, Server, and General Purpose Computing
Develop and implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of the processing infrastructure.
- D2Storage
Develop and implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of storage — including, for example, computer memory, disk drives, solid state disks, and so on.
- D3Mainframe Computing
Develop and implement approaches and policies for the life cycle management of mainframe computers.
- D4Infrastructure Related Software
Develop and implement approaches and policies for life cycle management of infrastructure-related software — for example, application integration and middleware software, information management software, storage management software, and IT operations management and security software.
Overview
Goal
The Technical Infrastructure Management (TIM) capability aims to holistically manage all physical and virtual components of the IT infrastructure to support the introduction, maintenance, and retirement of IT services.
Objectives
- Provide technical infrastructure stability, availability, and reliability through effective operation, maintenance, and retirement of infrastructure components.
- Provide technical infrastructure adaptability and flexibility through forward-planning when creating, acquiring, improving, and disposing of infrastructure components.
- Provide seamless interoperability across different kinds of infrastructure components.
- Protect technical infrastructure and the data that flows through it.
- Make provision for effective infrastructure utilization.
Value
The Technical Infrastructure Management (TIM) capability provides a reliable, flexible, secure, and operationally efficient IT infrastructure to meet business requirements.
Relevance
Almost every aspect of modern business has come to rely on business capabilities enabled by IT services, which in turn run on IT infrastructure. Indirectly, IT infrastructure has become the backbone to supporting interactions across customers, suppliers, employees, and partners. Therefore, the management of the IT infrastructure will have significant impact on the success or failure of an organization.
By establishing an effective Technical Infrastructure Management (TIM) capability, an organization can provide appropriate infrastructure that will support current and future needs. In doing so, the capability helps organizations become more efficient, redefine their business models, and improve their customer experiences1.
Scope
Definition
The Technical Infrastructure Management (TIM) capability is the ability to manage an organization's IT infrastructure across the complete life cycle of:
- Transitional activities including building, deploying, and decommissioning infrastructure.
- Operational activities including operation, maintenance, and continual improvement of infrastructure.
- IT infrastructure is comprised of:
- Physical devices — for example, servers, storage, and mobile devices.
- Virtual devices/resources — for example, virtual storage and virtual networks.
- Infrastructure-related software — for example, middleware, operating systems, and firmware.
- Communications components — for example, LAN/WAN, Wi-Fi, MPLS, and voice infrastructure.
- Platform services — for example, content management and web services.
- IT infrastructure governance — for example, asset management and configuration management.
Improvement Planning
Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)
Representative POMs are described for TIM at each level of maturity.
- 2Basic
- Practice
- Develop standards and policies relating to IT infrastructure life cycle management and select appropriate tools to implement them.
- Outcome
- A consistent, repeatable, and reliable approach emerges to design, implement, and support the IT infrastructure across its various component categories.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT infrastructure component types whose life cycles are documented and are covered by standards and policies.
- Practice
- Develop or join communities of practice to grow IT infrastructure competences.
- Outcome
- Skills and competences are consistently applied to develop and support a more responsive and cost-effective IT infrastructure.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT infrastructure personnel who are members of a community of practice.
- Practice
- Define and plan IT infrastructure change management to reduce/minimize disruption to business operations.
- Outcome
- Changes to the IT infrastructure are planned, communicated to stakeholders, are generally predictable, and can be reversed if necessary.
- Metric
- Percentage of changes to the IT infrastructure that have to be temporarily rolled back.
- Practice
- Work with the other relevant business units to improve the governance and budget control for IT infrastructure management.
- Outcome
- The design, support, and maintenance of the IT infrastructure become more predictable, and developers, support personnel, and customers have a clearer understanding of what is possible, and in what timeframes.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT infrastructure expenditure formally approved within agreed governance and budget control practices.
- Practice
- Define IT infrastructure roles and the skills associated with them across IT infrastructure component categories.
- Outcome
- IT infrastructure personnel can increase their skill levels and plan their careers; and this in turn will improve the development and support of the IT infrastructure.
- Metrics
- Number of IT infrastructure roles with defined skills/competences.
- Percentage of IT infrastructure employees with training plans and career paths.
- Practices
- Divide IT services into those that are, and those that are not, business critical.
- Standardize and optimize the business critical services and segment them into service tiers.
- Outcomes
- Reduced cost, lower risk, and reduced management complexity are experienced.
- This prepares the groundwork for automation, and to take advantage of emerging technologies such as social, mobile, data analytics, and cloud computing.
- Metrics
- Percentage of IT services that are business critical.
- Percentage of IT services that are standardized.
- 3Intermediate
- Practice
- Audit the IT infrastructure against agreed policies, approaches, and life cycle management protocols.
- Outcome
- Assurance increases on the design, implementation, and support of the IT infrastructure.
- Metric
- Number of IT infrastructure non-compliance incidents identified.
- Practice
- Standardize practices for incident management and problem resolution.
- Outcome
- Incidents and problems are handled correctly and cause minimum disruption.
- Metrics
- Number and percentage of incidents resolved per day.
- Incident mean time to repair (MTTR).
- Number and percentage of problems resolved per month.
- Practice
- Standardize targets for the IT infrastructure (relating, for example, to availability, utilization, and response times), and measure and report on them in both technical and business service terms.
- Outcome
- SLAs are in place that track the effectiveness and efficiency of the IT infrastructure.
- Metric
- Percentage coverage of SLAs across the IT infrastructure.
- Practice
- Promote IT infrastructure management for environmental sustainability.
- Outcome
- The IT infrastructure is managed for triple bottom-line impact — that is, its social, environmental, and financial impact.
- Metrics
- Power usage effectiveness (PUE).
- Percentage of IT infrastructure components disposed of in a compliant manner.
- Practice
- Use IT infrastructure technology roadmaps to discuss, agree, and plan the future IT infrastructure.
- Outcome
- The planning of IT infrastructure is transparent and takes account of enterprise architecture requirements.
- Metric
- Number and availability of approved IT infrastructure roadmaps.
- Practice
- Analyse and rationalize the organization's IT services and workloads to consolidate and virtualize the underlying infrastructure.
- Outcome
- IT services are optimized to save on energy, costs, space, and resources, and asset utilization is improved.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT services that are rationalized and virtualized.
- 4Advanced
- Practice
- Prioritize the utilization and availability of the IT infrastructure.
- Outcome
- The IT infrastructure scales to match the business needs of the organization.
- Metrics
- Percentage total downtime broken down by service.
- Frequency of SLAs being broken.
- Utilization rates across IT infrastructure components.
- Practice
- Automate, where appropriate, IT infrastructure process execution (for example account provisioning, software distribution, and intrusion detection).
- Outcome
- Higher levels of automation makes real-time IT infrastructure provisioning increasingly viable.
- Metric
- Percentage of relevant IT infrastructure processes that are automated.
- Practice
- Ensure that feedback from business units and users informs the development, improvement, and utilization of the IT infrastructure.
- Outcome
- The IT infrastructure can be proactively planned to meet the operational, tactical, and strategic objectives of the business.
- Metrics
- The frequency of meetings relating to IT infrastructure between IT and other business units.
- The level of agreement that the IT infrastructure can meet business objectives.
- Practice
- Create and use a standard catalogue of IT infrastructure services and make it accessible to users through a self-service portal.
- Outcome
- Users can access IT infrastructure resources more efficiently.
- Metrics
- Percentage of IT infrastructure services that are available via a standard catalogue.
- Percentage of IT services that are available via a self-service portal.
- 5Optimized
- Practice
- Continually improve the architecture of all IT infrastructure components to enhance agility and integration.
- Outcome
- The IT infrastructure continues to be modular, agile, lean, and sustainable.
- Metrics
- IT infrastructure modularity (coupling effort across components).
- IT infrastructure agility/flexibility across component configurations.
- Sustainability (power usage effectiveness (PUE) across components).
- Practice
- Manage the IT infrastructure to support optimal availability and utilization.
- Outcome
- The IT infrastructure complies with SLAs, and any breaches are immediately reported and corrected.
- Metric
- Number of SLA breaches by service.
- Practice
- Implement automatic monitoring of the IT infrastructure, supported by a self-healing capability.
- Outcome
- Very high service quality arises from automatic response to alerts and self-healing.
- Metrics
- System uptime.
- Mean time to recover (MTTR).
- Practice
- Continually investigate and take advantage of new technologies that improve levels of automatic infrastructure orchestration, such as Intelligent Infrastructure Management Systems or Software Defined Infrastructure.
- Outcome
- The complete infrastructure can be automatically controlled and managed.
- Metric
- Percentage of the IT infrastructure that is automatically managed.
Reference
History
This capability was introduced in Revision 16 as a new critical capability.
It was deprecated in Revision 18.04, being updated by Technical Infrastructure Management (18.04).