Service Catalog Management
This section covers the service catalog management process. We do not look in detail at this process, but it is important that you understand its purpose, objectives, and scope. In Chapter 3, we covered the service portfolio, which contains the service pipeline and retired services, in addition to the service catalog. Figure 6.1 shows these three elements and the changing status of the service as it moves from pipeline to catalog to retired services.
FIGURE 6.1 Service portfolio
Based on Cabinet Office ITIL® material. Reproduced under license from the Cabinet Office.
Understanding the Service Catalog
A service catalog is defined in the ITIL glossary as follows:
“A database or structured document with information about all live IT services, including those available for deployment. The service catalogue is part of the service portfolio and contains information about two types of IT service: customer-facing services that are visible to the business and supporting services required by the service provider to deliver customer-facing services.”
Let’s examine this definition in more detail:
These different views of the catalog are similar to what one would expect to see for any other type of catalog. For example, a store catalog will show customers the items for sale, prices, colors, and specifications, and it will give a catalog reference for ordering. The store staff would have a different view of the same items, showing stock level, cost price, lead time, and supplier.
As shown in Figure 6.2, the structure should consider the different needs of different audiences, because not every service is of interest to every person and not every piece of information about a service is of interest to everyone. The customer does not need to see the technical aspects of service delivery, and the technicians do not need to see the business processes as a regular view.
FIGURE 6.2 A two-view service catalog
Based on Cabinet Office ITIL® material. Reproduced under license from the Cabinet Office.
Dependent on the nature of the business, the service provider may have both internal and external customers and different types of customers, who have different services available to them. Figure 6.3 shows a service catalog structure where the catalog defines services available to wholesale and retail customers.
FIGURE 6.3 A three-view service catalog
Based on Cabinet Office ITIL® material. Reproduced under license from the Cabinet Office.
This catalog has three views:
- The first two views show all the IT services delivered to wholesale or retail customers (customer-facing services), together with relationships to the customers they support.
- The third view shows all the supporting IT services, together with relationships to the customer-facing services they underpin. The technical information regarding components, CIs, and other supporting services required to support the provision of the service to the customers is also shown here.
Purpose of the Service Catalog Management Process
The purpose of the service catalog management process is to provide and maintain a single source of consistent information on all operational services and those being prepared to be run operationally and to ensure that it is readily available to those who are authorized to access it. The catalog will include services that are also being developed or enhanced for future transition into a live environment, from pipeline to operations to retirement. It is an essential resource for service management, so the production and maintenance of the information are extremely important.
The catalog will be used by customers and IT and for the basis for service level (ITIL core guidance does not hyphenate service level) management. Identifying and documenting all the services provided, together with their supporting services, are challenging tasks, but the advantages of having one agreed, definitive source for this information make the effort worthwhile.
Objectives of the Service Catalog Management Process
The service catalog management process has as its objective the production and maintenance of the service catalog. The information contained within the catalog must be accurate, so there should be a link to service transition. As service transition moves new services to the operational environment or retires other services, the service catalog will need to be updated to reflect the changes. To ensure consistency, the service description should remain the same as the service progresses through the portfolio to avoid any confusion with other, similar services.
Effective service asset and configuration management will ensure that the supporting services for each customer-facing service that is run, or is being prepared to run, in the live environment are identified and documented in the catalog. The details of the service, its status, its interfaces, and its dependencies should all be held within the service catalog.
A further objective of service catalog management is to ensure that the information within the catalog is made available in a suitable format to those who need it. Whether this is a Word document, a spreadsheet, or an intranet site, the needs of the customers and users should be considered. Appropriate controls should be put in place to control access to those approved to see that level of detail.
The service catalog information is used by other service management processes; an objective of service catalog management is to ensure that the information provided within it meets the requirements of all who access it. Working with service asset and configuration management, the dependencies within components can be identified and shown.
Scope of the Service Catalog Management Process
The scope of the service catalog management process includes all services that are being transitioned or have been transitioned to the live environment. The catalog may list services individually; more commonly, it describes service packages. A service package is an offering that combines two or more services to offer a solution to a specific customer need or business outcome. It may consist of a combination of core services, enabling services and enhancing services.
Included within the scope of this process is the definition of these services or service packages and the descriptions to be used for them within the catalog. Also included is the actual production and ongoing maintenance of the catalog, showing the dependencies between all services and supporting services. This information is obtained from the Configuration Management System. We shall be examining the CMS in Chapter 9.
