Services and applications

Like this post Just What is an ITIL Service Anyway? by IT Skeptic (Rob England): "An IT service is the availability and/or consumption of a type of transaction running on technology." Agree 100%. Where do transactions live? Inside applications. That means that applications may be IT services, a point of view I still hold to... and I still believe that too much of ITIL was written from a point of view that sees the application world as somehow different from the IT service world... a foreign land, too technical, and not really business-focused - when the exact opposite is true, the application is the service, and all those business analysts and developers are the essential solutions delivery core of the service lifecycle.

-ctb

Comments

[The IT Skeptic]

When are applications NOT services? ITSM doesn't exclude apps, it just treats them as a black box, just another service.

Apps people get all miffed because their babies aren't the be-all they were in the 90s, but they are still in there, just nothin's special :-D

[Chris York]

I would argue that an application is not a service, it is simply the means to deliver the service.

An application always meets some need. The need usually remains even though the application(s) that fulfills the needs change often.

For example, you may have a need for a Payroll system in HR. Today that Payroll system may be Peoplesoft. Tomorrow it may be Lawson.

Should the IT service be "Payroll System", or should it be "Peoplesoft". In addition, the Service "Payroll System" is going to be comprised of more than a single application. there may be several applications that are required in order to get Peoplesoft to work correctly.

An appropriate analogy would be my need for transportation. I need to be able to get from point a to point b. Today I have a car that meets that need. Tomorrow, I may get a new car, or I may decide to "outsource" and get someone else to drive me. The service is still transportation.