mof executive overview v3

7/29/2019 MOF Executive Overview v3

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MOF Executive Overview v3.0

Abstract

ThisMOFExecutive Overview white paper summarizes the content of Microsoft

Operations Framework (MOF) and presents the business value realized by its adoption.MOF describes proven team structures and operational processes and applies best

information technology (IT) practices to improve the efficiency and quality of IT

operations. It has its basis within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), published by theUnited Kingdoms Office of Government Commerce (OGC), and extends ITIL through

the inclusion of guidance and best practices derived from the experience of Microsoft

operations groups, partners, and customers. This white paper explains the business casefor adopting MOF and briefly summarizes the Team Model, Process Model, and Risk

Management Discipline that are its core components. The paper provides a foundation for

understanding the in-depth information provided in companion MOF white papers andguidance documents. To access these other publications, see the MOF Web site at

http://www.microsoft.com/mof.

Top of page

Whats New?

Microsoft Operations Framework version 3.0 represents a significant update to the coreMOF content. This version was developed to make MOF more streamlined and easier to

implement and to align it more closely with ITIL version 2.0 and Microsoft Solutions

Framework version 3.0, among other enhancements. This Executive Overview has beenupdated to highlight the business value realized by adopting MOF and to reduce

redundancy in descriptions of MOF details used in associated documents. The overview

also reflects the recent changes published in MOF version 3.0, including changes to theProcess and Team Models and Risk Management Discipline.

Top of page

Introduction

Microsoft has long recognized the value of industry best practices and standards for IT

operations. In particular, guidance provided through ITIL has been globallyacknowledged as providing a sound basis and de facto standard for IT service

management.

In keeping with ITILs spirit to adopt and adapt, Microsoft has chosen to provide

additional, specific guidance, which is applicable to customers using Microsofttechnologies within their environments. Microsoft created the first version of Microsoft

Operations Framework in 1999. MOF was designed to complement the well-established
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Microsoft Solutions Framework for solution and application development. Together, the

combined frameworks provide guidance throughout the IT life cycle.

Top of page

The Customer Perspective: Operations and the State ofBusiness

Organizations are increasingly dependent on IT to support and enhance the business

processes required to meet their organizational and customer needs. In many cases, ITservices form the basis for the entire business model; in these instances, IT does not

merely support the business it is the business. Yet, despite the importance now

attached to IT, intense competitive and economic pressures on business are oftenreflected through corporate mandates to maintain, or even to decrease, their current IT

budgets. At the same time expectations of IT for quality, innovation, and value continue

to increase. As IT continues to grow in significance to most organizations, it is imperativethat IT groups take a business- and service-oriented approach to operations rather than a

technology-centric one.

IT service management is concerned with delivering and supporting IT services that are

implemented in direct response to the organizations business requirements. While it isessential that an organizations IT servicessupportcore business activities, it is also

increasingly important that these same IT services facilitate change as businesses evolve

and compete in a global marketplace. IT must become a primary stakeholder in thebusiness decision-making process.

Enhancing IT Business Value

In order to establish their credibility and elevate their strategic impact within the

corporate sphere, IT groups must clearly focus on directly supporting the business

objectives of the organization and emphasizing the business value IT provides. IT enables

new ways of doing business and is better managed when considered as an asset to thedevelopment and execution of key business strategies. This requires IT groups to be able

to show how their services make specific, tangible, and critical contributions to achieving

business outcomes. It also requires that IT groups show how they are achieving the levelsof security, efficiency, reliability, and agility that their businesses require.

This approach is more proactive than has been typical in the past. The traditional, perhapslegacy, view of IT has typically been that IT is a significant, potentially strategic

investment, but not one that is expected to drive business value. At best, efficientlymanaged IT operations could be considered to contribute some cost savings to the

organization, but frequently even these benefits cannot be seen or quantified because

there is no mechanism in place to capture the metrics.
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In reality, IT can drive significant value in such non-traditional IT business areas as sales

and customer support, in addition to such traditional IT areas as operational efficiency. In

order to do this, IT groups must embrace a variety of business terminologies, methods,techniques, and concepts that are commonly employed elsewhere in the business world.

Example: MOF and Remote Access Service at Microsoft

One example of how MOF helps drive IT business value was the evolution of Remote

Access Service (RAS) from a non-core, secondary service to a secure, easily usable,highly available, integral component of the Microsoft IT infrastructure. Over a 24-month

period, the Microsoft IT organization undertook a top-to-bottom overhaul of the RAS

infrastructure that included monitoring, alarming, metrics gathering, and the setting ofnew standards for client technologies and applications to access the network. In parallel

to these technology upgrades, Microsoft IT began a phased implementation of MOF to

help manage the upgrade and service improvement projects.

As a result of this technology and service improvement effort, RAS quickly evolved intoa strategic business-enabling service that is used to enhance staff mobility and reduce

business unit costs. The Microsoft IT RAS solution seeks to make the user experience on

a remote access session virtually indistinguishable from a corporate-connected LAN

experience in accessibility, security, and performance. Approximately 8590 percent ofMicrosofts 55,000 workers regularly access the service on a daily basis. According to

Microsoft IT, without a disciplined support model in place across the organization, the

service quality and total cost of ownership goals simply could not be met. MOF hasprovided that level of discipline.

Improving IT Cost Allocation

Without the ability to equate services with costs, it is practically impossible to quantify

IT value to the bottom line. Conversely, exhibiting cost savings can graphicallydemonstrate IT service value. MOF provides a way to capture and present these data.

The table below illustrates a few examples of this concept in other industries. In each

case, costs are allocated to a measurable service task or component.

Table 1

Industry Activity Cost Benefit

Telecom Telephone call cost per minute Ability to build profit margin into customerprice

Automobile Replacement cost of

defective parts

Ability to cost-justify manufacturing process

improvements to remove defects, and toincrease warranty coverage at minimum risk

Consulting Hourly cost per consultant

skill level and per salesagent

Ability to build sales costs into consulting

hourly rate


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Similarly, the table below shows examples of IT service costs and their associated

benefits. These quantified benefits can clearly show the business value realized through

effective operations management.

Table 2

IT Function Activity Cost Benefit

Help desk Cost per incident per user Ability to build help desk staff increases into

project budgets (capital expenditures) basedon estimates of new user/new incident

volumes, thus preventing productivity losses

when users suffer system- or service-relatedwork stoppages and help desk is not

adequately staffed to handle the request

volumes

System

administration

Cost per change type

(major, standard, and soon)

Ability to provide operational cost estimates to

keep applications/systems up-to-date once inproduction

Monitoring Cost per minute/hour ofdowntime per application

Ability to demonstrate value to the bottom lineprovided by problem resolution effectiveness

and by preventative measures

IT must not only translate business requirements into services that meet these

requirements, it must also strive for inclusion up front in the business strategy planning.This ensures that business and IT are aligned from the outset when new initiatives are

established and facilitates IT in guiding business direction on the basis of new technology

as it becomes available. For example, if the business is planning a partnership with

another business, the business strategy would differ based on the business understandingof available business-to-business technology options.

Example: Service Improvement at Microsoft

Microsoft IT is responsible for building, operating, and managing the global Microsoft IT

infrastructure. From this position, Microsoft IT can provide valuable feedback on theapplication and implementation of new Microsoft products to any enterprise business

process. As a result, Microsoft expects Microsoft IT to be its first and best customer.

Microsoft IT is an early adopter of Microsoft products, technologies, and processes, using

the beta releases to provide feedback to improve the quality and functionality of releasedsolutions and products. By implementing and testing new products within the Microsoft

business processes, the business values can be documented to provide prescriptive

guidance and advice to customers. Microsoft IT creates IT Showcase documentation thatdescribes the business scenarios theyve used and provides implementation and

management guidance to ensure that customers can effectively use the new products they

adopt. The guidance and best practices provided by showcasing new products within theMicrosoft IT business processes can help to reduce implementation and deployment costs


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for all customers. As part of its ongoing commitment to utilize Microsoft technologies

and practices, Microsoft IT has made a CIO-level commitment to ensure that all

operations processes are based on MOF. MOF provides improvements in consistency andmaturity for diverse operations processes. In return, Microsoft IT documents both its own

and customers data to improve and enhance prescriptive guidance for future MOF and

product releases.

In late 2002, Microsoft IT conducted a MOF assessment of itsoperations in six of the MOF service management functions

to identify redundant processes and optimize on best

practices, following MOF guidelines to improve processmaturity. Although the assessment demonstrated that

Microsoft IT generally had practices and processes in place

for most common tasks, in many cases they were not well

documented or coordinated. For example, different groups

within the organization had different ways to handle changemanagement, using multiple change management tools.

Microsoft IT has spent the last year running serviceimprovement projects based on the recommendations from

the MOF assessment with dramatic results.

Other Microsoft operations groups, for example MSN and

Microsoft.com, have also embraced MOF principles in structuring and managing theiroperations. These relationships between Microsoft operations groups and the MOF

development group have greatly assisted in ongoing MOF development, through the

ability to rapidly evaluate and capture feedback relating to MOF guidance. As Microsoft

rolls out next generation infrastructure for in-house beta testing prior to release, MOFguidance to deploy, operate, support, and optimize that infrastructure is developed in

parallel.

Top of page

Enhancing Your Organization with MOF

The IT Life Cycle and Microsoft Frameworks

Within any organization, the IT services and the applications and infrastructure that

support them have a finite life cycle. This cycle may be divided into three key sets of

activities:

Understand the business and operational needs for the service and create a solution thatdelivers these within the specified constraints.

Effectively and efficiently deploy the solution to users with as little disruption to the

business as the service levels specify.Operate the solution with excellence in order to deliver a service that the business trusts.

The results across the

board from all six

projects showed a

dramatic increase inthe process maturity,

organization, and

execution on theservice management

improvements, which

we expect to bevisible at the TCO

level.

Mike Carlson, Senior

IT Director,Microsoft


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Microsoft provides guidance and implementation packages for the effective employment

of our technologies across the entire gamut of the IT life cycle. This guidance is clustered

into two frameworksMicrosoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and Microsoft OperationsFramework (MOF). MSF addresses the first set of activities (analyzing the need and

creating a high-value solution); MSF and MOF coordinate processes and activities to

deploy the solution in the second set; and MOF addresses the final set of activities untilthe solution is retired. MOF also incorporates and extends a wealth of guidance that is

already available through other existing (and developing) IT standards organizations.

These relationships are summarized in the following sections.

The life cycle and how MSF and MOF interact throughout it are depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The IT life cycle and Microsoft frameworks

The development and deployment of an IT solution typically involves two IT teams. Theproject team is assembled for a limited time to plan, build, and deploy the solution. MSF

provides a flexible and scalable way to plan, design, develop, and deploy successful IT

solutions. MSF guidance consists of principles, models, and disciplines for managing thepeople, process, technology elements, risks, and the trade-offs that most projects

encounter. For more information about MSF, see http://www.microsoft.com/msf.

In contrast, the operations team is permanent and is responsible for the solutions daily

operations and management. MOF is designed to guide the operations teams. It providestechnical guidance that enables organizations to achieve mission-critical system

reliability, availability, supportability, and manageability of IT solutions built with
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Microsoft products and technologies. MOFs guidance addresses the people, process,

technology, and management issues pertaining to operating complex, distributed,

heterogeneous IT environments. For more information about MOF, seehttp://www.microsoft.com/mof.

The two frameworks are complementary, minimizing the time to valuethat is, the timebetween recognition of the need and delivery of the service. Consistency of terminology

and concepts between the two frameworks also supports the delivery of a high-qualityservice.

The two frameworks are also well integrated. For example, the deployment of an IT

solution requires knowledge of the solutions requirements and user controls as well asthe system requirements to operate it. MSF and MOF both include guidance for team

roles and processes that ensure a successful deployment into the production environment.

Throughout development, MSF and MOF emphasize the institution of processes to

ensure that the solution (or any change to the IT environment) is built for operability and

supportability, and that it meets release requirements.

MOF guidance is based on the direct knowledge and experience of Microsoft, its

partners, and consultants in the daily operation of large and small IT environments and

execution of software and IT service development projects. Microsoft also incorporatesand aligns with acknowledged standards from within the worldwide IT industry, often

enhancing and extending generic standards to facilitate their employment in Windows-

based operating environments.

Implementing MOF: Service Improvement Projects and Solution

Accelerators

MOF core guidance, available through white papers and other guidance documents,

provides a solid foundation upon which to deploy and operate successful IT solutions.MOF is also incorporated into prescriptive guidance to enhance IT operations for specific

functions and processes and in business solutions that combine tools and technologies

with MOF operations guidance.

The diagram below illustrates the relationship between MOF and these prescriptive

solutions. Core MOF guidance resides at the center of Microsoft operations guidance.

These core principles are elaborated upon through a catalog of more than 20 service

management function (SMF) documents, each of which describes and provides guidance

on a specific set of IT activities. In turn, the SMFs serve as the foundation forprogressively more prescriptive guidance to achieve specific objectives. This guidance is

available through service improvement project (SIP) guides and solution accelerators.

Each service improvement project (SIP) is intended to provide prescriptive guidance onimplementing or enhancing a particular service management function (or set thereof). For

example, an organization may conduct a SIP specifically to enhance its support functions

by improving help desk operations. MOF has released a SIP guide to provide generic
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assistance in implementing projects of this type and is developing SIP guidance for

specific SMFs for future release.

Solution accelerators combine Microsoft products, additional tools and technologies, andrelated SMFs to provide a packaged solution that adds service capabilities and business

value to your IT organization. Solution accelerators are available that assist in solvingseveral common business challenges, such as ensuring the efficient, reliable deployment

of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and business desktops, patch management, servicemonitoring and control, and others. By basing these solution accelerators on a MOF

foundation, Microsoft enhances the operability of deployed solutions, now and in the

future.

Figure 2. MOF core guidance supports actionable solutions

Currently available MSIM solution accelerators include:

Business Desktop Deployment

Enterprise Messaging

Internet Data CenterService Monitoring and Control

Domain Server Consolidation and Migration

File and Print Server Consolidation and Migration

Patch Management (several versions)


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Windows Server Deployment

For more information on these solution accelerators, visit

http://www.microsoft.com/technet.

MOF and ITIL

MOF aligns and builds on the IT service management practices that have beendocumented within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) maintained by the United

Kingdoms Office of Government Commerce (OGC). The OGC is a U.K. government

executive agency chartered with development of best-practice advice and guidance on the

use of information technology in service management and operations. Microsoft has beenactively involved with the ITIL community since 1999, both using the ITIL content and

contributing to new and updated documentation, including co-authoring several books.

ITIL currently includes more than 40 books. Of these, ten are of particular significance to

a corporate IT organization. Figure 3 illustrates these ten titles and their relationships.

Figure 3. The ITIL publication framework

Each of these ITIL publications is devoted to a function of IT service management andcontains cross-references to its companion publications.

One goal of MOF is to extend and enhance the practices and guidance offered throughITIL in order to provide more detailed prescriptive guidance in specific areas of IT

management.
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MOF is similar to ITIL in several ways:

MOF (in conjunction with MSF) spans the entire IT life cycle.

MOF is based on best practices for IT management, drawing on the expertise of aninternational group of practitioners, including Microsoft World Wide Services,

Microsoft Partners, Microsoft customers, and the internal (and extensive) Microsoft IToperations group.

The MOF body of knowledge is applicable across the business communityfrom smallbusiness to enterprise. MOF is not just for those operating on the Microsoft platform

within homogenous environments.

Like ITIL, MOF has expanded to include more than just a documentation set. MOF is acore component of the MSIM solution accelerators, ensuring that solutions are operable

in your IT environment, post-deployment. Furthermore, a variety of resources have been

developed to support MOF principles and guidance, including self-assessments, ITmanagement tools that incorporate MOF terminology and features, training programs

and certification, and consulting services. These are offered by numerous third-party

vendors and consultants.

MOF expands upon and extends ITIL through the following:

Addition of the MOF Team and Process Models and Risk Management Discipline(summarized subsequently within this document).

Simplification of IT processes into a simple diagrammatic model, with all components

and their relationships visible at a glance.Focus on the service-delivery level of IT management, rather than on IT operations in

their entirety. For example, ITIL identifies individual service functions such as Service

Level Management and Capacity Management; these are described within the ITIL

Service Delivery publication. In contrast, MOF individually recognizes over 20 servicedelivery functions and devotes an entire publication to each of them, providing

descriptions, examples, and best practice guidance.Combination of ITIL collaborative industry standards with specific guidelines for using

Microsoft products and technologies.

Scalability of MOF guidance and principles from implementation within a single service

to implementation across a high-order structure such as a data center or entire operationsenvironment. MOF also extends the ITIL code of practice to support distributed IT

environments and industry trends such as application hosting and Web-based

transactional and e-commerce systems.Top of page

MOF and Quality of Service Improvement Initiatives

IT organizations often implement service improvement programs as a result of feedback

obtained through MOF-based review exercises or other review processes. The questionmay arise, Is MOF compatible with my preferred quality improvement methodology?

Microsoft uses ITIL

both as the basis for

Microsoft OperationsFramework, which is

our structured

approach to helpingcustomers achieve IT

operational

excellence, and inhow we operate our

own systems. We are

proud to have

contributed as leadauthors to the writing

of the Application

Management and the

Planning toImplement Service

Management booksin the ITIL

collection.

Rick Devenuti, CIOand Corporate Vice

President, Microsoft

Services


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In most cases, the answer is Yes. MOF and ITIL can be applied simultaneously with

most of the project management methodologies and standards that are currently

employed for service improvement. The following are some examples of compatibleprograms:

PRINCE2 is a standard project management methodology (developed and madeavailable by the OGC) that can be applied to ensure improvement projects are managed

systematically. Like MSF, PRINCE2 can be used to apply good project managementskills to an operations environment for a structured approach to release rollouts and/or

service improvement projects.

Six Sigma techniques are applicable, for example, to establish project rationales andcharters for quality improvement projects; these techniques can be used to implement

the original design and improvements to it. Total Quality Management (TQM), a related

methodology, can be used in much the same way.Quality-management standards, such as International Organization for Standardization

(ISO) 9000, can be applied in conjunction with ITIL to good effect. (For more

information, see the ITIL publication Quality Management for IT Services.) Quality-management systems, such as the EFQM Excellence Model in Europe and the Malcolm

Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the United States, complement these

efforts.

Capability maturity models (CMMs)such as Carnegie Mellons CMM and CapabilityMaturity Model Integration (CMMI)and ISO 15504, also known as Software Process

Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE), can be used with MOF to

determine the capability of ones MOF SMFs against an industry-standard framework;the MOF Operations Assessment, for example, uses the ISO 15504 standard as its basis.

The IT Governance Institute develops and publishes its guidelines on IT governance as

Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT). Especially with the

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, corporate governance and audit are increasingly importantwith businesses of all sizes.

Within MOF, several mechanisms have been included to assist in monitoring and

enhancing quality of service. The Service Level Management SMF provides a means forIT operations to negotiate the service levels they will provide to service customers and to

monitor metrics to evaluate the quality provided. The MOF Optimizing Quadrant, one of

four areas within the MOF Process Model, is dedicated to the assessment andenhancement of quality IT service.

Top of page

Getting Started with MOF

MOF provides IT with an internationally recognized body of guidance to facilitate the

management and operation of the IT infrastructure. Guidance may be applied withinorganizations of all sizesfrom small businesses to global enterprises. An IT

organization can begin to apply MOF anywhere in the environment and then branch out


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into other areas. Furthermore, MOF guidance may be applied incrementally, adding

additional components as an organization matures in its operating capabilities.

The MOF Team Model, described later in this document, defines a set of roles thatencompass the full range of activities involved in operating an IT infrastructure. MOF

provides flexibility in assigning these roles within an existing corporate organizationalhierarchy. Similarly, the MOF Process Model groups together common IT processes at

various stages of the IT life cycle and associates them with the relevant roles.

Implementation of MOF may progress toward various levels of maturity. In addition,

different processes and functions within MOF may progress at rates that are best suited

for your business. The first step is to understand your current organizations strengths andweaknesses, and to prioritize your goals for improvement. Following that, organizations

typically implement one or more service improvement projects (SIPs) to upgrade their

capabilities within the desired IT service functions. In short, the flexibility and

modularity of the MOF framework permits you to quickly adapt MOF to fit your needs

and your organizational structure.

Top of page

The MOF Components

MOF comprises several components: core knowledge provided through white papers,prescriptive guidance presented through SIPs, SMFs, and solution accelerators, and

training, made available through a network of qualified training partners. All of these

components are based on these foundation elements of MOF:

The Team ModelThe Process Model

The Risk Management Discipline

These provide guidance about people, process, and risk management in IT service

management. Each focuses on enabling technologies and best practices for achievinghigh systems availability, reliability, supportability, and manageability on the Microsoft

platform. They also provide guidance on interoperability with other technology

platforms. The sections that follow discuss the three MOF components.

The MOF Team Model

Overview

The MOF Team Model was developed to provide agility in adapting to the complexitiesof geographically or institutionally distributed teams managing distributed systems.

While maintaining a high degree of flexibility, the MOF Team Model also assigns

specific accountability and responsibility to team roles; this enables a MOF-based


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organization to measure and improve its effectiveness even though service functions may

be spread across multiple locations and even through multiple subgroups.

The MOF Team Model organizes an IT operations organization into several role clusters;these are individuals or groups who perform related activities to accomplish a particular

component of an IT service. These role cluster assignments are based on industry bestpractices for structuring operations teams. MOF then provides additional guidance that

applies collectively and individually to the role clusters, describing:

Key activities and competencies of each role cluster.

Recommendations for scaling the teams for different sizes and types of organizations.

Effective combination of roles for smaller teams.Interaction of MOF operations teams with MSF development teams.

Guiding Principles

Building successful, efficient operations teams requires more than just role andresponsibility descriptions. It also requires shared principles that instill a sense of

business priorities and establish set guidelines for how the team should function. The fiveprimary principles and guidelines that apply to all role clusters within the MOF Team

Model are:

To provide timely, efficient, and accurate customer service.

To understand the business priorities and enable IT to add business value.To build strong, synergistic virtual teams.

To leverage IT automation and knowledge management tools.

To attract, develop, and retain strong IT operations staff.

Team Model Role Clusters

Experience has shown that, to be successful, IT management teams must achieve

numerous quality goals associated with key service functions. The role clusters of the

MOF Team Model are organized around seven general categories of activities andprocesses, each with its own set of quality goals. Role descriptions within a cluster are

focused specifically on activities directed to meet the quality goals; they are not job

descriptions, and they do not imply any kind of corporate organization.

The following diagram maps the seven role clusters to two dozen possible functional

roles or function teams in a typical operations organization. The rest of this sectionsummarizes the functions of each of the seven role clusters.


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Figure 4. MOF Team Model role clusters and examples of functional roles or

function teams

See full-sized image

Role Cluster Details

Descriptions for each of the role clusters are provided in the table below.

Table 3

Role Cluster Description

Release Tracks changes and lessons learned in a corporate knowledge base.

Tracks inventory and changes in a configuration management database(CMDB).

Acts as liaison between the change development team and the operations

groups; it encompasses the ITIL disciplines of configuration management

and software control and distribution.Infrastructure Defines physical environment standards.

Manages physical assets.

Maintains the IT infrastructure and oversees IT architecture evolution.

Coordinates building and office moves, expansions and acquisitions, and

physical environment changes such as wiring, lab space, and userconnectivity.
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Role Cluster Description

Support Provides technical support for internal and external customers, resolving

incidents and problems using highly automated tools and knowledge basesystems.

Provides production support for line-of-business (LOB) applications.

Gives feedback to the development and design team.

Operations Ensures that daily, routine tasks are performed reliably within specifictechnology areas and production systems (messaging, system

administration, etc.).

Performs scheduled and repeatable processes such as data backup,

archiving and storage, output management, system monitoring and eventlog management, and file and print server management.

Partner Defines and manages partnerships in a mutually beneficial and cost-

effective manner.

Includes both the internal manager responsible for the relationships withexternal parties, and those parties themselves.

Security Ensures data confidentiality, data integrity, and data availability.

Influences business policies, such as defining exit procedures to follow

when an employee leaves the company.Service Ensures that all of the IT services being provided to customers are

aligned to the customers need for them.

Maintains a working relationship with customers, understanding theirneed for IT services, and managing the introduction of new services,service improvements, and (eventually) service reductions and

retirements.

The MOF Process Model

Overview

The MOF Process Model provides a functional blueprint and description of the processesthat operations teams perform to manage and maintain IT services. It assumes that the

operations groups main responsibility is managing change in the IT environment. Themost effective way to deal with change throughout the lifespan of a service is to group

related changes together into a package called a release, so that the changes can beplanned and managed as a unit. The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can

be applied to any release and the processes and activities that make up each part of that

life cycle.

Guiding Principles


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The MOF Process Model is based on four guiding principles:

Structured architecture.The MOF Process Model organizes all operational activities

needed for mission-critical computing in a complex IT environment.Rapid life cycle, iterative improvement.MOF supports an iterative IT life cycle that

facilitates rapid assessment and change to respond to evolving business needs.Review-driven management.The Process Model requires operations management

reviews (OMRs) at key points in the life cycle. In these reviews, the team and keystakeholders evaluate performance for release-based activities as well as time-based

operational activities.

Embedded risk management.Since the ultimate business cost of an IT service failure canbe catastrophic,MOF proactively manages risk throughout operational processes.

Process Model Quadrants

The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can be applied to releases of any size

and relating to any service solution. The model groups similar IT management functionscalled service management functions (SMFs)into each of fourquadrants. Each quadrant

owns a specific mission of service.Note that, although the circular aspect of the MOF

Process Model implies that management activities occur sequentially, in fact several

releases, each at a different stage in the IT life cycle, may occur simultaneously within anIT organization. Furthermore, the service management functions described in the

Operating and Supporting quadrants all occur continuously and simultaneously within the

data center. The following diagram illustrates the basic life cycle, including the fourquadrants and the four OMRs.


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Figure 5. The MOF Process Model

The following table lists the mission of service and the OMR for each quadrant.

Table 4

Quadrant Mission of Service OMR

Changing Introduce new service solutions,technologies, systems,

applications, hardware, and

processes.

Release Readiness Review providesapproval to deploy the fully developed

and tested release.

Operating Execute day-to-day tasks

effectively and efficiently.

Operations Review is scheduled

periodically to evaluate IT staffs ability

to maintain a given service, meet service

level requirements, and document its

experience in a knowledge base.Supporting Resolve incidents, problems, and

inquiries quickly.

Service level agreement (SLA) is

performed periodically and evaluates thestaffs ability to meet the service level

requirements defined in the service level

agreement.Optimizing Drive changes to optimize cost,

performance, capacity, and

Change Initiation Review increases

likelihood that proposed changes are in


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Quadrant Mission of Service OMR

availability in the delivery of IT

services.

alignment with business objectives and

operability requirements.

Two of the OMRs are driven by the release schedule. The Change Initiation Review

(formerly the Release Approved Review) is completed before formal development workbegins on a new or updated release, and the Release Readiness Review is conducted

before deploying the release into the production environment. The Operations Reviewand the SLA Review are held at regular intervals after the introduction of a release in

order to assess the internal operations and performance against customer service levels.

As a result, the Operating Quadrant is where MOF will provide the majority of theoperations guidance specific to Microsoft products and technologies. In addition, due to

the focus that Microsoft applies to IT operations, many products are now incorporating

features and functions directly targeted at making them more supportable, reliable, and

manageable. Where applicable, MOF extends the foundational IT SMFs of ITIL with

specific references to Microsoft products and features that either automate or improve thedelivery of the SMF.

The Service Management Functions

Each of the SMFs within a particular quadrant shares a common mission of service, orgoal. Many of the SMFs are based upon the OGCs IT Infrastructure Library. The notable

exceptions are Workforce Management (in the Optimizing Quadrant) and all SMFs in the

Operating Quadrant. Because ITIL is platform-independent, it does not cover these items.SMFs are best practices and typically will require customization to address unique or

specific requirements of a particular operations environment.

The SMFs and the quadrants they belong to are shown in the following figure.


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Figure 6. MOF Process Model and SMFs

Each SMF has specific guidance written for it within MOF. Each guidance document

typically provides:

General principles for the specific service management functional area.

A description of the roles involved in implementing the service function and theirresponsibilities.

Annotated lists of the daily, weekly, monthly, and as-needed tasks required to apply the

SMF in a production environment.

A more detailed overview of the SMFs and their components is provided in the MOFProcess Model white paper.

Process and Team Model Convergence

The MOF Team Model role clusters generally align with the four process quadrants of

the MOF Process Model, as shown in the following diagram. Note that multiple roles

may be involved in a single quadrant, and a single role (such as Supplier or Security) maybe involved in multiple quadrants. The Partner Role Cluster may be involved anywhere

within the Process Model, so is omitted for brevity.


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Figure 7. MOF Team Model role clusters and their alignment to the MOF Process

Model

The MOF Risk Management Discipline

Overview

MOF and MSF collect guidance pertaining to risk management into a body of knowledge

called a discipline. A distinction is made between disciplines and models, since

knowledge contained within a discipline may be applied at any stage of any process. TheMOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines are substantially identical, although

descriptions and examples provided in their detailed presentations may vary.

The Risk Management Discipline for operations applies proven risk management

techniques to the daily problems faced by operations staff. Many models, frameworks,

and processes exist for managing risks. These all share similarities in how they identifyand manage risk. The MOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines improve upon most

of these risk management schemes through the application of key principles, acustomized terminology, a structured and repeatable risk analysis and evaluation process,

and integration into a larger operations framework.

Guiding Principles


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The Risk Management Discipline for operations advocates these principles for successful

risk management in operations:

Assess risks continuously. This means the team never stops searching for new risks, andit means that existing risks are periodically re-evaluated.

Integrate risk management into every role and every function. At a high level, thismeans that every IT role shares part of the responsibility for managing risk, and every IT

process is designed with risk management in mind.Treat risk identification positively. For risk management to succeed, team members must

be willing to identify risk without fear of retribution or criticism.

Use risk-based scheduling. Maintaining an environment often means making changes ina sequence; and, where possible, the team should make the riskiest changes first to avoid

wasting time and resources on changes that cannot be released.

Establish an acceptable level of formality.Success requires a process that the teamunderstands and uses.

These principles are summarized in the wordproactive. A team that practices proactiverisk management acknowledges that risk is a normal part of operations and, instead of

fearing risk, the team views it as an opportunity to safeguard the future. Team membersdemonstrate a proactive mindset by adopting a visible, measurable, repeatable,

continuous process through which they objectively evaluate risks and opportunities and

take action that addresses the causes of risk as well as its symptoms.

Risk Management Process

The following diagram illustrates the steps of the risk management process: identify,

analyze, plan, track, control, and learn. It is important to understand that each risk goes

through all of these steps at least once and often cycles through each of them numeroustimes. Also, each risk has its own timeline, so multiple risks might be in each step at anypoint in time.

Figure 8. The process of managing risk

mof executive overview v3

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