Capacity Management

– The ITIL Way

Vaishali Joshi
ITSM Consultant
Agenda – 2 Parts

1) What is ITIL, ITSM, COBIT, SOX?

• Why is everyone excited about it?
• Overview of the ten ITIL processes
2) Capacity Management in the ITIL world
IT Acronyms you need to know…

IT needs more:
•Information Technology Infrastructure Library
PREDICTABILITY!
(ITIL) – Best practices framework
• Service Support CONSISTENCY!
• Service Delivery DATA!

• Information Technology Service Management

(ITSM) – Governance Model ITSM provides a
governance
•COBIT – Control Framework for auditing
framework for more
• Planning & Organization
• Acquire & Implement control over the
• Deliver & Support validity, integrity,
• Monitor
timeliness and
•Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) – US legislation audits availability of your
• Consistent
data
• Repeatable
• Auditable
• Verifiable
 SERVICE SUPPORT & DELIVERY PROCESSES
•Availability Management •Service Level Management •Capacity Management

•Contingency Management •Security Management •Financial Management

CONTROL
•Asset/Configuration

RELEASE PROCESSES • Change Mgmt SUPPLIER PROCESSES

RESOLUTION •Customer Relationship
Release Management
PROCESSES Management
•Incident Mgmt
•Supplier Management
•Problem Mgmt

AUTOMATION
Why IT Service Management?

• Proven quality driven framework

• Create results by aligning people, processes,
and technology
• Repeatable processes and procedures
• Improve resource utilization capabilities
• Improve IT staff morale
• Increase responsiveness to demand
Agenda – Part 2 Capacity Management
• The ITIL mindset for Capacity Management

• Objectives of Capacity Management

• Three sub-processes within Capacity Management

• Metrics

• Understanding ITIL Process Interdependencies

• The Capacity Plan

• Critical Success Factors for Implementation

• Capacity Management Automation Solutions

 Today’s world of capacity management requires a strategic,
planned, holistic approach…
CENTRALIZED
•Investment focus on individual capital return
•No corporate capacity plans
•No business capacity forecasts
•Reactive network and server capacity
management
DISTRIBUTED
•Investment focus on overall
corporate requirements
•Need to plan for growth with
business forecasts
•Proactive capacity management
(what, when and how much to
upgrade?)
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

‘The dotcom meltdown demonstrated the dangers of building networks to

dubious over-rated forecasts or philosophical visions. Networks should
only be built to customer demand, which is difficult but achievable.'‘

- Andy Bolton, CEO, Capacitas, Ltd

Objective of ITIL Capacity Management
• To ensure that cost justifiable capacity:
• always exists
•Hardware
•Networking Equipment (LANs, WANs, bridges, routers)
•Peripherals (bulk storage devices, printers)
•Software (OS, network SW, purchase/in-house)
•HR

• is matched to the current and future business requirements

Strategic, Planned, Holistic Approach …

Business Strategy

“ There are 2 business

Business Plan
growth patterns that our
CAPACITY
MANAGEMENT
capacity plan must

IS/IT Strategy address:

•Increase ROI of UNIX •ORGANIC
server base
•EVENT DRIVEN”

IS/IT Business Plans - Pepperweed client quote

•Integrate Data Centers &
shared facilities
•Create shared production
platforms
•Implement a UTILITY
SAN-based PROGRAM
 On-going activities

Ad-Hoc

Three Sub-Processes…

Business Capacity
Iterative
Management Capacity
Activities Demand Data
•MONITOR
Service Capacity Mgmt Modeling Storage
•ANALYSIS
Management •TREND
•TUNING
ANALYSIS Application
•IMPLEMENT Sizing
Resource Capacity •BUSINESS
Management •SERVICE
•TECHNICAL
•UTILIZATION

Capacity Plan CDB

Metrics: Some guidelines
• Throughput (Volume & Utilization)
•CPU Utilization
•Memory Utilization
•File storage utilization

• Performance
•Response times

• Gather data at:

•Total resource utilization level
•Detailed load profiles per service per resource
SUPPORT PROCESS Problem Mgmt
INTERDEPENDENCIES
Capacity Problem Reports

Incident Mgmt Capacity Diagnostic Change Mgmt

Tools/Performance reports
FSC

•Ad hoc/Cumulative Impact of

Capacity Incident Reports
Capacity Mgmt Proposed Changes on capacity
•RFCs

Capacity requirements planning for

new releases (response times,
CI Attributes storage requirements, LAN traffic)
Capacity Audits
CDB updates
Asset change
Configuration
recommendations Release Mgmt
Mgmt
DELIVERY PROCESS Financial Mgmt
INTERDEPENDENCIES
Procurement req Budgets/actual variances
/Usage profiles IT Service
SLM Continuity Mgmt
Recovery
Performance options
reports
Capacity requirements for recovery
SLAs, OLAs, SLRs
Capacity Mgmt options

Availability Mgmt
The Capacity Plan…

Document current levels of resource utilization • CURRENT LEVELS,

and service performance CHALLENGES, SERVICE
LEVELS, CHANGES

•BUSINESS SCENARIOS
Factor in business strategy and plans
•SERVICE FORECAST
•RESOURCE FORECAST
•RECOMMENDATIONS
Forecast future requirements for IT resources
•Business benefits
•Impact analysis
•Costs
Develop quantifiable recommendations
Critical Success Factors for Implementation

• Business forecasts

• Knowledge of IT strategy/plans

• Understanding of current/future technologies

• An ability to demonstrate cost effectiveness

• Interaction with other effective Service

Management processes

• An ability to plan & implement the appropriate

IT capacity to match business need

• Process Ownership with accountability

 NIRVANA…
INPUTS
•Configuration data
•SLAs
•Business plans / strategy
•IS/IT plans / strategy
•Business
requirements/volumes
•Operational schedules
•Deployment / development
plans
•Forward Schedule of
Changes
•Incident/Problem reports
•SLA breach reports
•Budgets/Financial
SUB-PROCESS
•BUSINESS CAPACITY
MANAGEMENT
Business requirement trends &
forecasts
•SERVICE CAPACITY
MANAGEMENT
•Monitor, analyze, tune &
report on service performance
•Establish baselines & profiles
of service usage
•Manage service demand
•RESOURCE CAPACITY
MANAGEMENT
•Component level utilization
baselines & profiles
OUTPUTS
•Capacity Plan
•Baselines & Profiles
•Thresholds & Alarms
•Capacity Reports
•SLA recommendations
•Costing & Charging
recommendations
•Proactive changes &
service improvements
•Revised operational
schedule
•Effectiveness reviews
•Audit reports
Capacity Management Automation Solutions

• TRENDING – Organic Growth

•Trending Manager (Qualitech)
•Orion (Solarwinds)
•Denika (Somix)
•Expert Observer (Operative SW)

• MODELLING – Event Driven Growth

•Teamquest
•Perform and Predict (BMC)
•MXG (Merrill)
•CA, HP Openview, OPNET, IBM

• No tool covers all 7 layers of the network

stack