Here is a thought experiment. Apparently Google and other high-tech employers are in a bit of a chef war—competing to see who has the best staff cafeteria(s) with the best chef(s). Suppose that the ABC Staff Kitchen Handbook became the accepted standard for how to run elite company cafeterias, and staff advertisements started mentioning "ABC compliant cafeteria". But there is no formal standard by which to measure ABC compliance (this is a rare state of affairs but I can think of one other instance where it has happened: ITIL, of course).

So, what happens if the self indulgent Gen X/Gen Z employees decide that ABC compliance is a real selling point for a prospective employer, and companies scramble to get their cafeteria up to scratch? Suddenly, vendors pop up everywhere with ABC compliant products. Miracle Cutlery company touts how their knives help a kitchen achieve ABC. ZipZap Floor Cleaner—as used in the best ABC kitchens! The Whizzer Garlic Slicer—essential equipment for all ABC chefs. The Frosty Refrigerator Monitor supports six different ABC processes. MacCreedy's Frozen Carrots—delivering ABC. You get the idea.

Now none of these claims are untrue but they are stretching the point somewhat. Even a cash register manufacturer or a refrigerated display cabinet company would be stretching the point to suggest that their product is delivering ABC kitchen processes. And yet some software manufacturers get upset if one suggests they do just this with ITIL.

But they do. I've done it …

"This RFP wants ITIL Financial Management.”

“Quick, how do we support Financial Management?"

"Asset Whizz stores the supplier name and purchase cost, so say it does."

Who's going to prove you wrong? In fact, you're not wrong. Just as a hair is indeed one part of an elephant, so Asset Whizz is one part of FM. Not a very important part, but a part. Not a part that actually manages or supports or automates or delivers the ITIL defined FM process, just a source or store of data, but a part nonetheless. Just. Kinda.

So it is, to varying degrees of ‘point-stretchieness’ with so many products that claim to "deliver" or "support" or "monitor" ITIL. A Service Desk tool (Incident, Request, Problem, Change, Release, Asset) is nearly indispensable for ITIL (though Post-It notes work, if badly).

A Service Level Management (SLM) system (meaning Service Level Agreement (SLA) definition, tracking, measurement, alerting and reporting) is very useful. Project Portfolio systems are great for those venturing into the rarefied heights of Service Support. The only monitoring tool of great interest to ITIL processes is an end to end monitor that measures the user experience of a service. Automated event alerting is of benefit, especially by service not CI.

Then there are a whole bunch of monitors and managers and reporters and data stores that come in handy for IT people to do their jobs, but they don't particularly pertain to ITIL process as such. Try to tell the vendors of them though.

By the way, while we are on the topic of SLA measurement and reporting, many IT operations software vendors seem unable to distinguish between a Service Level Target and an SLA. Ninety nine percent availability of Service X is an SLT. An SLA is a contract between one customer and IT, listing multiple SLTs for multiple services. If you can’t measure/aggregate and report all kinds of SLTs for all services, by customer, you aren’t doing SLA measurement or reporting, dude.

In fact, some vendors struggle with the concept of SLT. A network monitoring tool does not measure the availability SLT unless it can see the availability of the service as experienced by the user at the user’s end device. Server availability is not service availability.

ITIL-101

It seems some vendors (or at least their marketing people) do not understand IT Service Management, or they are counting on their prospects not understanding it.

So, for all you ops software marketers out there, here is ITIL 101:

- Network monitoring is not SLM

- SLT monitoring is not SLA monitoring

Here is a thought experiment. Apparently Google and other high-tech employers are in a bit of a chef war—competing to see who has the best staff cafeteria(s) with the best chef(s). Suppose that the ABC Staff Kitchen Handbook became the accepted standard for how to run elite company cafeterias, and staff advertisements started mentioning "ABC compliant cafeteria". But there is no formal standard by which to measure ABC compliance (this is a rare state of affairs but I can think of one other instance where it has happened: ITIL, of course).

So, what happens if the self indulgent Gen X/Gen Z employees decide that ABC compliance is a real selling point for a prospective employer, and companies scramble to get their cafeteria up to scratch? Suddenly, vendors pop up everywhere with ABC compliant products. Miracle Cutlery company touts how their knives help a kitchen achieve ABC. ZipZap Floor Cleaner—as used in the best ABC kitchens! The Whizzer Garlic Slicer—essential equipment for all ABC chefs. The Frosty Refrigerator Monitor supports six different ABC processes. MacCreedy's Frozen Carrots—delivering ABC. You get the idea.

Now none of these claims are untrue but they are stretching the point somewhat. Even a cash register manufacturer or a refrigerated display cabinet company would be stretching the point to suggest that their product is delivering ABC kitchen processes. And yet some software manufacturers get upset if one suggests they do just this with ITIL.

But they do. I've done it …

"This RFP wants ITIL Financial Management.”

“Quick, how do we support Financial Management?"

"Asset Whizz stores the supplier name and purchase cost, so say it does."

Who's going to prove you wrong? In fact, you're not wrong. Just as a hair is indeed one part of an elephant, so Asset Whizz is one part of FM. Not a very important part, but a part. Not a part that actually manages or supports or automates or delivers the ITIL defined FM process, just a source or store of data, but a part nonetheless. Just. Kinda.

So it is, to varying degrees of ‘point-stretchieness’ with so many products that claim to "deliver" or "support" or "monitor" ITIL. A Service Desk tool (Incident, Request, Problem, Change, Release, Asset) is nearly indispensable for ITIL (though Post-It notes work, if badly).

A Service Level Management (SLM) system (meaning Service Level Agreement (SLA) definition, tracking, measurement, alerting and reporting) is very useful. Project Portfolio systems are great for those venturing into the rarefied heights of Service Support. The only monitoring tool of great interest to ITIL processes is an end to end monitor that measures the user experience of a service. Automated event alerting is of benefit, especially by service not CI.

Then there are a whole bunch of monitors and managers and reporters and data stores that come in handy for IT people to do their jobs, but they don't particularly pertain to ITIL process as such. Try to tell the vendors of them though.

By the way, while we are on the topic of SLA measurement and reporting, many IT operations software vendors seem unable to distinguish between a Service Level Target and an SLA. Ninety nine percent availability of Service X is an SLT. An SLA is a contract between one customer and IT, listing multiple SLTs for multiple services. If you can’t measure/aggregate and report all kinds of SLTs for all services, by customer, you aren’t doing SLA measurement or reporting, dude.

In fact, some vendors struggle with the concept of SLT. A network monitoring tool does not measure the availability SLT unless it can see the availability of the service as experienced by the user at the user’s end device. Server availability is not service availability.

ITIL-101

It seems some vendors (or at least their marketing people) do not understand IT Service Management, or they are counting on their prospects not understanding it.

So, for all you ops software marketers out there, here is ITIL 101:

- Network monitoring is not SLM

- SLT monitoring is not SLA monitoring

Here is a thought experiment. Apparently Google and other high-tech employers are in a bit of a chef war—competing to see who has the best staff cafeteria(s) with the best chef(s). Suppose that the ABC Staff Kitchen Handbook became the accepted standard for how to run elite company cafeterias, and staff advertisements started mentioning "ABC compliant cafeteria". But there is no formal standard by which to measure ABC compliance (this is a rare state of affairs but I can think of one other instance where it has happened: ITIL, of course).

So, what happens if the self indulgent Gen X/Gen Z employees decide that ABC compliance is a real selling point for a prospective employer, and companies scramble to get their cafeteria up to scratch? Suddenly, vendors pop up everywhere with ABC compliant products. Miracle Cutlery company touts how their knives help a kitchen achieve ABC. ZipZap Floor Cleaner—as used in the best ABC kitchens! The Whizzer Garlic Slicer—essential equipment for all ABC chefs. The Frosty Refrigerator Monitor supports six different ABC processes. MacCreedy's Frozen Carrots—delivering ABC. You get the idea.

Now none of these claims are untrue but they are stretching the point somewhat. Even a cash register manufacturer or a refrigerated display cabinet company would be stretching the point to suggest that their product is delivering ABC kitchen processes. And yet some software manufacturers get upset if one suggests they do just this with ITIL.

But they do. I've done it …

"This RFP wants ITIL Financial Management.”

“Quick, how do we support Financial Management?"

"Asset Whizz stores the supplier name and purchase cost, so say it does."

Who's going to prove you wrong? In fact, you're not wrong. Just as a hair is indeed one part of an elephant, so Asset Whizz is one part of FM. Not a very important part, but a part. Not a part that actually manages or supports or automates or delivers the ITIL defined FM process, just a source or store of data, but a part nonetheless. Just. Kinda.

So it is, to varying degrees of ‘point-stretchieness’ with so many products that claim to "deliver" or "support" or "monitor" ITIL. A Service Desk tool (Incident, Request, Problem, Change, Release, Asset) is nearly indispensable for ITIL (though Post-It notes work, if badly).

A Service Level Management (SLM) system (meaning Service Level Agreement (SLA) definition, tracking, measurement, alerting and reporting) is very useful. Project Portfolio systems are great for those venturing into the rarefied heights of Service Support. The only monitoring tool of great interest to ITIL processes is an end to end monitor that measures the user experience of a service. Automated event alerting is of benefit, especially by service not CI.

Then there are a whole bunch of monitors and managers and reporters and data stores that come in handy for IT people to do their jobs, but they don't particularly pertain to ITIL process as such. Try to tell the vendors of them though.

By the way, while we are on the topic of SLA measurement and reporting, many IT operations software vendors seem unable to distinguish between a Service Level Target and an SLA. Ninety nine percent availability of Service X is an SLT. An SLA is a contract between one customer and IT, listing multiple SLTs for multiple services. If you can’t measure/aggregate and report all kinds of SLTs for all services, by customer, you aren’t doing SLA measurement or reporting, dude.

In fact, some vendors struggle with the concept of SLT. A network monitoring tool does not measure the availability SLT unless it can see the availability of the service as experienced by the user at the user’s end device. Server availability is not service availability.

ITIL-101

It seems some vendors (or at least their marketing people) do not understand IT Service Management, or they are counting on their prospects not understanding it.

So, for all you ops software marketers out there, here is ITIL 101:

- Network monitoring is not SLM

- SLT monitoring is not SLA monitoring

- Performance data is not capacity planning, let alone Capacity Management

- The lowest level event message is often not the Root Cause, so your drill down data is only a symptom and you are not supporting Problem Management, though you play a useful part in providing one source of data for Incident Management. (Root Cause is often a procedural error and no software can detect it.)

- Costing is only one part of Financial Management, and asset costs are only one part of costing data. So your Asset Management tool is not playing a huge part in the ITIL financial processes, and the same with your bandwidth or email monitors.

- Threat detection and defence is one operational outcome of Information Security Management, not the practice of it.

- Tools that make changes to devices or software or networks are only an end tool for Deployment and not any part of Release or Change processes.

- A service is a big thing, obviously bigger than some marketers can imagine. It is nice if your tool measures one tiny part of that service, such as the network links or the database, but it is a stretch to say that it plays much of a part in service measurement other can contributing one data item among many and no part of the process.

- Reducing costs isn’t part of ITIL, not directly. ITIL is about delivering better service. Using the bandwidth more efficiently or saving money on server purchases is often incidental to that.

- Business alignment means making sure that IT is operating according to the strategy and needs of the organisation as a whole. It does not mean measuring network usage by user or by application.

- Trouble shooting is not Incident Management, it is one small part of it.

- Data is not information and information is not knowledge. Knowledge comes from people and knowledge management stores what people know. A database is not knowledge management, nor is reporting.

In summary, processes are done by people. Better data does not necessarily mean better process. A very few tools have those processes embedded in them in such a way as to make those people more efficient or reliable; in the extreme case by automating the process. If you are not doing this for the ITIL processes, please stop trying to muscle aboard the already overcrowded ITIL bandwagon.

Rob England is an IT industry commentator and consultant, and aspiring internet entrepreneur. Some portions of this article first appeared on his blog The IT Skeptic. He lives in a little house in a little village in a little country far away.