Creating a business plan is hard in itself, but keeping it during a crisis requires a high level of expertise. Luckily, you can prepare your company for disruptive situations beforehand with the help of business continuity planning. Since the pandemic, we’re even more aware of how disasters and disruptions can hit anyone, any industry, in any way or form. It disrupted supply chains, made a majority of the workforce work from home, and introduced a rapid lifestyle shift all over the world.

Google has introduced so many innovations that it’d be impossible to list them all. And we’re not just talking about the obvious things like search engine algorithms or nearly-ubiquitous programs and apps (Google Maps, Docs, Gmail) — not even self-driving cars. Today, we’re going to talk about one such innovation: Site Reliability Engineering. In a nutshell, SRE it’s a practical framework for software development that improves on even giants like DevOps. Wait, what?

The ITIL 4 Foundation Edition introduced the service value chain in 2019, as an operating model to facilitate value realization. We’ve first talked about the topic on our Definitive Guide on ITIL, but it’s time to expand on the concept to understand: So, make sure to keep reading – we’ve thrown some useful examples on how the service value chain works!

So, you want to become a DevOps engineer? It’s a stimulating, challenging, high-paying career choice, but the lynchpin role holds software development and operations together. We’ve compiled a DevOps roadmap that includes all the steps required to fill the shoes of a DevOps expert. As you know, DevOps is a set of practices and tools to integrate and automate processes between IT and software development teams.

The continuous debate around artificial intelligence (AI) has led to a lot of confusion. There are many terms around it that appear to be similar, but when you take a closer look at them, that perception is not entirely accurate. For that reason, here we take our best shot and oppose AI vs. machine learning vs. deep learning vs. neural networks to set them apart once and for all. In short, we’ll look at how they all relate to each other, and what makes them different in their particular way.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are a crucial part of Service Level Management, and therefore one of the key components of IT service management. They are the basis for building and delivering IT services, and play a key role in ensuring that both the client and the service provider are on the same page and that the service delivery is at par with or exceeds customer expectations.

As the world continues on an accelerated course towards digital transformation, organizations have been placing an increased emphasis on the concept of experience. This is especially true within the world of IT service management, where being able to provide positive service experiences to customers and stakeholders is absolutely paramount.

Naming conventions for assets have a rich, engaging, and often hilarious history. While recently organizations have switched to standardized and more informative naming conventions based on location and function, earlier (and even now) IT departments have had a lot of fun naming assets for their data centers and servers. IT departments have often showcased their inner geek by using names of Star Wars or Star Trek characters for their assets.

In most organizations, software asset management (SAM) is not given much importance since IT professionals don’t emphasize its relevance. It could be influenced by the fact the responsibilities of a SAM team are often delegated to other employees. But with the rising of software procurement costs, distributed workforces, and the rapid growth of the SaaS industry, we are starting to see software asset management less as a nice-to-have and more as an essential business component.

That big software audit you’ve been dreading? Yeah, it’s coming, it’s real, and it’s sooner than you think. But why, oh why, do we even have to face these in-depth software inspections in the first place? How hard can it be for them to just take your word that every software license on your system is perfectly up-to-date? As you probably know, that’s not how things work with audit management.

It seems like everywhere you look these days you find a thinkpiece to grimly warn us of the dangers of artificial intelligence. But if you talk to anybody with an interest in the way technology interacts with human life – particularly in the world of service management – and instead of the grim pessimism of dystopian fiction, you’ll find sheer enthusiasm. There is tremendous potential for AI in ITSM.

The SCP port has proven to be a very useful tool for SysAdmins. In short, the Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) is a method for securely transferring computer files between a local host and a remote host, or between two remote hosts. It is based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. In other words, SCP servers help you transfer files to and from servers, computers, and other networking devices using a secure SSH tunnel.

IT4IT was created as a framework for IT service management, and has established itself as an alternative — or perhaps complementary? — standard to the widely acclaimed ITIL. But since it's been around for a decade now, it's about to change. Lars Rossen — one of the creators of the first version of the IT4IT Reference Architecture, which formed the basis for the standard — told us first-hand what to expect from IT4IT 3.0 on Episode 9 of Ticket Volume podcast.

You’ve probably heard about neural networks being hailed as the next big step in technological advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). Beyond its often exaggerated depiction in fiction and media, neural networks have slowly but steadily become an invaluable asset in the IT world. It is under constant research in data science and computer science.

DevOps has made a hugely positive impact on the way organizations operate. In essence, it’s a way for different project stages and teams to work. Truth be told, when it comes to integrating various aspects of the IT R&D chain, it’s a godsend. On the other hand, Agile is about emphasizing continuous delivery in software development with a focus on iterative, incremental, and evolutionary development. Today, we’ll learn about DevOps vs.

On this occasion, we’ll talk about something pretty much apropos of our core concerns: Business Process Management System (BPMS) — and the software that lets you get it right. We know streamlining and optimizing operations and processes is very rewarding at the end of the day. Hence, this article will explain why you should care about process management and automation in general. First, let’s briefly examine what we mean by BPMS.

IT4IT is a relatively new entrant in ITSM frameworks and ITIL practices, with the first version released only in October 2015. The past decade has seen rapid innovation, and companies that could change and innovate quickly have had the edge over the rest. The framework arose out of a need to support rapid changes in organizations and, at the same time, manage risk and compliance. Read on to know more about this new standard and how it works.

Managed Service Providers or MSPs in asset management, which started as remote IT support and troubleshooting in the 90s, have evolved into one of the most prominent IT business models. According to a Statista’s report, the global MSP market share was valued at 152.02 billion USD in 2020 and is expected to grow close to 274 billion USD by 2026. Rather than just troubleshoot or monitor remote IT systems, MSPs these days offer services that manage the IT infrastructure for organizations entirely.

DevOps is not just a set of practices but a culture that focuses on collaboration. Thus, its primary goal is to foster improved communication between software development and operations teams. There’s, more or less, a perfect DevOps tool for every job. This article will cover the 10 best of them so you can make informed choices.

As a manager, it’s up to you to be on-point about who does what in your team. While all of the job titles and descriptions can get a little confusing at times, knowing comes with the territory. Nowadays, DevOps engineers are an increasingly important part of any solid IT team. Today, we’ll take a look at the DevOps engineer job description, so by the time we’re done, you’ll be an expert on the topic. DevOps, as we’ve covered before, is not one thing, but many.

Patch management best practices ensure we do patch deployment effectively and in time to prevent significant data losses, cybersecurity attacks, and other risks when the software is not updated. Patch management is an essential part of IT Asset Management. In short, it consists of distributing and applying updates or software patches. It should be a well-established and thorough process to handle any vulnerability and other issues. This article will discuss these best practices.

Machine learning has garnered a lot of attention in the past few years. The reason behind this might be the high amount of data from applications, the ever-increasing computational power, the development of better algorithms, and a deeper understanding of data science. We have already talked about artificial intelligence (AI) in a previous blog post. In this opportunity, we will learn about machine learning, what it is and how it works with examples and ITSM applications.

LDAP or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is one of the oldest and most popular protocols used to retrieve information from directory services, authenticate users, and build applications that don’t compare on security or speed. It’s one of the protocols to manage assets and data over a network and provides secure access to them. So what is LDAP? How does it work? What are some of the best practices while using the LDAP protocol? Let’s have a look.

ISO 20000 is the only internationally accepted standard for ITSM, and it has seen significant adoption since it was first introduced in 2005. In fact, a 2020 survey shows more than a 40% increase in certifications globally. The fact that it has a remarkable ability to work with other ITSM frameworks is one of the main reasons for its widespread adoption. So, here we’ll explore its capabilities, benefits, as well as the extent of the ISO 20000 certification.

Patch management is the process of acquiring and applying updates to software. This is an essential part of IT Asset Management. A patch manager controls the deployment of updates to operating systems and other applications on the network. In this article we will cover the following topics: If you want to learn the key aspects of patch management and the benefits it brings along to organization, then this is the article for you.

You’ve heard about artificial intelligence everywhere. It’s been represented and discussed in popular media like films and television, as well as in extensive and potentially fearmongering think-pieces saying that its sentience could spell the end of our times. But one thing is for certain: artificial intelligence is very real and — despite what certain sci-fi films might tell you — a really helpful tool for us humans.

COBIT is one of the most widely used frameworks for IT governance. Among ITSM frameworks, COBIT is best known for aligning IT strategy with the overall business goals of the organization. Initially released in 1996, the framework has become popular among organizations for managing their IT risks, ensuring compliance, and keeping ITSM on track for achieving organizational goals. With this article, we hope to introduce you to the COBIT framework.

Enterprise service management (ESM) is the extension of IT service management (ITSM) principles and capabilities to other areas of an organization. This will typically include not only using the same processes or practices used in ITSM, but also the same technology (for example, tools such as a Service Desk) as a means of work enablement. As a starting point for better understanding of what ESM is, there’s a need to first understand what ITSM is...