Modelling Infrastructure Services in a Business Service

[Rob Mollee]

I'm currently working on a design for a Customer where we provide several Infrastructure related Services, such as WAN, Firewall, Remote Access, etc.. All of these are in essence Technology Services and will be modelled as such, using a cmdb_service CI and the necessary Service Offerings, which in turn will have a 'Contains' relationship to the Component CI's.

However, we have agreed with our Customer a set of Commitments that span the entire set of Technical Services, so we would need to (also?) define these services as Application Services, I guess; So we would then have, for example the following Application Services: 

• Firewall Application Services
• WAN Application Services
• Remote Access Application Services

I'm struggling a bit with the term 'Application' here, as the nature of these services is typically Technology based, and there is not really one single application that is representing the entire stack related to an Application Service...

So how would I define a Business Service Offering, that can provide the desired result? In reality I would need to create a Business Service Offering, that 'depends on' a series of Technical Services, rather than Application Services...

Would this comply with CSDM, or are there any suggestions on how this can/should be modelled?

Would welcome any suggestion on this!

[Rob Mollee]

Rob Mollee

  

Dave Hertel

 • just now Author

Hi Dave, 

Thanks for your contribution; Yes I agree that the examples are actually not very Business-like, and are indeed Technology Services; But as we are a Managed Service Provider, delivering Technology Services (i.e. Infrastructure platforms) is actually our Business... 

So from that perspective, I would think that we should maybe create an Application Service that does not include the application, but directly 'Depends on' the Operational CI(s) as pictured here:

I guess that's actually what your suggestion is... 

I'm very interested to hear any other opinion on this!

[mikkojuola]

Rob, 

Being a managed service provider can change the model as you mentioned.

I suppose you then have some of these services as both, technical and business and the technical services can be combined into many different kinds of (business) service packages for the end customers.

Do you model any of the customer applications or services within your CMDB? Or only the infrastructure that is used to provide your services? I know many MSPs who are also responsible for analyzing the impact on customer infrastructure (like business applications managed by someone else or the customer themselves) and this requirement can cause some extra confusion on tech vs. business services.

[Rob Mollee]

Mikko, 

That would very much depend on the contract we have with our Customer.

We certainly have cases where we deliver either Technical Application Management or Functional Application Management, so in those cases we would definitely model Application Services and Applications according to the CSDM principles, so we can do our job in the most efficient way; 

Also, even in cases where we deliver a platform only, I would still try to model the Applications running on that platform, so we can add value for our Customer's business... But in that case we may be very dependent of information shared by the Customer, which is unfortunately not always the case.

Best regards, Rob

[Ed Laar1]

Hi Rob, Just found some (spare) time to get into the community. Is it possible that you explain a little more the Services you have to provide to your customers: What kind of services / activities are included in the Firewall, WAN and Remote Access services? I am sure there are a real lot of misunderstandings due to uncertain terminology so let's try to be as concrete as possible in this. I have the feeling that you provide the mentioned services to your customer(s) and that they consume those services covered by a service contract: Right? Should these services been registered in the customers CMDB AND in your (Service providers) CMDB? In my experience there is always a lot of confusion due to the difference between a service consumer and a service provider. Looking forward to your reaction Rob, Cheers, Ed

[Rob Mollee]

Hi Ed, 

Indeed.. The Services we provide would be in our CMDB, and are delivered as a platform. Usually this would be a Server platform and services around this, such as the ones mentioned above. We provide the platform, and the customer would run applications and/or databases on it.

Although the services we deliver are strictly speaking Technology Services, we deliver them to our Customer as a Business Service, and will provide an SLA with the applicable commitments on availability, etc..

So, yes, the Services are provided by a Service Contract, and SLA; Whether or not the Services are registered in the Customers CMDB, will depend from case to case, but they will certainly be in our CMDB. 

I think a Customer would normally register a Server that we provide as part of a Service Contract as a separate entity in their CMDB, and will manage any application and/or Database on top of that entirely in their CMDB; We would not always see this information.

Best regards, Rob