Incident Management - Scope
Incident Management includes any event which disrupts, or which could disrupt, a service. This includes events which are communicated directly by users, either through the Service Desk or through an interface from Event Management to Incident Management tools.
Incidents can also be reported and/or logged by technical staff (if, for example, they notice something untoward with a hardware or network component they may report or log an incident and refer it to the Service Desk). This does not mean, however, that all events are incidents. Many classes of events are not related to disruptions at all, but are indicators of normal operation or are simply informational (see section 4.1).
Although both incidents and service requests are reported to the Service Desk, this does not mean that they are the same. Service requests do not represent a disruption to agreed service, but are a way of meeting the customer’s needs and may be addressing an agreed target in an SLA. Service requests are dealt with by the Request Fulfilment process (see section 4.3).
Other ITIL Processes
In order to have a good understanding of ITIL and the importance of configuration management, we first define what ITIL is: ITIL is literally a collection of documentation.
This documentation can help IT organizations implement the best practices. The documentation grows and grows as more successful techniques are documented and guidelines established for what can make others successful. The latest ITIL resources are published by the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
Integrated service delivery refers to the need for Configuration Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management and Release Management processes that are linked together in a meaningful manner. For example, the process of releasing components to the live environment (the domain of Release Management) is also an issue for Configuration Management and Change Management whilst the Service Desk is primarily responsible for liaison between IT providers and the Users of services. This section highlights the links and the principal relationships between all the Service Management and other infrastructure management processes.
ITIL processes fall under Operational Layer or Tactical Layer, as follows:
| Operational Layer: | Configuration Management - Service Desk Management - Incident & Problem Management - Change Management - Release Management |
| Tactical Layer: | Service Level Management - Availability Management - Capacity Management - Continuity Management - Financial Management |