First of all, I am going to explain all of these standards. These
explanations include definitions and features about standards. After that, I am
going to analyse the relations.
ITIL
It refers to
Information Technology Infrastructure Library. It’s the most well-known
approach to information technology service management in the global world. It
describes how IT resources should be organised to deliver business value,
documenting the processes, functions and roles of IT Service Management. Actually,
ITIL is a best-practice framework. The main aim of ITIL is that increasing
earnings/reducing costs. Customers aspect’s is the main thing of ITIL. ITIL
contains detailed process descriptions, flows, success factors, metrics and
implementation guidance that organizations can adapt to work in their
environment.
ITIL has been consisted of 5 lifecycle phases.
- Service Strategy : Focusing on understanding customer needs,
directions, requirements, helping improve IT over time.
- Service Design : Focusing on turning strategies for services
into a detailed Service description, not just the technology.
- Service Transition : Focusing on building, validating, and
delivering new and changed services to customers.
- Service Operations : Focusing on the day to day care and
feeding of services
- Continual Service Improvement : Focusing on identifying and
managing incremental improvements to services.
COBIT
It refers to Control
Objectives for Information and Related Technology. It is an IT
governance framework and supporting toolset published as an open standard by
the IT Governance Institute and ISACA. COBIT is designed to allow managers to
bridge the gap between control requirements, technical issues and business
risks. It is a control model that guarantees the integrity of the information
system. COBIT ensures quality, control and reliability of information systems
in organization, which is also the most important aspect of every modern
business.
IT activities were divided into 4 domains by the COBIT
framework.
1-)
Plan and Organize : Provides
direction to solution and service delivery.
2-)
Acquire and Implement : Provides the
solutions and passes them to be turned into services.
3-)
Deliver and Support : Receives the
solutions and makes them usable for end users.
4-)
Monitor and Evaluate : Monitors all
processes to ensure that the direction provided is followed.
TOGAF
It refers to The Open Group
Architecture Framework. The framework itself is a well-documented body of
knowledge comprising a detailed method and a set of supporting tools for
developing enterprise architectures.
Developing and sustaining an enterprise
architecture is a complex process, involving many stakeholders and decision
processes. TOGAF helps by documenting the Enterprise Architecture discipline,
process and work products. By using TOGAF, organizations can develop an
enterprise architecture that is consistent, reflects the needs of stakeholders,
employs best practice, and gives due consideration to current requirements and
the perceived future needs of the business.
There are four architecture
domains.(for enterprise architectures supported by TOGAF)
1-)
The Business Architecture
: Defines the business strategy, governance, organization, and key
business processes.
2-)
The Data Architecture :
Describes the structure of an organization's logical and physical data assets
and data management resources.
3-)
The Application Architecture : Provides a blueprint for the individual applications to be
deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business
processes of the organization.
4-)
The Technology Architecture : Describes the logical software and
hardware capabilities that are required to support the deployment of business,
data, and application services. This includes IT infrastructure, networks, processing,
standards…
CMMI
It refers to The Capability Maturity Model
Integration. It is a process model that provides a clear definition of what an
organization should do to promote behaviors that lead to improved performance.
The CMMI helps us understand the answer to
the question “how do we know?”. For instance, how do we know if our
requirements change process is useful? This question is an example what the
CMMI try to tell us. We may ask many questions to ourselves starting with “how
do we know?”.
The CMMI also helps us identify and achieve
measurable business goals, build better products, keep customers happier, and
ensure that we are working as efficiently as possible.
The model identifies five levels
of process maturity for an organization:
- Initial (adhoc): The starting point for use of a new process.
- Repeatable (project management, process discipline): The
process is used repeatedly.
- Defined (institutionalized): The process is defined/confirmed
as a standard business process.
- Managed (quantified): Process management and measurement take
place.
- Optimizing (process improvement): Process management includes
deliberate process optimization or improvement.
ANALYZING RELATIONS
*
COBIT is broader than ITIL, CMMI and ISO standards in its scope of coverage.
*
ITIL focuses on ITSM and provides much more in-depth guidance in this area,
addressing five stages of the service life cycle. Also, COBIT and ITIL are well
aligned in their approach to ITSM.
* The distinction between the COBIT and ITIL is sometimes described as COBIT
provides the ‘why’ and ITIL provides the ‘how.’ COBIT focuses on what needs to
be achieved rather than how to achieve.
* COBIT provides an overall, high level governance framework which is
applicable to most organizations but is not specific about certain aspects of
the business like IT service management or information security. As ITIL covers
particular areas in more detail, it can be mapped to COBIT to enhance the
framework and build a hierarchy of processes. This means that COBIT can be used
to shape ITIL processes to the business needs and measure the success of ITIL
implementation.
You
may see three figures relationship between TOGAF and ITIL. Business
architecture is addressed by TOGAF but not by ITIL. IT services are addressed
by ITIL but not by TOGAF. The other elements are covered in both frameworks. As
a consequence, TOGAF gives you all you need to build the perfect IT solution
and monitors, but provides no guidance on how to deliver IT services. ITIL
gives you all you need to deliver IT services perfectly.
* CMMI is mainly focused on continuous and long-term improvement for
business processes, while ITIL targets all areas included in the IT aspect of
an organization. CMMI is often used for developing new and efficient software,
but it does not address hardware concerns. On the other hand, ITIL addresses
hardware issues as they fall under the IT umbrella of an organization.
*
The CMMI is not a process, it is a book of “whats” not a book of “hows,” and
does not define how your company should behave.
*
CMMI and ITIL are two distinctly different maturity models that can complement
each other when used together. The fundamental difference between the two is
that CMMI is a method of process improvement for software development, while
ITIL focuses mainly on IT issues.
This is a general figure about relation between
COBIT – TOGAF – ITIL.
REFERENCES
Many websites and articles(like OGC’s) from the Internet.
