Availability Management
ITIL® defines Availability Management as:
[Optimizing] the capability of the IT Infrastructure, services and supporting organisation to deliver a cost effective and sustained level of [functionality] that enables the business to satisfy its business objectives.
While drawing this Discipline with broad strokes, the definition fails to convey its true essence: Availability Management is all about measurement and reporting. Measurement is important because you cannot manage what cannot be measured. Reporting is important because it drives behavior. From this perspective, Availability Management is vital to the success of IT Service Management because of its responsibility for metrics development and results presentation. If focused on the wrong indicators, availability can appear high while user satisfaction is in fact, low. Similarly, reporting based on factors that do not contribute to the success of Vital Business Functions (VBF) can skew perceptions about the effectiveness of Availability Management and several other Disciplines, as depicted below. more »
