| A | |
| Term | Definition |
| abend | Abnormal end of task; the termination of a task before its completion because of an error condition that cannot be resolved by recovery facilities while the task is executing. |
| Acceptance | Formal agreement that an IT Service, Process, Plan, or other Deliverable is complete, accurate, Reliable and meets its specified Requirements. Acceptance is usually preceded by Evaluation or Testing and is often required before proceeding to the next stage of a Project or Process. |
| Access Management | The Process responsible for allowing Users to make use of IT Services, data, or other Assets. Access Management helps to protect the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of Assets by ensuring that only authorized Users are able to access or modify the Assets. Access Management is sometimes referred to as Rights Management or Identity Management. |
| Accounting | The Process responsible for identifying actual Costs of delivering IT Services, comparing these with budgeted costs, and managing variance from the Budget. |
| Accredited | Officially authorized to carry out a Role. For example an Accredited body may be authorized to provide training or to conduct Audits. |
| Activity | A set of actions designed to achieve a particular result. Activities are usually defined as part of Processes or Plans, and are documented in Procedures. |
| Agreement | A Document that describes a formal understanding between two or more parties. An Agreement is not legally binding, unless it forms part of a Contract. See also Service Level Agreement, Operational Level Agreement. |
| ANTASnnn | A generic address space identifier that refers to any one of the six Global Mirror for z/Series (XRC) address spaces running concurrently in a single LPAR. ANTAS000 is used solely for communication and control functions while ANTAS001, ANTAS002, ANTAS003, ANTAS004, or ANTAS005 may be active data movers. |
| Alternate Site | A location, other than the normal facility, used to process data and/or conduct critical business functions in the event of a disaster. |
| Alert | A warning that a threshold has been reached, something has changed, or a Failure has occurred. Alerts are often created and managed by System Management tools and are managed by the Event Management Process. |
| Application | An application is - A particular customer use to which an information processing system is put - for example, a payroll or general ledger application.
- A program, set of programs, or software package designed for a particular purpose such as payroll or general ledger.
- Software that provides Functions that are required by an IT Service. Each Application may be part of more than one IT Service. An Application runs on one or more Servers or Clients. See also Application Management. (ITIL V3)
An application may be made up of many different types of data, such as multiple database components, data feeds from other applications or other data sources, flat files and electronic transmissions. |
| Application Consistency | Application consistency is the state in which all related data components (databases, flat-files, etc.) are in a transaction-consistent state and, are in synchronization based upon the application design and requirements. |
| Application Management | The Function responsible for managing Applications throughout their Lifecycle. |
| Application Recovery | A component of Disaster Recovery that deals with the restoration of business system software and data, after the operating system environment has been restored or replaced. |
| Application Sizing | The Activity responsible for understanding the Resource Requirements needed to support a new Application, or a major Change to an existing Application. Application Sizing helps to ensure that the IT Service can meet its agreed Service Level Targets for Capacity and Performance. |
| Application system | A system made up of one or more host systems that perform the main set of functions for an establishment. This is the system that updates the primary DASD volumes that are being mirrored. |
| Architecture | The structure of a System or IT Service, including the Relationships of Components to each other and to the environment they are in. Architecture also includes the Standards and Guidelines that guide the design and evolution of the System. |
| Assessment | Inspection and analysis to check whether a Standard or set of Guidelines is being followed, that Records are accurate, or that Efficiency and Effectiveness targets are being met. See also Audit. |
| Asset | Any Resource or Capability. Assets of a Service Provider including anything that could contribute to the delivery of a Service. Assets can be one of the following types: Management, Organization, Process, Knowledge, People, Information, Applications, Infrastructure, and Financial Capital. |
| Asset Management | Asset Management is the Process responsible for tracking and reporting the value and ownership of financial Assets throughout their Lifecycle. Asset Management is part of an overall Service Asset and Configuration Management Process. |
| Asynchronous copy | Any type of copy operation in which the remote copy function copies updates to the secondary volume at some time after the primary volume is updated. |
| Asynchronous Data Replication | A process for copying data from one source to another while the application processing continues; an acknowledgement of the receipt of data at the copy location is not required for processing to continue. Consequently, the content of databases stored in alternate facilities may differ from those at the original storage site, and copies of data may not contain current information at the time of a disruption in processing as a result of the time (in fractions of a second) required to transmit the data over a communications network to the alternate facility. This technology is typically used to transfer data over greater distances than that allowed with synchronous data replication. |
| Attribute | A piece of information about a Configuration Item. Examples are: name, location, Version number, and Cost. Attributes of CIs are recorded in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). See also Relationship. |
| Audit | Formal inspection and verification to check whether a Standard or set of Guidelines is being followed, that Records are accurate, or that Efficiency and Effectiveness targets are being met. An Audit may be carried out by internal or external groups. See also Certification, Assessment. |
| Authority Matrix | See RACI. |
| Automatic Call Distribution | Use of Information Technology to direct an incoming telephone call to the most appropriate person in the shortest possible time. ACD is sometimes called Automated Call Distribution. |
| Availability | Ability of a Configuration Item or IT Service to perform its agreed Function when required. Availability is determined by Reliability, Maintainability, Serviceability, Performance, and Security. Availability is usually calculated as a percentage. This calculation is often based on Agreed Service Time and Downtime. It is Best Practice to calculate Availability using measurements of the Business output of the IT Service. |
| Availability Management | The Process responsible for defining, analyzing, Planning, measuring and improving all aspects of the Availability of IT services. Availability Management is responsible for ensuring that all IT Infrastructure, Processes, Tools, Roles, etc. are appropriate for the agreed Service Level Targets for Availability. |
| Availability Management Information System | A virtual repository of all Availability Management data, usually stored in multiple physical locations. See also Service Knowledge Management System. |
| B | Go To: Top-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Backup | The process of creating a copy of data to ensure against its accidental loss. |
| Backup Window | A term much more prevalent in the earlier days of Data Processing - typically before 24x7 processing was required - used to describe the period of time that a system is available to perform a dedicated backup process. In order to obtain a consistent backup of application data, normal processing used to be halted periodically (either daily or weekly) to enable backups to be created without the application files being updated. |
| Balanced Scorecard | A management tool developed by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton. A Balanced Scorecard enables a Strategy to be broken down into Key Performance Indicators. Performance against the KPIs is used to demonstrate how well the Strategy is being achieved. A Balanced Scorecard has four major areas, each of which has a small number of KPIs. The same four areas are considered at different levels of detail throughout the Organization. |
| Baseline | A Benchmark used as a reference point. For example: - An ITSM Baseline can be used as a starting point to measure the effect of a Service Improvement Plan
- A Performance Baseline can be used to measure changes in Performance over the lifetime of an IT Service
- A Configuration Management Baseline can be used to enable the IT Infrastructure to be restored to a known Configuration if a Change or Release fails.
|
| Benchmark | The recorded state of something at a specific point in time. A Benchmark can be created for a Configuration, a Process, or any other set of data. For example, a benchmark can be used in: - Continual Service Improvement, to establish the current state for managing improvements
- Capacity Management, to document performance characteristics during normal operations.
See also Benchmarking, Baseline. |
| Benchmarking | Comparing a Benchmark with a Baseline or with Best Practice. The term Benchmarking is also used to mean creating a series of Benchmarks over time, and comparing the results to measure progress or improvement. |
| Best Practice | Proven Activities or Processes that have been successfully used by multiple Organizations. ITIL is an example of a collection of Best Practices that have been collected from IT organizations around the world. |
| Budget | A list of all the money an Organization or Business Unit plans to receive, and plans to pay out, over a specified period of time. See also Budgeting, Planning. |
| Budgeting | The Activity of predicting and controlling the spending of money. Consists of a periodic negotiation cycle to set future Budgets (usually annual) and the day-to-day monitoring and adjusting of current Budgets. |
| Business | An overall corporate entity or Organization formed of a number of Business Units. In the context of ITSM, the term Business includes public sector and not-for-profit organizations, as well as companies. An IT Service Provider provides IT Services to a Customer within a Business. The IT Service Provider may be part of the same Business as its Customer (Internal Service Provider), or part of another Business (External Service Provider). |
| Business Capacity Management | In the context of ITSM, Business Capacity Management is the Activity responsible for understanding future Business Requirements for use in the Capacity Plan. See also Service Capacity Management. |
| Business Case | Justification for a significant item of expenditure. Includes information about Costs, benefits, options, issues, Risks, and possible problems. |
| Business Continuity | Business Continuity is an extension of disaster recovery, aimed at allowing an organization to continue functioning after (and ideally, during) a disaster, rather than simply being able to recover following a catastrophic event. This is accomplished through the deployment of redundant hardware and software, the use of fault tolerant systems and data replication techniques as well as a solid backup and recovery strategy. |
| Business Continuity Management | The Business Process responsible for managing Risks that could seriously impact the Business. BCM safeguards the interests of key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value-creating activities. The BCM Process involves reducing Risks to an acceptable level and planning for the recovery of Business Processes should a disruption to the Business occur. BCM sets the Objectives, Scope and Requirements for IT Service Continuity Management. |
| Business Continuity Plan (BCP) | A comprehensive written plan to maintain or resume business in the event of a disruption. BCP includes both the technology recovery capability (often referred to as disaster recovery) and the business unit(s) recovery capability. |
| Business Continuity Planning (BCP) | An all encompassing term covering both disaster recovery planning and business resumption planning. |
| Business Continuity Strategy | Comprehensive strategies to recover, resume, and maintain all critical business functions. |
| Business Customer | A recipient of a product or a Service from the Business. For example, if the Business is a car manufacturer then the Business Customer is someone who buys a car. |
| Business Impact Analysis | The process of analyzing all business functions and the effect that a specific disaster may have upon them. BIA is the Activity in Business Continuity Management that identifies Vital Business Functions and their dependencies. These dependencies may include Suppliers, people, other Business Processes, IT Services, etc. BIA defines the recovery requirements for IT Services. These requirements include Recovery Time Objectives, Recovery Point Objectives and minimum Service Level Targets for each IT Service. |
| Business Objective | The Objective of a Business Process, or of the Business as a whole. Business Objectives support the Business Vision, provide guidance for the IT Strategy, and are often supported by IT Services. |
| Business Operations | The day-to-day execution, monitoring and management of Business Processes. |
| Business Perspective | An understanding of the Service Provider and IT Services from the point of view of the Business, and an understanding of the Business from the point of view of the Service Provider. |
| Business Process | A Process that is owned and carried out by the Business. A Business Process contributes to the delivery of a product or Service to a Business Customer. For example, a retailer may have a purchasing Process that helps to deliver Services to its Business Customers. Many Business Processes rely on IT Services. |
| Business Recovery Process | The common critical path that all companies follow during a recovery effort. There are major nodes along the path which are followed regardless of the organization. The process includes: Immediate response, Environmental restoration or relocation, Functional restoration, Data recovery and synchronization, Restore business functions, and return to normal. |
| Business Recovery Test / Exercise | An activity that tests an institution’s BCP. |
| Business Relationship Management | The Process or Function responsible for maintaining a Relationship with the Business. Business Relationship Management usually includes: - Managing personal Relationships with Business managers
- Providing input to Service Portfolio Management
- Ensuring that the IT Service Provider is satisfying the Business needs of the Customers
This Process has strong links with Service Level Management. |
| Business Resumption Planning (BRP) | The operational piece of business continuity planning. |
| Business Service | An IT Service that directly supports a Business Process, as opposed to an Infrastructure Service, which is used internally by the IT Service Provider and is not usually visible to the Business. The term Business Service is also used to mean a Service that is delivered to Business Customers by Business Units. For example, delivery of financial services to Customers of a bank, or goods to the Customers of a retail store. Successful delivery of Business Services often depends on one or more IT Services. |
| Business Unit | A segment of the Business that has its own Plans, Metrics, income and Costs. Each Business Unit owns Assets and uses these to create value for Customers in the form of goods and Services. |
| C | Go To: Top-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Cache | A random access electronic storage (memory) in selected storage controls used to retain frequently used data for faster access. |
| Call | A telephone call to the Service Desk from a User. A Call could result in an Incident or a Service Request being logged. |
| Capability | The ability of an Organization, person, Process, Application, Configuration Item or IT Service to carry out an Activity. Capabilities are intangible Assets of an Organization. See also Resource. |
| Capability Maturity Model Integration | Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Melon University, US. CMMI provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. CMMI helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes. See www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi for more information. See also Maturity. |
| Capacity | The maximum Throughput that a Configuration Item or IT Service can deliver whilst meeting agreed Service Level Targets. For some types of CI, Capacity may be the size or volume, for example a disk drive. |
| Capacity Management | The Process responsible for ensuring that the Capacity of IT Services and the IT Infrastructure is able to deliver agreed Service Level Targets in a Cost Effective and timely manner. Capacity Management considers all Resources required to deliver the IT Service, and plans for short-, medium- and long-term Business Requirements. |
| Capacity Management Information System | A virtual repository of all Capacity Management data, usually stored in multiple physical locations. See also Service Knowledge Management System. |
| Capacity Planning | The Activity within Capacity Management responsible for creating a Capacity Plan. |
Capital Expenditure | The cost of purchasing something that will become a financial Asset, for example computer equipment and buildings. The value of the Asset is Depreciated over multiple accounting periods. |
CapEx | See Capital Expenditure. |
| Category | A named group of things that have something in common. Categories are used to group similar things together. For example, Cost Types are used to group similar types of Cost. Incident Categories are used to group similar types of Incident, CI Types are used to group similar types of Configuration Item. |
| CEC | Central electronics complex. |
| Certification | Issuing a certificate to confirm Compliance to a Standard. Certification includes a formal Audit by an independent and Accredited body. The term Certification is also used to mean awarding a certificate to verify that a person has achieved a qualification. |
| Central processor complex (CPC) | The unit within a cluster that provides the management function for the storage server. It consists of cluster processors, cluster memory, and related logic. |
| CFIA | Component Failure Impact Analysis. A process of analyzing a particular hardware/software configuration to determine the true impact of any individual failed component. |
| Change | The addition, modification or removal of anything that could have an effect on IT Services. The Scope should include all IT Services, Configuration Items, Processes, Documentation, etc. |
| Change Advisory Board | A group of people that advises the Change Manager in the Assessment, prioritization and scheduling of Changes. This board is usually made up of representatives from all areas within the IT Service Provider, representatives from the Business and Third Parties such as Suppliers. |
| Change Management | The Process responsible for controlling the Lifecycle of all Changes. The primary objective of Change Management is to enable beneficial Changes to be made, with minimum disruption to IT Services. |
| Change Request | See Request for Change. |
| Change Schedule | A Document that lists all approved Changes and their planned implementation dates. A Change Schedule is sometimes called a Forward Schedule of Change, even though it also contains information about Changes that have already been implemented. |
| Channel | (1) A path along which signals can be sent; for example, data channel and output channel. (2) A functional unit, controlled by the processor, that handles the transfer of data between processor storage and local peripheral equipment. |
| Channel Interface | The circuitry in a storage control that attaches storage paths to a host channel. |
| Charging | Requiring payment for IT Services. Charging for IT Services is optional, and many Organizations choose to treat their IT Service Provider as a Cost Centre. |
Chronological Analysis | A technique used to help identify possible causes of Problems. All available data about the Problem is collected and sorted by date and time to provide a detailed timeline. This can make it possible to identify which Events may have been triggered by others. |
| CHPID | Channel Path ID. |
| Client | A generic term that means a Customer, the Business or a Business Customer. For example, Client Manager may be used as a synonym for Account Manager. The term client is also used to mean: - A computer that is used directly by a User, for example a PC, Handheld Computer, or Workstation
- The part of a Client-Server Application that the User directly interfaces with. For example an e-mail Client.
|
| CLIST | TSO command list. |
| Closed | The final Status in the Lifecycle of an Incident, Problem, Change, etc. When the Status is Closed, no further action is taken. |
| Closure | The act of changing the Status of an Incident, Problem, Change, etc. to Closed. |
| Cluster | See storage cluster |
| CNT | Formerly Computer Network Technology, now known as Brocade. A provider of storage networking solutions including channel extension devices. |
| COBIT | Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) provides guidance and Best Practice for the management of IT Processes. COBIT is published by the IT Governance Institute. See www.isaca.org for more information. |
| Code of Practice | A Guideline published by a public body or a Standards Organization, such as ISO or BSI. Many Standards consist of a Code of Practice and a Specification. The Code of Practice describes recommended Best Practice. |
| COLD SITE | An alternate facility that is void of any resources or equipment except air-conditioning, raised flooring and power. Equipment and resources must be installed in such a facility to duplicate the critical business functions of an organization. |
| Compliance | Ensuring that a Standard or set of Guidelines is followed, or that proper, consistent accounting or other practices are being employed. |
| Component | A general term that is used to mean one part of something more complex. For example, a computer System may be a component of an IT Service, an Application may be a Component of a Release Unit. Components that need to be managed should be Configuration Items. |
| Component Capacity Management | The Process responsible for understanding the Capacity, Utilization, and Performance of Configuration Items. Data is collected, recorded and analyzed for use in the Capacity Plan. See also Service Capacity Management. |
| Component Failure Impact Analysis | A technique that helps to identify the impact of CI failure on IT Services. A matrix is created with IT Services on one edge and CIs on the other. This enables the identification of critical CIs (that could cause the failure of multiple IT Services) and of fragile IT Services (that have multiple Single Points of Failure). |
Concurrency | A measure of the number of users or processes engaged in the same operation at the same time. |
| Concurrent Copy | An ESS function that increases the availability of data by creating an exact copy of the data concurrent with regular processing. This is accomplished by mirroring disk writes to two separate logical volumes within the ESS. |
| Confidentiality | A security principle that requires that data should only be accessed by authorized people. |
| Configuration | A generic term, used to describe a group of Configuration Items that work together to deliver an IT Service, or a recognizable part of an IT Service. Configuration is also used to describe the parameter settings for one or more CIs. |
| Configuration Item | Any Component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT Service. Information about each CI is recorded in a Configuration Record within the Configuration Management System and is maintained throughout its Lifecycle by Configuration Management. CIs are under the control of Change Management. CIs typically include IT Services, hardware, software, buildings, people, and formal documentation such as Process documentation and SLAs. |
| Configuration Management | The Process responsible for maintaining information about Configuration Items required to deliver an IT Service, including their Relationships. This information is managed throughout the Lifecycle of the CI. Configuration Management is part of an overall Service Asset and Configuration Management Process. |
| Configuration Management Database | A database used to store Configuration Records throughout their Lifecycle. The Configuration Management System maintains one or more CMDBs, and each CMDB stores Attributes of CIs, and Relationships with other CIs. |
| Configuration Management System | A set of tools and databases that are used to manage an IT Service Provider’s Configuration data. The CMS also includes information about Incidents, Problems, Known Errors, Changes and Releases; and may contain data about employees, Suppliers, locations, Business Units, Customers and Users. The CMS includes tools for collecting, storing, managing, updating, and presenting data about all Configuration Items and their Relationships. The CMS is maintained by Configuration Management and is used by all IT Service Management Processes. See also Configuration Management Database, Service Knowledge Management System. |
| Consistency Group | A consistency group is a means of creating a consistent point-in-time copy across multiple logical volumes and multiple ESSs. Consistency Groups are supported by FlashCopy Version 2 and Global Mirror for z/Series (XRC) as a means of managing the consistency of dependent writes. |
| Consistency group time | The time, expressed as a primary system time-of-day (TOD) value, to which XRC secondary volumes have been updated. This term was previously referred to as “consistency time”. |
| Consistent copy | A copy of a data entity (for example a set of logical volumes) that contains the contents of the entire data entity from a single instant in time. |
| | Continual Service Improvement | A stage in the Lifecycle of an IT Service and the title of one of the Core ITIL Version 3 publications. Continual Service Improvement is responsible for managing improvements to IT Service Management Processes and IT Services. The Performance of the IT Service Provider is continually measured and improvements are made to Processes, IT Services and IT Infrastructure in order to increase Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Cost Effectiveness. See also Plan–Do–Check–Act. |
| Contract | A legally binding Agreement between two or more parties. |
| Control | A means of managing a Risk, ensuring that a Business Objective is achieved, or ensuring that a Process is followed. Example Controls include Policies, Procedures, Roles, RAID, door locks, etc. A control is sometimes called a Countermeasure or safeguard. Control also means to manage the utilization or behavior of a Configuration Item, System or IT Service. |
| Control data set | A data set that contains consistent group information on the secondary volumes and the journal data set. It contains information necessary for recovery operations and acts as the table of contents for the session. The control data set keeps track of data written to secondary volumes, the location of unwritten data in the journal set, and which group to start recovery with. |
| Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) | See COBIT. |
| Control Perspective | An approach to the management of IT Services, Processes, Functions, Assets, etc. There can be several different Control Perspectives on the same IT Service, Process, etc., allowing different individuals or teams to focus on what is important and relevant to their specific Role. Example Control Perspectives include Reactive and Proactive management within IT Operations, or a Lifecycle view for an Application Project team. |
| Cost | The amount of money spent on a specific Activity, IT Service, or Business Unit. Costs consist of real cost (money), notional cost such as people’s time, and Depreciation. |
| Cost Center | A Business Unit or Project to which costs are assigned. A Cost Centre does not charge for Services provided. An IT Service Provider can be run as a Cost Centre or a Profit Centre. |
| Cost Effectiveness | A measure of the balance between the Effectiveness and Cost of a Service, Process or activity, A Cost Effective Process is one that achieves its Objectives at minimum Cost. See also KPI, Return on Investment, Value for Money. |
| Cost Management | A general term that is used to refer to Budgeting and Accounting, sometimes used as a synonym for Financial Management. |
| Countermeasure | Can be used to refer to any type of Control. The term Countermeasure is most often used when referring to measures that increase Resilience, Fault Tolerance or Reliability of an IT Service. |
| Coupled data mover | A function of Coupled Extended Remote Copy (CXRC) that supports several data movers running on independent MVS system images to be logically connected so that all volumes in all sessions are can be time consistent. This allows a SDM configuration to grow to support more volumes than can be supported by a single data mover. |
| Coupled extended remote copy (CXRC | An enhancement of XRC that supports copy operations in large environments that exceed the number of primary volumes that can be supported by a single data mover. Thousands of volumes can be supported by multiple XRC sessions, with coordination between the sessions to ensure that all volumes can be recovered to a consistent point in time. |
| Course Corrections | Changes made to a Plan or Activity that has already started, to ensure that it will meet its Objectives. Course corrections are made as a result of Monitoring progress. |
| CRC Errors | See Cyclic Redundancy Checking |
| CRISIS | A critical event, which, if not handled in an appropriate manner, may dramatically impact an organization's profitability, reputation, or ability to operate. |
| CRITICAL FUNCTIONS | Business activities or information which could not be interrupted or unavailable for several business days without significantly jeopardizing operation of the organization. |
| CRITICAL RECORDS | Records or documents which, if damaged or destroyed, would cause considerable inconvenience and/or require replacement or recreation at considerable expense. |
| Critical Success Factor | Something that must happen if a Process, Project, Plan, or IT Service is to succeed. KPIs are used to measure the achievement of each CSV. For example a CSV of ‘protect IT Services when making Changes’ could be measured by KPIs such as ‘percentage reduction of unsuccessful Changes’, ‘percentage reduction in Changes causing Incidents’, etc. |
| Culture | A set of values that is shared by a group of people, including expectations about how people should behave, their ideas, beliefs, and practices. See also Vision. |
| Customer | Someone who buys goods or Services. The Customer of an IT Service Provider is the person or group that defines and agrees the Service Level Targets. The term Customers is also sometimes informally used to mean Users, for example ‘this is a Customer-focused Organization’. |
| CUA | Control unit address. |
| CXRC | Coupled extended remote copy. |
| D | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Dark fiber | An optical fiber infrastructure using cabling and repeaters for communications. Usually a dedicated fiber link between two sites that is used by one client. |
| DASD | Direct Access Storage Device. |
| Dashboard | A graphical representation of overall IT Service Performance and Availability. Dashboard images may be updated in real-time, and can also be included in management reports and web pages. Dashboards can be used to support Service Level Management, Event Management or Incident Diagnosis. |
| Data consistency | Data consistency summarizes the validity, accuracy, usability and integrity of related data between applications and across the IT enterprise. This ensures that each user observes a consistent view of the data, including visible changes made by the user's own transactions and transactions of other users or processes.
Data can be considered consistent in one or more various states such as Point in Time, Transaction, and Application consistency. |
| Data in transit | The data on primary system volumes that is being sent to the recovery system for writing to volumes on the recovery system. |
| Data mover | See system data mover. |
| Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom | A way of understanding the relationships between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. DIKE shows how each of these builds on the others. |
| Deliverable | Something that must be provided to meet a commitment in a Service Level Agreement or a Contract. Deliverable is also used in a more informal way to mean a planned output of any Process. |
| Demand Management | Activities that understand and influence Customer demand for Services and the provision of Capacity to meet these demands. At a Strategic level Demand Management can involve analysis of Patterns of Business Activity and User Profiles. At a tactical level it can involve use of Differential Charging to encourage Customers to use IT Services at less busy times. See also Capacity Management. |
| Deming Cycle | See Plan–Do–Check–Act. |
| Dependency | The direct or indirect reliance of one Process or Activity on another. |
| Dependent Write | An application I/O that cannot be issued until a previous application I/O has completed.
Please click here for a detailed description of Dependent write. |
| Deployment | The Activity responsible for movement of new or changed hardware, software, documentation, Process, etc. to the Live Environment. Deployment is part of the Release and Deployment Management Process. |
| Design | An Activity or Process that identifies Requirements and then defines a solution that is able to meet these Requirements. See also Service Design. |
| Destage | The asynchronous write of new or updated data from cache or nonvolatile storage to disk. The fast write, dual copy, and remote copy functions destage data. |
| Detection | A stage in the Incident Lifecycle. Detection results in the Incident becoming known to the Service Provider. Detection can be automatic, or can be the result of a user logging an Incident. |
| Development | The Process responsible for creating or modifying an IT Service or Application. Also used to mean the Role or group that carries out Development work. |
| Device address | Three or four hexadecimal digits that uniquely define a physical I/O device on a channel path in System/390 mode. |
| Device blocking | See Device pacing |
| Device pacing | Device pacing is designed to react to a workload peak against a single volume in such a manner as to constrain update activity for that single volume, while allowing update activity against all other volumes to operate in an unrestricted manner. The SDM is designed to pace the application write I/Os against a single volume at a rate that matches the SDM capability to offload those write I/Os. |
| Device Support Facilities program (ICKDSF) | An IBM utility program used to initialize DASD at installation and perform media maintenance. |
| Diagnosis | A stage in the Incident and Problem Lifecycles. The purpose of Diagnosis is to identify a Workaround for an Incident or the Root Cause of a Problem. |
| Disaster | In General, defined as any damaging or destructive event that overwhelms available resources, causes serious loss, destruction, hardship, unhappiness, or death.
For IT environments, a disaster is thought of as any event that creates an inability on an organizations part to provide critical business functions for some extended period of time. It may entail the loss of data and processing capability. |
| Disaster Recovery | Recovery after a disaster, such as a fire, earthquake, etc. that destroys or otherwise disables a system. Disaster recovery techniques typically involve restoring data to a second (recovery) system, then using the recovery system in place of the destroyed or disabled application system. See also recovery, backup, and recovery system |
| Disk Mirroring | Disk mirroring is the replication of data on separate disks in real time to ensure continuous availability, currency and accuracy. Disk mirroring can function as a disaster recovery solution by performing the mirroring remotely and over distance. Depending on the technologies used, mirroring can be performed Synchronously, Asynchronously, Semi-synchronously, or point-in-time.
True synchronous mirroring can achieve a Recovery Point Objective of zero lost data. Asynchronous mirroring can achieve a Recovery Point Objective of just a few seconds while the remaining methodologies provide a Recovery Point Objective of a few minutes to perhaps several hours.
Related terms: data mirroring, data replication, file shadowing, journaling. |
| Document | Information in readable form. A Document may be paper or electronic. For example, a Policy statement, Service Level Agreement, Incident Record, diagram of computer room layout. See also Record. |
| Downtime | The time when a Configuration Item or IT Service is not Available during its Agreed Service Time. The Availability of an IT Service is often calculated from Agreed Service Time and Downtime. |
| Driver | Something that influences Strategy, Objectives or Requirements. For example, new legislation or the actions of competitors. |
| Dual copy | A high availability function made possible by the nonvolatile storage in cached IBM storage controls. Dual copy maintains two functionally identical copies of designated DASD volumes in the logical storage subsystem, and automatically updates both copies every time a write operation is issued to the dual copy logical volume. |
| dump | A capture of valuable storage information at the time of an error. |
| duplex pair | A volume comprised of two physical devices within the same or different storage subsystems that are defined as a pair by a dual copy, PPRC, or XRC operation, and are in neither suspended nor pending state. The operation records the same data onto each volume. |
| DWDM | Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexer. A technique used to transmit several independent bit streams over a single fiber link. |
| E | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Economies of scale | The reduction in average Cost that is possible from increasing the usage of an IT Service or Asset. |
| Effectiveness | A measure of whether the Objectives of a Process, Service or Activity have been achieved. An Effective Process or activity is one that achieves its agreed Objectives. See also KPI. |
| Efficiency | A measure of whether the right amount of resources has been used to deliver a Process, Service or Activity. An Efficient Process achieves its Objectives with the minimum amount of time, money, people or other resources. See also KPI. |
| Electronic Vaulting | Transfer of data to an offsite storage facility via a communication link rather than via portable media. |
| Emergency | A sudden, unexpected event requiring immediate action due to potential threat to health and safety, the environment, or property. |
| Emergency Preparedness | The discipline which ensures an organization, or community's readiness to respond to an emergency in a coordinated, timely, and effective manner. |
| Environment | A subset of the IT Infrastructure that is used for a particular purpose. For Example: Live Environment, Test Environment, Build Environment. It is possible for multiple Environments to share a Configuration Item, for example Test and Live Environments may use different partitions on a single mainframe computer. Also used in the term Physical Environment to mean the accommodation, air conditioning, power system, etc. Environment is also used as a generic term to mean the external conditions that influence or affect something. |
| ERP | Error recovery procedure. |
| Error | A design flaw or malfunction that causes a Failure of one or more Configuration Items or IT Services. A mistake made by a person or a faulty Process that affects a CI or IT Service is also an Error. |
| Escalation | An Activity that obtains additional Resources when these are needed to meet Service Level Targets or Customer expectations. Escalation may be needed within any IT Service Management Process, but is most commonly associated with Incident Management, Problem Management and the management of Customer complaints. There are two types of Escalation, Functional Escalation and Hierarchic Escalation. |
| ESCON | Enterprise System Connection. This is a set of IBM products and services that provides a dynamically connected environment within an enterprise. |
| ESS. Enterprise Storage Server | IBM 2105 and 2107 DASD. |
| eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers | A framework to help IT Service Providers develop their IT Service Management Capabilities from a Service Sourcing perspective. eSCM–SP was developed by Carnegie Mellon University, US. |
| Evaluation | The Process responsible for assessing a new or Changed IT Service to ensure that Risks have been managed and to help determine whether to proceed with the Change. Evaluation is also used to mean comparing an actual Outcome with the intended Outcome, or comparing one alternative with another. |
| Event | A change of state that has significance for the management of a Configuration Item or IT Service. The term Event is also used to mean an Alert or notification created by any IT Service, Configuration Item or Monitoring tool. Events typically require IT Operations personnel to take actions, and often lead to Incidents being logged. |
| Event Management | The Process responsible for managing Events throughout their Lifecycle. Event Management is one of the main Activities of IT Operations. |
| Expanded Incident Lifecycle | (Availability Management) Detailed stages in the Lifecycle of an Incident. The stages are Detection, Diagnosis, Repair, Recovery, Restoration. The Expanded Incident Lifecycle is used to help understand all contributions to the Impact of Incidents and to Plan how these could be controlled or reduced. |
| External Customer | A Customer who works for a different Business to the IT Service Provider. See also External Service Provider, Internal Customer. |
| External Service Provider | An IT Service Provider that is part of a different Organization to its Customer. An IT Service Provider may have both Internal Customers and External Customers. |
| eXtended Remote Copy (XRC) | See Global Mirror for zSeries. |
| F | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Failure | Loss of ability to Operate to Specification, or to deliver the required output. The term Failure may be used when referring to IT Services, Processes, Activities, Configuration Items, etc. A Failure often causes an Incident. |
| Fault | See Error. |
| Fault Tolerance | The ability of an IT Service or Configuration Item to continue to Operate correctly after Failure of a Component part. See also Resilience, Countermeasure. |
| Fault Tree Analysis | A technique that can be used to determine the chain of events that leads to a Problem. Fault Tree Analysis represents a chain of events using Boolean notation in a diagram. |
| Fiber optic cable | A fiber, or bundle of fibers, in a structure built to meet optic, mechanical, and environmental specifications. |
| File Shadowing | The asynchronous duplication of the production database on separate media to ensure data availability, currency and accuracy. File shadowing can be used as a disaster recovery solution if performed remotely, to improve both the recovery time and recovery point objectives. SIMILAR TERMS: Data Replication, Journaling, Disk Mirroring. |
| Financial Management | The Function and Processes responsible for managing an IT Service Provider’s Budgeting, Accounting and Charging Requirements. |
| Fit for Purpose | An informal term used to describe a Process, Configuration Item, IT Service, etc. that is capable of meeting its objectives or Service Levels. Being Fit for Purpose requires suitable design, implementation, control and maintenance. |
| Fixed utility volume | A simplex volume assigned by the storage administrator to a logical storage subsystem to serve as an address for XRC to use that volume for XRC functions. |
| FlashCopy | A point-in-time copy services function that can quickly copy data from a source location to a target location.
For a more detailed description, please click on: FlashCopy |
| Floating utility volume | Any volume of a pool of simplex volumes assigned by the storage administrator to a logical storage subsystem to serve as an address for which XRC functions. |
| Forward Recovery | The process of recovering a data base to the point of failure by applying active journal or log data to the current backup files of the data base. |
| Fulfillment | Performing Activities to meet a need or Requirement. For example, by providing a new IT Service, or meeting a Service Request. |
| Function | A team or group of people and the tools they use to carry out one or more Processes or Activities. For example the Service Desk. The term Function also has two other meanings: - An intended purpose of a Configuration Item, Person, Team, Process, or IT Service. For example one Function of an e-mail Service may be to store and forward outgoing mails, one Function of a Business Process may be to dispatch goods to Customers.
- To perform the intended purpose correctly, ‘The computer is Functioning’.
|
| G | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Gap Analysis | An Activity that compares two sets of data and identifies the differences. Gap Analysis is commonly used to compare a set of Requirements with actual delivery. See also Benchmarking. |
| GB | Gigabyte. |
| GDPS | Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex. |
| Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex (GDPS) | A multi-site application availability solution that provides the capability to manage remote copy configuration storage subsystems and automate Parallel Sysplex operational tasks. All GDPS functions can be performed from a single point of control, thereby simplifying system resource management. GDPS is designed to minimize and potentially eliminate the impact of any failure or planned site outage. |
| Gigabyte | 1,073,741,824 bytes |
| Global Copy | Previously known as PPRC/XD (Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy Extended Distance). Now known as Global Copy or Global Copy for ESS. This is an asynchronous controller-based disk mirroring solution.
For a more detailed description, please click on: Global Copy |
| Global Mirror | A term describing the functionality of asynchronous mirroring over distance with data consistency. There are two implementations of Global Mirror: Global Mirror for ESS and Global Mirror for z/Series.
For a more detailed description, please click on: Global Mirror |
| Global Mirror for ESS | Was previously known as Asynchronous PPRC. Global Mirror for ESS combines PPRC-Extended Distance functionality with FlashCopy consistency groups to provide time consistent data at the secondary site. This is supported by a master session in the hardware configuration. The master session controls all updates to the secondary's of the PPRC-XD pairs and by issuing FlashCopy commands at the secondary site, the creation of time-consistent tertiary copies, at user specified intervals.
For a more detailed description, please click on: Global Mirror for ESS |
| Global Mirror for z/Series | Was previously known as eXtended Remote Copy (XRC). This is a z/Series asynchronous disk mirroring technique which is effective over any distance. It keeps the data time consistent across multiple ESS (Enterprise Storage Server) or HDS (Hitachi Data Systems) disk subsystems at the recovery site.
XRC functions as a combination of disk (IBM ESS or HDS licensed) Microcode and application code running on a z/Series host and provides a recovery point that is time consistent across multiple disk subsystems.
For a more detailed description, please click on: Global Mirror for z/Series |
| Governance | Ensuring that Policies and Strategy are actually implemented, and that required Processes are correctly followed. Governance includes defining Roles and responsibilities, measuring and reporting, and taking actions to resolve any issues identified. |
| Guideline | A Document describing Best Practice, which recommends what should be done. Compliance with a guideline is not normally enforced. See also Standard. |
| H | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act | The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a U.S. regulation affects the health care industry and regulates how patient information can be used. The regulation also addresses the obligations of healthcare providers and health plans to protect patient health information in both paper and electronic formats. |
| Help Desk | A point of contact for Users to log Incidents. A Help Desk is usually more technically focused than a Service Desk and does not provide a Single Point of Contact for all interaction. The term Help Desk is often used as a synonym for Service Desk. |
| High Availability | Systems or applications requiring a very high level of reliability and availability. High availability systems typically operate 24x7 and usually require built-in redundancy to minimize the risk of downtime due to hardware and/or telecommunication failures. |
| HIPAA | see Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act |
| Hot site | An alternate facility that has the equipment and resources to recover the business functions affected by the occurrence of a disaster. Hot-sites may vary in type of facilities offered (such as data processing, communication, or any other critical business functions needing duplication). Location and size of the hot-site will be proportional to the equipment and resources needed. |
| I | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| identifier (ID) | A sequence of bits or characters that identifies a program, device, storage control, or system. |
| Impact | A measure of the effect of an Incident, Problem or Change on Business Processes. Impact is often based on how Service Levels will be affected. Impact and Urgency are used to assign Priority. |
| Incident | An unplanned interruption to an IT Service or reduction in the Quality of an IT Service. Failure of a Configuration Item that has not yet impacted Service is also an Incident. For example Failure of one disk from a mirror set. |
| Incident Management | The Process responsible for managing the Lifecycle of all Incidents. The primary Objective of Incident Management is to return the IT Service to Customers as quickly as possible. |
| Incident Record | A Record containing the details of an Incident. Each Incident record documents the Lifecycle of a single Incident. |
| Indirect Cost | A Cost of providing an IT Service, which cannot be allocated in full to a specific customer. For example, the Cost of providing shared Servers or software licenses. Also known as Overhead. |
| Information Security Management | The Process that ensures the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of an Organization’s Assets, information, data and IT Services. Information Security Management usually forms part of an Organizational approach to Security Management that has a wider scope than the IT Service Provider, and includes handling of paper, building access, phone calls, etc., for the entire Organization. |
| Information Security Management System | The framework of Policy, Processes, Standards, Guidelines and tools that ensures an Organization can achieve its Information Security Management Objectives. |
| Information Technology | The use of technology for the storage, communication or processing of information. The technology typically includes computers, telecommunications, Applications and other software. The information may include Business data, voice, images, video, etc. Information Technology is often used to support Business Processes through IT Services. |
| Integrity | A security principle that ensures data and Configuration Items are modified only by authorized personnel and Activities. Integrity considers all possible causes of modification, including software and hardware Failure, environmental Events, and human intervention. |
| Internal Customer | A Customer who works for the same Business as the IT Service Provider. See also Internal Service Provider, External Customer. |
| Internal Service Provider | An IT Service Provider that is part of the same Organization as its Customer. An IT Service Provider may have both Internal Customers and External Customers. |
| International Organization for Standardization | The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the world’s largest developer of Standards. ISO is a non-governmental organization that is a network of the national standards institutes of 156 countries. See www.iso.org for further information about ISO. |
| International Standards Organization | See International Organization for Standardization. |
| I/O device | An addressable input/output unit, such as a direct access storage device, magnetic tape device, or printer. |
| IPL | Initial program load. |
| Ishikawa Diagram | A technique that helps a team to identify all the possible causes of a Problem. Originally devised by Kaoru Ishikawa, the output of this technique is a diagram that looks like a fishbone. |
| ISO 9000 | A generic term that refers to a number of international Standards and Guidelines for Quality Management Systems. See www.iso.org for more information. See also International Organization for Standardization. |
| ISO/IEC 17799 | ISO Code of Practice for Information Security Management. See also Standard. |
| ISO/IEC 20000 | ISO Specification and Code of Practice for IT Service Management. ISO/IEC 20000 is aligned with ITIL Best Practice. |
| ISO/IEC 27001 | ISO Specification for Information Security Management. The corresponding Code of Practice is ISO/IEC 17799. See also Standard. |
| IT Infrastructure | All of the hardware, software, networks, facilities, etc. that are required to develop, Test, deliver, Monitor, Control or support IT Services. The term IT Infrastructure includes all of the Information Technology but not the associated people, Processes and documentation. |
| IT Operations Management | The Function within an IT Service Provider that performs the daily Activities needed to manage IT Services and the supporting IT Infrastructure. IT Operations Management includes IT Operations Control and Facilities Management. |
| IT Service | A Service provided to one or more Customers by an IT Service Provider. An IT Service is based on the use of Information Technology and supports the Customer’s Business Processes. An IT Service is made up from a combination of people, Processes and technology and should be defined in a Service Level Agreement. |
| IT Service Continuity Management | The Process responsible for managing Risks that could seriously affect IT Services. ITSCM ensures that the IT Service Provider can always provide minimum agreed Service Levels, by reducing the Risk to an acceptable level and Planning for the Recovery of IT Services. ITSCM should be designed to support Business Continuity Management. |
| IT Service Management | The implementation and management of Quality IT Services that meet the needs of the Business. IT Service Management are performed by IT Service Providers through an appropriate mix of people, Process and Information Technology. See also Service Management. |
| IT Service Management Forum | The IT Service Management Forum is an independent Organization dedicated to promoting a professional approach to IT Service Management. The itSMF is a not-for-profit membership Organization with representation in many countries around the world (itSMF Chapters). The itSMF and its membership contribute to the development of ITIL and associated IT Service Management Standards. See www.itsmf.com for more information. |
| IT Service Provider | A Service Provider that provides IT Services to Internal Customers or External Customers. |
| ITIL | A set of Best Practice guidance for IT Service Management. ITIL is owned by the OGC and consists of a series of publications giving guidance on the provision of Quality IT Services, and on the Processes and facilities needed to support them. See www.itil.co.uk for more information. |
| J | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| JCL | Job Control Language |
| Job control language (JCL) | A problem-oriented language used to identify the job or describe its requirements to an MVS operating system. |
| Job Description | A Document that defines the Roles, responsibilities, skills and knowledge required by a particular person. One Job Description can include multiple Roles, for example the Roles of Configuration Manager and Change Manager may be carried out by one person. |
| Journal | A checkpoint data set that contains work to be done. For XRC, the work to be done consists of all changed records from the primary volumes. Changed records are collected and formed into a “consistency group”, and then the group of updates are applied to the secondary volumes. |
| Journal data set | A checkpoint data set that contains data to be written to the secondary volume. For XRC, this data consists of all changed records from the primary volumes. Changed records are collected and formed into a “consistency group”, and then the group of updates is applied to the secondary volumes. |
| Journaling | The process of logging changes or updates to a database since the last full backup. Journals can be used to recover previous versions of a file before updates were made, or to facilitate disaster recovery, if performed remotely, by applying changes to the last safe backup. |
| K | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| KB | Kilobyte |
| Kepner & Tregoe Analysis | A structured approach to Problem solving. The Problem is analyzed in terms of what, where, when and extent. Possible causes are identified. The most probable cause is tested. The true cause is verified. |
| Key Performance Indicator | A Metric that is used to help manage a Process, IT Service or Activity. Many Metrics may be measured, but only the most important of these are defined as KPIs and used to actively manage and report on the Process, IT Service or Activity. KPIs should be selected to ensure that Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Cost Effectiveness are all managed. See also Critical Success Factor. |
| keyword | A name that identifies a parameter in a command string. Keywords can be entered in their entirety or as abbreviations identified in the syntax diagram for the command. |
| kilobyte (KB) | 1,024 bytes. |
| km | Kilometer |
| Knowledge Base | A logical database containing the data used by the Service Knowledge Management System. |
| Knowledge Management | The Process responsible for gathering, analyzing, storing and sharing knowledge and information within an Organization. The primary purpose of Knowledge Management is to improve Efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge. See also Data-to-Information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom and Service Knowledge Management System. |
| L | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Licensed Internal Code (LIC | Microcode that is licensed to the customer to provide particular functions. LIC is implemented in a part of storage that is not addressable by user programs. |
| Lifecycle | The various stages in the life of an IT Service, Configuration Item, Incident, Problem, Change, etc. The Lifecycle defines the Categories for Status and the Status transitions that are permitted. For example: - The Lifecycle of an Application includes Requirements, Design, Build, Deploy, Operate, Optimize
- The Expanded Incident Lifecycle includes Detect, Respond, Diagnose, Repair, Recover, Restore
- The Lifecycle of a Server may include: Ordered, Received, In Test, Live, Disposed, etc.
|
| Live Environment | A controlled Environment containing Live Configuration Items used to deliver IT Services to Customers. |
| logical partition (LPAR) | The ESA/390 term for a set of functions that create the programming environment that is defined by the ESA/390 architecture. ESA/390 architecture uses this term when more than one LPAR is established on a processor. An LPAR is conceptually similar to a virtual machine environment except that the LPAR is a function of the processor. Also, the LPAR does not depend on an operating system to create the virtual machine environment. |
| logical storage subsystem | A collection of addresses that are associated with the same logical subsystem. |
| logical subsystem | The logical functions of a storage controller that allow one or more host I/O interfaces to access a set of devices. The controller aggregates the devices according to the addressing mechanisms of the associated I/O interfaces. One or more logical subsystems exist on a storage controller. In general, the controller associates a given set of devices with only one logical subsystem. |
| LPAR | Logical PARtition. A logical segmentation of a mainframe’s memory and other resources that allows it to run its own copy of the operating system and associated applications. See also virtual server. |
| LSS | Logical storage subsystem |
| M | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z /td> |
| Term | Definition |
| Maintainability | A measure of how quickly and Effectively a Configuration Item or IT Service can be restored to normal working after a Failure. Maintainability is often measured and reported as MTRS. Maintainability is also used in the context of Software or IT Service Development to mean ability to be Changed or Repaired easily. |
| Managed Services | A perspective on IT Services which emphasizes the fact that they are managed. The term Managed Services is also used as a synonym for Outsourced IT Services. |
| Management Information | Information that is used to support decision making by managers. Management Information is often generated automatically by tools supporting the various IT Service Management Processes. Management Information often includes the values of KPIs such as ‘Percentage of Changes leading to Incidents’, or ‘first-time fix rate’. |
| Management of Risk | The OGC methodology for managing Risks. M_o_R includes all the Activities required to identify and Control the exposure to Risk, which may have an impact on the achievement of an Organization’s Business Objectives. See www.m-o-r.org for more details. |
| Management System | The framework of Policy, Processes and Functions that ensures an Organization can achieve its Objectives. |
| Master data set | The master data set ensures consistency among all XRC subsystems contained within the coupled XRC system. |
| Master session | A logical entity that is used to coordinate session commands and data consistency across multiple XRC sessions. A master session exists as long as there is an XRC session coupled to the master session. |
| Maturity | A measure of the Reliability, Efficiency and Effectiveness of a Process, Function, Organization, etc. The most mature Processes and Functions are formally aligned to Business Objectives and Strategy, and are supported by a framework for continual improvement. |
| Maturity Level | A named level in a Maturity model such as the Carnegie Mellon Capability Maturity Model Integration. |
| Mb | Megabit. 1,048,576 bits. |
| MB | Megabyte. 1,048,576 bytes. |
| Mean Time Between Failures | A Metric for measuring and reporting Reliability. MTBF is the average time that a Configuration Item or IT Service can perform its agreed Function without interruption. This is measured from when the CI or IT Service starts working, until it next fails. |
| Megabyte (MB) | 1,048,576 bytes. |
| Metric | Something that is measured and reported to help manage a Process, IT Service or Activity. See also KPI. |
| Metro Mirror | (previously known as synchronous Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy, or PPRC) provides real-time mirroring of logical volumes between two ESSs that can be located up to 300 km from each other. It is a synchronous copy solution where write operations are completed on both copies (local and remote site) before they are considered to be complete.
For a more detailed description, please click on: Metro Mirror |
| Middleware | Software that connects two or more software Components or Applications. Middleware is usually purchased from a Supplier, rather than developed within the IT Service Provider. |
| MIP | Million instructions per second. |
| Mission Statement | The Mission Statement of an Organization is a short but complete description of the overall purpose and intentions of that Organization. It states what is to be achieved, but not how this should be done. |
| Model | A representation of a System, Process, IT Service, Configuration Item, etc. that is used to help understand or predict future behavior. |
| Modeling | A technique that is used to predict the future behavior of a System, Process, IT Service, Configuration Item, etc. Modeling is commonly used in Financial Management, Capacity Management and Availability Management. |
| Monitor Control Loop | Monitoring the output of a Task, Process, IT Service or Configuration Item; comparing this output to a predefined Norm; and taking appropriate action based on this comparison. |
| Monitoring | Repeated observation of a Configuration Item, IT Service or Process to detect Events and to ensure that the current status is known. |
| Multiple eXtended Remote Copy (MXRC) | An enhancement to XRC that supports up to five XRC sessions within a single LPAR. |
| MVS | Multiple Virtual Storage. An IBM mainframe operating system. |
| N | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| N + 1 | A fault tolerant strategy that includes multiple systems or components protected by one backup system or component. (Many-to-one relationship). |
| Nonvolatile storage (NVS) | Random access electronic storage with a backup battery power source, used to retain data during a power failure. Nonvolatile storage, accessible from all cached IBM storage clusters, stores data during remote copy operations. |
| NVS | Nonvolatile storage. |
| O | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Objective | The defined purpose or aim of a Process, an Activity or an Organization as a whole. Objectives are usually expressed as measurable targets. The term Objective is also informally used to mean a Requirement. See also Outcome. |
| OC12 | A high-speed telecommunications link supporting a speed of 622 megabits (Mb) per second. Equivalent bandwidth to four OC3s. |
| OC3 | A high-speed telecommunications link supporting a speed of 155 megabits (Mb) per second. |
| OC48 | A high-speed telecommunications link supporting a speed of 2.4 gigabits (Gb) per second. Equivalent bandwidth of four OC12s. |
| Office of Government Commerce | OGC owns the ITIL brand (copyright and trademark). OGC is a UK Government department that supports the delivery of the government’s procurement agenda through its work in collaborative procurement and in raising levels of procurement skills and capability with departments. It also provides support for complex public sector projects. |
| Off-Site Storage | Any place physically located a significant distance away from the primary site, where duplicated and vital records (hard copy or electronic and/or equipment) may be stored for use during recovery. |
| Operate | To perform as expected. A Process or Configuration Item is said to Operate if it is delivering the Required outputs. Operate also means to perform one or more Operations. For example, to Operate a computer is to do the day-to-day Operations needed for it to perform as expected. |
| Operating system | Software that controls the execution of programs. An operating system may provide services such as resource allocation, scheduling, input/output control, and data management. |
| Operation | Day-to-day management of an IT Service, System, or other Configuration Item. Operation is also used to mean any pre-defined Activity or Transaction. For example loading a magnetic tape, accepting money at a point of sale, or reading data from a disk drive. |
| Operational | The lowest of three levels of Planning and delivery (Strategic, Tactical, Operational). Operational Activities include the day-to-day or short-term Planning or delivery of a Business Process or IT Service Management Process. The term Operational is also a synonym for Live. |
| Operational Cost | Cost resulting from running the IT Services. Often repeating payments. For example staff costs, hardware maintenance and electricity (also known as ‘current expenditure’ or ‘revenue expenditure’). See also Capital Expenditure. |
| Operational Expenditure | See Operational Cost. |
OpEx | See Operational Expenditure, Operational Cost. |
| Operational Level Agreement | An Agreement between an IT Service Provider and another part of the same Organization. An OLA supports the IT Service Provider’s delivery of IT Services to Customers. The OLA defines the goods or Services to be provided and the responsibilities of both parties. For example there could be an OLA: - Between the IT Service Provider and a procurement department to obtain hardware in agreed times
- Between the Service Desk and a Support Group to provide Incident Resolution in agreed times.
See also Service Level Agreement. |
| Operations Management | See IT Operations Management. |
| Optimize | Review, Plan and request Changes, in order to obtain the maximum Efficiency and Effectiveness from a Process, Configuration Item, Application, etc. |
| Organization | A company, legal entity or other institution. Examples of Organizations that are not companies include International Standards Organization or itSMF. The term Organization is sometimes used to refer to any entity that has People, Resources and Budgets. For example a Project or Business Unit. |
| Outcome | The result of carrying out an Activity; following a Process; delivering an IT Service, etc. The term Outcome is used to refer to intended results, as well as to actual results. See also Objective. |
| Outsourcing | Using an External Service Provider to manage IT Services. |
| Overhead | See Indirect cost. |
| P | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Parallel access volume (PAV) | PAVs are logical addresses that allow your system to access a single volume from a single host with multiple concurrent requests. |
| PAV | Parallel access volume. |
| Partnership | A relationship between two Organizations that involves working closely together for common goals or mutual benefit. The IT Service Provider should have a Partnership with the Business, and with Third Parties who are critical to the delivery of IT Services. |
| Peer-to-peer remote copy | A hardware-based remote copy option that provides disk volume copy across storage subsystems for Disaster Recovery, device migration, and workload migration. |
| Pending | The initial state of a defined volume pair, before it becomes a duplex pair. During this state, the contents of the primary volume are copied to the secondary volume. |
| Performance | A measure of what is achieved or delivered by a System, person, team, Process, or IT Service. |
| Performance Management | The Process responsible for day-to-day Capacity Management Activities. These include monitoring, threshold detection, Performance analysis and Tuning, and implementing changes related to Performance and Capacity. |
| Pilot | A limited Deployment of an IT Service, a Release or a Process to the Live Environment. A pilot is used to reduce Risk and to gain User feedback and Acceptance. See also Test, Evaluation. |
| PiT | Point-in-Time. |
| Plan | A detailed proposal that describes the Activities and Resources needed to achieve an Objective. For example a Plan to implement a new IT Service or Process. ISO/IEC 20000 requires a Plan for the management of each IT Service Management Process. |
| Plan–Do–Check–Act | A four-stage cycle for Process management, attributed to Edward Deming. Plan–Do–Check–Act is also called the Deming Cycle. PLAN: Design or revise Processes that support the IT Services. DO: Implement the Plan and manage the Processes. CHECK: Measure the Processes and IT Services, compare with Objectives and produce reports. ACT: Plan and implement Changes to improve the Processes. |
| Planning | An Activity responsible for creating one or more Plans. For example, Capacity Planning. |
| PMBOK | A Project management Standard maintained and published by the Project Management Institute. PMBOK stands for Project Management Body of Knowledge. See www.pmi.org for more information. See also PRINCE2. |
| Point-in-Time Consistency | Data is Point in Time consistent if all of the related data components (either a group of data sets or a set of logical volumes) are as they were at any single instant in time. |
| Policy | Formally documented management expectations and intentions. Policies are used to direct decisions, and to ensure consistent and appropriate development and implementation of Processes, Standards, Roles, Activities, IT Infrastructure, etc. |
| Port | (1) An access point for data entry or exit. (2) A receptacle on a device to which a cable for another device is attached. |
| Post-Implementation Review | A Review that takes place after a Change or a Project has been implemented. A PIR determines if the Change or Project was successful, and identifies opportunities for improvement. |
| PPRC | Peer-to-peer remote copy. Now referred to as Metro Mirror for ESS. |
| PPRC/XD | Peer-to-peer remote copy over an extended distance. Now referred to as Global Copy for ESS. |
| PPRC dynamic address switching (P/DAS) | A software function that provides the ability to dynamically redirect all application I/O from one PPRC volume to another PPRC volume. |
| Practice | A way of working, or a way in which work must be done. Practices can include Activities, Processes, Functions, Standards and Guidelines. See also Best Practice. |
| Pricing | The Activity for establishing how much Customers will be Charged. |
| Primary device | One device of a remote copy volume pair. All primary application channel commands are directed to the primary device. The data on the primary device is duplicated on the secondary device. See also secondary device. |
| Primary system | A system made up of one or more host systems that perform the main set of functions for an establishment. This is the system that updates the primary disk volumes that are being copied by a copy services function. Also referred to as application system. |
| PRINCE2 | The standard UK government methodology for Project management. See www.ogc.gov.uk/prince2 for more information. See also PMBOK. |
| Priority | A Category used to identify the relative importance of an Incident, Problem or Change. Priority is based on Impact and Urgency, and is used to identify required times for actions to be taken. For example the SLA may state that Priority 2 Incidents must be resolved within 12 hours. |
| Proactive Problem Management | Part of the Problem Management Process. The Objective of Proactive Problem Management is to identify Problems that might otherwise be missed. Proactive Problem Management analyses Incident Records, and uses data collected by other IT Service Management Processes to identify trends or significant problems. |
| Problem | A cause of one or more Incidents. The cause is not usually known at the time a Problem Record is created, and the Problem Management Process is responsible for further investigation. |
| Problem Management | The Process responsible for managing the Lifecycle of all Problems. The primary objectives of Problem Management are to prevent Incidents from happening, and to minimize the Impact of Incidents that cannot be prevented. |
| Problem Record | A Record containing the details of a Problem. Each Problem Record documents the Lifecycle of a single Problem. |
| Procedure | A Document containing steps that specify how to achieve an Activity. Procedures are defined as part of Processes. See also Work Instruction. |
| Process | A structured set of Activities designed to accomplish a specific Objective. A Process takes one or more defined inputs and turns them into defined outputs. A Process may include any of the Roles, responsibilities, tools and management Controls required to reliably deliver the outputs. A Process may define Policies, Standards, Guidelines, Activities, and Work Instructions if they are needed. |
| Process Control | The Activity of planning and regulating a Process, with the Objective of performing the Process in an Effective, Efficient, and consistent manner. |
| Process Manager | A Role responsible for Operational management of a Process. The Process Manager’s responsibilities include Planning and coordination of all Activities required to carry out, monitor and report on the Process. There may be several Process Managers for one Process, for example regional Change Managers or IT Service Continuity Managers for each data centre. The Process Manager Role is often assigned to the person who carries out the Process Owner Role, but the two Roles may be separate in larger Organizations. |
| Process Owner | A Role responsible for ensuring that a Process is Fit for Purpose. The Process Owner’s responsibilities include sponsorship, Design, Change Management and continual improvement of the Process and its Metrics. This Role is often assigned to the same person who carries out the Process Manager Role, but the two Roles may be separate in larger Organizations. |
| Production Environment | See Live Environment. |
| Programme | A number of Projects and Activities that are planned and managed together to achieve an overall set of related Objectives and other Outcomes. |
| Project | A temporary Organization, with people and other Assets required to achieve an Objective or other Outcome. Each Project has a Lifecycle that typically includes initiation, Planning, execution, Closure, etc. Projects are usually managed using a formal methodology such as PRINCE2. |
| PRojects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) | See PRINCE2 |
| PTAM | Pick-up Truck Access method. Refers to the process of sending backup tapes physically offsite. |
| PTF | Program temporary fix. |
| PtP VTS | Peer-to-Peer Virtual Tape Server: A PtP VTS consists of two IBM automated tape libraries (3494 or 3584), two Virtual Tape Servers (VTS) and an additional frame that houses th4e VTCs (Virtual Tape Controllers). The VTS contains a disk cache and appears to the system as a large number of tape drives.
This type of configuration is frequently used to support enterprise-wide Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. Data can be written into one or both VTSs and then automatically copied to the peer VTS. |
| Q | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| QSAM | Queued Sequential Access Method. A file access method for reading, writing and updating sequential data sets and partitioned data set members. |
| Qualification | An Activity that ensures that IT Infrastructure is appropriate, and correctly configured, to support an Application or IT Service. See also Validation. |
| Quality | The ability of a product, Service, or Process to provide the intended value. For example, a hardware Component can be considered to be of high Quality if it performs as expected and delivers the required Reliability. Process Quality also requires an ability to monitor Effectiveness and Efficiency, and to improve them if necessary. See also Quality Management System. |
| Quality Assurance | The Process responsible for ensuring that the Quality of a product, Service or Process will provide its intended Value. |
| Quality Management System | The set of Processes responsible for ensuring that all work carried out by an Organization is of a suitable Quality to reliably meet Business Objectives or Service Levels. See also ISO 9000. |
| Quick Win | An improvement Activity that is expected to provide a Return on Investment in a short period of time with relatively small Cost and effort. |
| R | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| RACI | A Model used to help define Roles and Responsibilities. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. See also Stakeholder. |
| Record | A Document containing the results or other output from a Process or Activity. Records are evidence of the fact that an activity took place and may be paper or electronic. For example, an Audit report, an Incident Record, or the minutes of a meeting. |
| Recovery | Returning a Configuration Item or an IT Service to a working state. Recovery of an IT Service often includes recovering data to a known consistent state. After Recovery, further steps may be needed before the IT Service can be made available to the Users (Restoration). |
| Redundancy | See Fault Tolerance. The term Redundant also has a generic meaning of obsolete, or no longer needed. |
| RAS | Reliability Availability Serviceability: A term coined by IBM to describe a computer system's overall reliability, its ability to continue processing following a component failure and its ability to undergo maintenance without shutting it down completely. |
| Read hit | When data requested by the read operation is in the cache. |
| Read miss | When data requested by the read operation is not in the cache. |
| Recovery | The process of rebuilding data after it has been damaged or destroyed. In the case of remote copy, this involves applying data from secondary volume copies. |
| Recovery Point Objective (RPO) | The point in time to which data must be restored in order to resume processing transactions. RPO is the basis on which a data protection strategy is developed. |
| Recovery Time | The period from the disaster declaration to the recovery of the critical functions. |
| Recovery Time Objective (RTO) | The period of time within which systems, applications, or functions must be recovered after an outage (e.g. one business day). RTOs are often used as the basis for the development of recovery strategies, and as a determinant as to whether or not to implement the recovery strategies during a disaster situation. Similar Terms: Maximum Allowable Downtime |
| Recovery system | A system that is used in place of a primary application system that is no longer available for use. Data from the application system must be available for use on the recovery system. This is usually accomplished through backup and recovery techniques, or through various disk copying techniques, such as remote copy. |
| Relationship | A connection or interaction between two people or things. In Business Relationship Management it is the interaction between the IT Service Provider and the Business. In Configuration Management it is a link between two Configuration Items that identifies a dependency or connection between them. For example Applications may be linked to the Servers they run on, IT Services have many links to all the CIs that contribute to them. |
| Release | A collection of hardware, software, documentation, Processes or other Components required to implement one or more approved Changes to IT Services. The contents of each Release are managed, tested, and deployed as a single entity. |
| Release and Deployment Management | The Process responsible for both Release Management and Deployment. |
| Release Management | The Process responsible for Planning, scheduling and controlling the movement of Releases to Test and Live Environments. The primary Objective of Release Management is to ensure that the integrity of the Live Environment is protected and that the correct Components are released. Release Management is part of the Release and Deployment Management Process. |
| Release Record | A Record in the CMDB that defines the content of a Release. A Release Record has Relationships with all Configuration Items that are affected by the Release. |
| Reliability | A measure of how long a Configuration Item or IT Service can perform its agreed Function without interruption. Usually measured as MTBF or MTBSI. The term Reliability can also be used to state how likely it is that a Process, Function, etc. will deliver its required outputs. See also Availability. |
| Remote copy | A storage-based disaster recovery and workload migration function that can copy data in real time to a remote location. Two options of remote copy are available. See peer-to-peer remote copy and extended remote copy. |
| Repair | The replacement or correction of a failed Configuration Item. |
| Request for Change | A formal proposal for a Change to be made. An RFC (Request For Change) includes details of the proposed Change, and may be recorded on paper or electronically. The term RFC is often misused to mean a Change Record, or the Change itself. |
| Requirement | A formal statement of what is needed. For example, a Service Level Requirement, a Project Requirement or the required Deliverables for a Process. |
| Resilience | The ability of an organization to absorb the impact of a business interruption, and continue to provide a minimum acceptable level of service. The ability of a Configuration Item or IT Service to resist Failure or to Recover quickly following a Failure. For example an enterprise that has implemented an advanced recovery methodology such as data replication may be able to switch processing to an alternate site without any loss of service. See also Fault Tolerance. |
| Resolution | Action taken to repair the Root Cause of an Incident or Problem, or to implement a Workaround. In ISO/IEC 20000, Resolution Processes is the Process group that includes Incident and Problem Management. |
| Resource | A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to deliver an IT Service. Resources are considered to be Assets of an Organization. See also Capability, Service Asset. |
| Response Time | A measure of the time taken to complete an Operation or Transaction. Used in Capacity Management as a measure of IT Infrastructure Performance, and in Incident Management as a measure of the time taken to answer the phone, or to start Diagnosis. |
| Responsiveness | A measurement of the time taken to respond to something. This could be Response Time of a Transaction, or the speed with which an IT Service Provider responds to an Incident or Request for Change, etc. |
| Restoration of Service | See Restore. |
| Restore | Taking action to return an IT Service to the Users after Repair and Recovery from an Incident. This is the primary Objective of Incident Management. |
| Resynchronization | A track image copy from the primary volume to the secondary volume of only the tracks which have changed since the volume was last in duplex mode. |
| Retire | Permanent removal of an IT Service, or other Configuration Item, from the Live Environment. Retired is a stage in the Lifecycle of many Configuration Items. |
| Return on Investment | A measurement of the expected benefit of an investment. In the simplest sense it is the net profit of an investment divided by the net worth of the assets invested. See also Value on Investment. |
| Review | An evaluation of a Change, Problem, Process, Project, etc. Reviews are typically carried out at predefined points in the Lifecycle, and especially after Closure. The purpose of a Review is to ensure that all Deliverables have been provided, and to identify opportunities for improvement. See also Post-Implementation Review. |
| Risk | A possible event that could cause harm or loss, or affect the ability to achieve Objectives. A Risk is measured by the probability of a Threat, the Vulnerability of the Asset to that Threat, and the Impact it would have if it occurred. |
| Risk Assessment | The initial steps of Risk Management. Analyzing the value of Assets to the business, identifying Threats to those Assets, and evaluating how Vulnerable each Asset is to those Threats. Risk Assessment can be quantitative (based on numerical data) or qualitative. |
| Risk Management | The discipline which ensures that an organization does not assume an unacceptable level of risk. The Process responsible for identifying, assessing and controlling Risks. See also Risk Assessment. |
| Role | A set of responsibilities, Activities and authorities granted to a person or team. A Role is defined in a Process. One person or team may have multiple Roles, for example the Roles of Configuration Manager and Change Manager may be carried out by a single person. |
| Rolling disaster | In disaster situations, it is unlikely that the entire complex will fail at the same moment. Failures tend to be intermittent and gradual, and a disaster can occur over many seconds, even minutes. Because some data may have been processed and other data lost in this transition, data integrity on the secondary volumes is exposed. This situation is called a rolling disaster. The mirrored data at the recovery site must be managed so that cross-volume or LSS data consistency is preserved during the intermittent or gradual failure. |
| Root Cause | The underlying or original cause of an Incident or Problem. |
| Root Cause Analysis | An Activity that identifies the Root Cause of an Incident or Problem. RCA typically concentrates on IT Infrastructure failures. See also Service Failure Analysis. |
| RPO | Recovery Point Objective. |
| RTO | Recovery Time Objective. |
| S | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| SAM | Sequential access method. |
| Sarbanes-Oxley | Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx) is U.S. legislation that applies to public companies intended to strengthen corporate governance. SOx specifies requirements for audits, financial reporting and disclosure, conflicts of interest, and corporate governance. It also establishes new supervisory mechanisms for accountants and accounting firms that conduct external audits of public companies. This legislation also imposes a legal duty on directors of companies to ensure that they have taken adequate information security precautions to protect and preserve financial information. |
| Scalability | The ability of an IT Service, Process, Configuration Item, etc. to perform its agreed Function when the Workload or Scope changes. |
| Scope | The boundary, or extent, to which a Process, Procedure, Certification, Contract, etc. applies. For example the Scope of Change Management may include all Live IT Services and related Configuration Items, the Scope of an ISO/IEC 20000 Certificate may include all IT Services delivered out of a named data centre. |
| SDF | Status Display facility. |
| SDM | System Data Mover. |
| Secondary device | One of the devices in a dual copy or remote copy logical volume pair that contains a duplicate of the data on the primary device. Unlike the primary device, the secondary device may only accept a limited subset of channel commands. |
| Security | See Information Security Management. |
| Security Management | See Information Security Management. |
| Server | A computer that is connected to a network and provides software Functions that are used by other Computers. |
| Service | A means of delivering value to Customers by facilitating Outcomes Customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific Costs and Risks. |
| Service Asset | Any Capability or Resource of a Service Provider. See also Asset. |
| Service Asset and Configuration Management | The Process responsible for both Configuration Management and Asset Management. |
| Service Capacity Management | The Activity responsible for understanding the Performance and Capacity of IT Services. The Resources used by each IT Service and the pattern of usage over time are collected, recorded, and analyzed for use in the Capacity Plan. See also Business Capacity Management, Component Capacity Management. |
| Service Catalogue | A database or structured Document with information about all Live IT Services, including those available for Deployment. The Service Catalogue is the only part of the Service Portfolio published to Customers, and is used to support the sale and delivery of IT Services. The Service Catalogue includes information about deliverables, prices, contact points, ordering and request Processes. |
| Service Culture | A Customer-oriented Culture. The major Objectives of a Service Culture are Customer satisfaction and helping Customers to achieve their Business Objectives. |
| Service Design | A stage in the Lifecycle of an IT Service. Service Design includes a number of Processes and Functions and is the title of one of the Core ITIL Version 3 publications. See also Design. |
| Service Desk | The Single Point of Contact between the Service Provider and the Users. A typical Service Desk manages Incidents and Service Requests, and also handles communication with the Users. |
| Service Failure Analysis | An Activity that identifies underlying causes of one or more IT Service interruptions. SFA identifies opportunities to improve the IT Service Provider’s Processes and tools, and not just the IT Infrastructure. SFA is a time-constrained, project-like activity, rather than an ongoing process of analysis. See also Root Cause Analysis. |
| Service Improvement Plan | A formal Plan to implement improvements to a Process or IT Service. |
| Service Knowledge Management System | A set of tools and databases that are used to manage knowledge and information. The SKMS includes the Configuration Management System, as well as other tools and databases. The SKMS stores, manages, updates, and presents all information that an IT Service Provider needs to manage the full Lifecycle of IT Services. |
| Service Level | Measured and reported achievement against one or more Service Level Targets. The term Service Level is sometimes used informally to mean Service Level Target. |
| Service Level Agreement | An Agreement between an IT Service Provider and a Customer. The SLA describes the IT Service, documents Service Level Targets, and specifies the responsibilities of the IT Service Provider and the Customer. A single SLA may cover multiple IT Services or multiple customers. See also Operational Level Agreement. |
| Service Level Management | The Process responsible for negotiating Service Level Agreements, and ensuring that these are met. SLM is responsible for ensuring that all IT Service Management Processes, Operational Level Agreements, and Underpinning Contracts, are appropriate for the agreed Service Level Targets. SLM monitors and reports on Service Levels, and holds regular Customer reviews. |
| Service Level Requirement | A Customer Requirement for an aspect of an IT Service. SLRs are based on Business Objectives and are used to negotiate agreed Service Level Targets. |
| Service Level Target | A commitment that is documented in a Service Level Agreement. Service Level Targets are based on Service Level Requirements, and are needed to ensure that the IT Service design is Fit for Purpose. Service Level Targets should be SMART, and are usually based on KPIs. |
| Service Management | Service Management is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services. |
| Service Management Lifecycle | An approach to IT Service Management that emphasizes the importance of coordination and Control across the various Functions, Processes, and Systems necessary to manage the full Lifecycle of IT Services. The Service Management Lifecycle approach considers the Strategy, Design, Transition, Operation and Continuous Improvement of IT Services. |
| Service Manager | A manager who is responsible for managing the end-to-end Lifecycle of one or more IT Services. The term Service Manager is also used to mean any manager within the IT Service Provider. Most commonly used to refer to a Business Relationship Manager, a Process Manager, an Account Manager or a senior manager with responsibility for IT Services overall. |
| Service Operation | A stage in the Lifecycle of an IT Service. Service Operation includes a number of Processes and Functions and is the title of one of the Core ITIL Version 3 publications. See also Operation. |
| Service Owner | A Role that is accountable for the delivery of a specific IT Service. |
| Service Package | A detailed description of an IT Service that is available to be delivered to Customers. A Service Package includes a Service Level Package and one or more Core Services and Supporting Services. |
| Service Portfolio | The complete set of Services that are managed by a Service Provider. The Service Portfolio is used to manage the entire Lifecycle of all Services, and includes three Categories: Service Pipeline (proposed or in Development); Service Catalogue (Live or available for Deployment); and Retired Services. See also Service Portfolio Management. |
| Service Portfolio Management | The Process responsible for managing the Service Portfolio. Service Portfolio Management considers Services in terms of the Business value that they provide. |
| Service Provider | An Organization supplying Services to one or more Internal Customers or External Customers. Service Provider is often used as an abbreviation for IT Service Provider. |
| Service Reporting | The Process responsible for producing and delivering reports of achievement and trends against Service Levels. Service Reporting should agree the format, content and frequency of reports with Customers. |
| Service Request | A request from a User for information, or advice, or for a Standard Change or for Access to an IT Service. For example to reset a password, or to provide standard IT Services for a new User. Service Requests are usually handled by a Service Desk, and do not require an RFC to be submitted. |
| Service Strategy | The title of one of the Core ITIL Version 3 publications. Service Strategy establishes an overall Strategy for IT Services and for IT Service Management. |
| Service Transition | A stage in the Lifecycle of an IT Service. Service Transition includes a number of Processes and Functions and is the title of one of the Core ITIL Version 3 publications. See also Transition. |
| Serviceability | The ability of a Third-Party Supplier to meet the terms of its Contract. This Contract will include agreed levels of Reliability, Maintainability or Availability for a Configuration Item. |
| Shadow File Processing | An approach to data backup in which real-time duplicates of critical files are maintained at a remote processing site. SIMILAR TERMS: Remote Mirroring. |
| SHARE | A Large Systems Users Group. |
| Sidefile | A storage area used to maintain copies of tracks within a concurrent copy domain. A concurrent copy operation maintains a sidefile in storage control cache and another in processor storage. |
|
| Simplex state | A volume is in the simplex state if it is not part of a dual copy or a remote copy volume pair. Ending a volume pair returns the two devices to the simplex state. In this case, there is no longer any capability for either automatic updates of the secondary device or for logging changes, as would be the case in a suspended state. |
| Simulation modeling | A technique that creates a detailed model to predict the behavior of a Configuration Item or IT Service. Simulation Models can be very accurate but are expensive and time consuming to create. A Simulation Model is often created by using the actual Configuration Items that are being modeled, with artificial Workloads or Transactions. They are used in Capacity Management when accurate results are important. A simulation model is sometimes called a Performance Benchmark. |
| Single Point of Contact | Providing a single consistent way to communicate with an Organization or Business Unit. For example, a Single Point of Contact for an IT Service Provider is usually called a Service Desk. |
| Single Point of Failure | A term used to describe a unique hardware component, data path or source of a service, activity, and/or process. There is no alternate component and a loss of that element could lead to a catastrophic failure of a critical function. Any Configuration Item that can cause an Incident when it fails, and for which a Countermeasure has not been implemented. A SPOF may be a person, or a step in a Process or Activity, as well as a Component of the IT Infrastructure. See also Failure. |
| SLAM Chart | A Service Level Agreement Monitoring Chart is used to help monitor and report achievements against Service Level Targets. A SLAM Chart is typically color coded to show whether each agreed Service Level Target has been met, missed, or nearly missed during each of the previous 12 months. |
| SMART | An acronym for helping to remember that targets in Service Level Agreements and Project Plans should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. |
| SMF | System Management Facilities. |
| SMS | Storage Management Subsystem. |
| Snapshot | The current state of a Configuration as captured by a discovery tool. Also used as a synonym for Benchmark. See also Baseline. |
| SOx | See Sarbanes-Oxley |
| Specification | A formal definition of Requirements. A Specification may be used to define technical or Operational Requirements, and may be internal or external. Many public Standards consist of a Code of Practice and a Specification. The Specification defines the Standard against which an Organization can be Audited. |
| SPOF | See Single Point of Failure. |
| SRM | System resources manager. |
| SSID | Subsystem identifier. |
| Stakeholder | All people who have an interest in an Organization, Project, IT Service, etc. Stakeholders may be interested in the Activities, targets, Resources, or Deliverables. Stakeholders may include Customers, Partners, employees, shareholders, owners, etc. See also RACI. |
| Standard | A mandatory Requirement. Examples include ISO/IEC 20000 (an international Standard), an internal security standard for Unix configuration, or a government standard for how financial Records should be maintained. The term Standard is also used to refer to a Code of Practice or Specification published by a Standards Organization such as ISO or BSI. See also Guideline. |
| stage | The process of writing data from a disk to the cache. |
| State data set | A data set that contains status of the XRC session and of associated volumes that XRC is managing. |
| Status | The name of a required field in many types of Record. It shows the current stage in the Lifecycle of the associated Configuration Item, Incident, Problem, etc. |
| Storage cluster | A power and service region that runs channel commands and controls the storage devices. Each storage cluster contains both channel and device interfaces. Storage clusters also perform the disk control functions. |
| Storage control | The component in a storage subsystem that handles interaction between processor channel and storage devices, runs channel commands, and controls storage devices. |
| Storage control session | A logical entity that is created for the purpose of processing updates to the XRC primary volumes. It is used to group sets of primary XRC volumes that are being processed by an XRC session within the storage control. |
| Storage Management | The Process responsible for managing the storage and maintenance of data throughout its Lifecycle. |
| Storage Management Subsystem (SMS) | A component of MVS/DFP that is used to automate and centralize the management of storage by providing the storage administrator with control over data class, storage class, management class, storage group, aggregate group and automatic class selection routine definitions. |
| Strategic | The highest of three levels of Planning and delivery (Strategic, Tactical, Operational). Strategic Activities include Objective setting and long-term Planning to achieve the overall Vision. |
| Strategy | A Strategic Plan designed to achieve defined Objectives. |
| Subsystem identifier (SSID) | A user-assigned number that identifies a disk subsystem. This number is set by the service representative at the time of installation and is included in the vital product data. |
| Supplier | A Third Party responsible for supplying goods or Services that are required to deliver IT services. Examples of suppliers include commodity hardware and software vendors, network and telecom providers, and outsourcing Organizations. See also Underpinning Contract, Supply Chain. |
| Supplier Management | The Process responsible for ensuring that all Contracts with Suppliers support the needs of the Business, and that all Suppliers meet their contractual commitments. |
| Supply Chain | The Activities in a Value Chain carried out by Suppliers. A Supply Chain typically involves multiple Suppliers, each adding value to the product or Service. |
| Support Group | A group of people with technical skills. Support Groups provide the Technical Support needed by all of the IT Service Management Processes. See also Technical Management. |
| Suspended state | When only one of the devices in a dual copy or remote copy volume pair is being updated because of either a permanent error condition or an authorized user command. All writes to the remaining functional device are logged. This allows for automatic resynchronization of both volumes when the volume pair is reset to the active duplex state. |
| SWOT Analysis | A technique that reviews and analyses the internal strengths and weaknesses of an Organization and of the external opportunities and threats that it faces. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. |
| Synchronous operation | A type of operation in which the remote copy function copies updates to the secondary volume pair at the same time that the primary volume is updated. Contrast with asynchronous operation. |
| Synchronization | An initial volume copy. This is a track image copy of each primary track on the volume to the secondary volume. |
| Sysplex | A set of MVS or z/OS systems that are communicating and cooperating with each other through certain multisystem hardware components and software services, such as CXRC, to process workloads. This term is derived from “system complex”. |
| System | A number of related things that work together to achieve an overall Objective. For example: - A computer System including hardware, software and Applications
- A management System, including multiple Processes that are planned and managed together. For example, a Quality Management System
- A Database Management System or Operating System that includes many software modules that are designed to perform a set of related Functions.
|
| System Data Mover (SDM) | A system that interacts with storage controls that have attached XRC primary volumes. The SDM copies updates made to the XRC primary volumes to a set of XRC-managed secondary volumes. |
| System-managed data set | A data set that has been assigned a storage class and is managed by SMS. |
| T | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Tactical | The middle of three levels of Planning and delivery (Strategic, Tactical, Operational). Tactical Activities include the medium-term Plans required to achieve specific Objectives, typically over a period of weeks to months. |
| Technical Management | The Function responsible for providing technical skills in support of IT Services and management of the IT Infrastructure. Technical Management defines the Roles of Support Groups, as well as the tools, Processes and Procedures required. |
| Technical Observation | A technique used in Service Improvement, Problem investigation and Availability Management. Technical support staff meet to monitor the behavior and Performance of an IT Service and make recommendations for improvement. |
| Technical Support | See Technical Management. |
| Tension Metrics | A set of related Metrics, in which improvements to one Metric have a negative effect on another. Tension Metrics are designed to ensure that an appropriate balance is achieved. |
| Tertiary volumes | Volumes that the recovery site uses when it takes over the primary site’s workload or as a backup of the secondary volumes to ensure that there is a consistent copy of all recoverable volumes in place while XRC secondary volumes are resynchronized. Rather than have the recovery site use the XRC secondary volumes when taking over the primary site’s workload, the restart will use the tertiary volumes. |
| Test | An Activity that verifies that a Configuration Item, IT Service, Process, etc. meets its Specification or agreed Requirements. See also Acceptance. |
| Test Environment | A controlled Environment used to Test Configuration Items, Builds, IT Services, Processes, etc. |
| Third Party | A person, group, or Business that is not part of the Service Level Agreement for an IT Service, but is required to ensure successful delivery of that IT Service. For example, a software Supplier, a hardware maintenance company, or a facilities department. Requirements for Third Parties are typically specified in Underpinning Contracts or Operational Level Agreements. |
| Threat | Anything that might exploit a Vulnerability. Any potential cause of an Incident can be considered to be a Threat. For example a fire is a Threat that could exploit the Vulnerability of flammable floor coverings. This term is commonly used in Information Security Management and IT Service Continuity Management, but also applies to other areas such as Problem and Availability Management. |
| Threshold | The value of a Metric that should cause an Alert to be generated, or management action to be taken. For example ‘Priority 1 Incident not solved within four hours’, ‘more than five soft disk errors in an hour’, or ‘more than 10 failed changes in a month’. |
| Throughput | A measure of the number of Transactions, or other Operations, performed in a fixed time. For example, 5,000 e-mails sent per hour, or 200 disk I/Os per second. |
| TOD | Time of day. |
| Tiered Storage | A data storage environment consisting of two or more kinds of storage delineated by differences in at least one of these four attributes: Price, Performance, Capacity and Function. Any significant difference in one or more of the four defining attributes can be sufficient to justify a separate storage tier. Examples: - Disk and Tape: Two separate storage tiers identified by differences in all four defining attributes.
- Old technology disk and new technology disk: Two separate storage tiers identified by differences in one or more of the attributes.
- High performing disk storage and less expensive, slower disk of the same capacity and function: Two separate tiers.
- Identical Enterprise class disk configured to utilize different functions such as raid level or replication: A separate storage tier for each set of unique functions.
Note: Storage Tiers are NOT delineated by differences in vendor, architecture, or geometry except where those differences result in clear changes to Price, Performance, Capacity and Function. |
| Time Sharing Option (TSO) | An MVS and Z/OS operating system option that provides interactive time sharing from remote terminals. |
| Timestamp | The affixed value of the system time-of-day clock at a common point of reference for all write I/O operations directed to active XRC primary volumes. The UTC format is yyyy.ddd hh:mm:ss.thmiju. |
| Total Cost of Ownership | A methodology used to help make investment decisions. TCO assesses the full Lifecycle Cost of owning a Configuration Item, not just the initial Cost or purchase price. |
| Total Quality Management | A methodology for managing continual Improvement by using a Quality Management System. TQM establishes a Culture involving all people in the Organization in a Process of continual monitoring and improvement. |
| Transaction | (1) A series of programmed tasks within an application that accomplishes a particular result, often to satisfy a user request. Example: A single CICS transaction might entail dispensing $40 from an ATM and updating the customers account balance. (2) In processing terms, the work that occurs between the beginning of a unit of work and commit or rollback. A transaction defines the set of operations that is part of an integral set for which consistency must be maintained. |
| Transaction Consistency | The state of all data related to a transaction - Before the transaction has begun or,
- After the transaction has successfully completed or been backed out.
Transaction Consistency is not maintained during the life of a transaction, but should be present both before and after each transaction. |
| Transition | A change in state, corresponding to a movement of an IT Service or other Configuration Item from one Lifecycle status to the next. |
| Trend Analysis | Analysis of data to identify time-related patterns. Trend Analysis is used in Problem Management to identify common Failures or fragile Configuration Items, and in Capacity Management as a Modeling tool to predict future behavior. It is also used as a management tool for identifying deficiencies in IT Service Management Processes. |
| TSO | Time Sharing Option. |
| Tuning | The Activity responsible for Planning changes to make the most efficient use of Resources. Tuning is part of Performance Management, which also includes Performance monitoring and implementation of the required Changes. |
| U | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Underpinning Contract | A Contract between an IT Service Provider and a Third Party. The Third Party provides goods or Services that support delivery of an IT Service to a Customer. The Underpinning Contract defines targets and responsibilities that are required to meet agreed Service Level Targets in an SLA. |
| Unit Cost | The Cost to the IT Service Provider of providing a single Component of an IT Service. For example the Cost of a single desktop PC, or of a single Transaction. |
| UltraNet Storage Director | Brocade (formerly McData, formerly CNT’s) Channel Extension equipment. |
| Universal Time, Coordinated | Replaces Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as a global time reference. The format is yyyy.ddd hh:mm:ss.thmiju. |
| Urgency | A measure of how long it will be until an Incident, Problem or Change has a significant Impact on the Business. For example a high Impact Incident may have low Urgency, if the Impact will not affect the Business until the end of the financial year. Impact and Urgency are used to assign Priority. |
| User | A person who uses the IT Service on a day-to-day basis. Users are distinct from Customers, as some Customers do not use the IT Service directly. |
| Utility | Functionality offered by a Product or Service to meet a particular need. Utility is often summarized as ‘what it does’. |
| utility volume | A volume that is available to be used by the extended remote copy function to perform SDM I/O for a primary site storage control’s XRC-related data. |
| UTC | Universal Time, Coordinated. |
| V | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| Validation | An Activity that ensures a new or changed IT Service, Process, Plan, or other Deliverable meets the needs of the Business. Validation ensures that Business Requirements are met even though these may have changed since the original design. See also Verification, Acceptance, Qualification. |
| Value Chain | A sequence of Processes that creates a product or Service that is of value to a Customer. Each step of the sequence builds on the previous steps and contributes to the overall product or Service. |
| Value for Money | An informal measure of Cost Effectiveness. Value for Money is often based on a comparison with the Cost of alternatives. |
| Value on Investment | A measurement of the expected benefit of an investment. VOI considers both financial and intangible benefits. See also Return on Investment. |
| Variance | The difference between a planned value and the actual measured value. Commonly used in Financial Management, Capacity Management and Service Level Management, but could apply in any area where Plans are in place. |
| Verification | An Activity that ensures a new or changed IT Service, Process, Plan, or other Deliverable is complete, accurate, Reliable and matches its design specification. See also Validation, Acceptance. |
| Version | A Version is used to identify a specific Baseline of a Configuration Item. Versions typically use a naming convention that enables the sequence or date of each Baseline to be identified. For example Payroll Application Version 3 contains updated functionality from Version 2. |
| Vision | A description of what the Organization intends to become in the future. A Vision is created by senior management and is used to help influence Culture and Strategic Planning. |
| Vital Business Function | A Function of a Business Process that is critical to the success of the Business. Vital Business Functions are an important consideration of Business Continuity Management, IT Service Continuity Management and Availability Management. |
| Vital Records | Records or documents, for legal, regulatory, or operational reasons, cannot be irretrievably lost or damaged without materially impairing the organization's ability to conduct business. |
| volser | Volume serial number. |
| volume | The disk space identified by a common serial number and accessed by any of a set of related addresses. See also device. |
| VSM | VSM and Virtual Storage Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of Storage Technology Corp Sun/STK). Sun's StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) system is a virtual tape solution for mainframe environments consisting of a disk front-end, automated-tape back-end, and STK's proven robotics. |
| VTL | Virtual Tape Library: VTL is a generic (non-vendor specific) term that describes a storage technology that makes it possible to save data as if it were being stored on magnetic tape without the constraints normally seen by writing directly to physical tape. In the large systems environment, this is generally considered to be a disk "front-end" buffer combined with an automated tape library and code that makes it appear as if a great many tape drives were defined to the system. Benefits of virtual tape systems include improvements to the RTO and RPO as well as reduced operating costs. |
| VTOC | Volume table of contents. |
| Virtual Tape Server (VTS) | A storage device that combines a disk cache and automated tape library to improve performance and maximize the use of the physical tape media. The disk cache appears to the system as a large number of tape drives. Data intended for tape storage is written to these virtual tape drives (disk cache) and later written to physical tape in the background. Generally, the most recently used data remains in the disk cache to be available for immediate reuse. |
| Vulnerability | A weakness that could be exploited by a Threat. For example an open firewall port, a password that is never changed, or a flammable carpet. A missing Control is also considered to be a Vulnerability. |
| W | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| WARM SITE | An alternate processing site which is only partially equipped (As compared to Hot Site which is fully equipped). |
| Work Instruction | A Document containing detailed instructions that specify exactly what steps to follow to carry out an Activity. A Work Instruction contains much more detail than a Procedure and is only created if very detailed instructions are needed. |
| Workaround | Reducing or eliminating the Impact of an Incident or Problem for which a full Resolution is not yet available. For example by restarting a failed Configuration Item. Workarounds for Problems are documented in Known Error Records. Workarounds for Incidents that do not have associated Problem Records are documented in the Incident Record. |
| Workload | The Resources required to deliver an identifiable part of an IT Service. Workloads may be Categorized by Users, groups of Users, or Functions within the IT Service. This is used to assist in analyzing and managing the Capacity, Performance and Utilization of Configuration Items and IT Services. The term Workload is sometimes used as a synonym for Throughput. |
| Workload migration | The process of moving an application’s data from one set of disk to another for the purpose of balancing performance needs, moving to new hardware, or temporarily relocating data. |
| X | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Term | Definition |
| XRC | Extended remote copy. See Global Mirror for z/Series. |
| Y | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| Z | Go To: TOP-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z |
| z/OS | The IBM operating system that includes and integrates functions previously provided by many IBM software products (including the MVS operating system). Runs on the z/Series processors. |
| z/OS Global Mirror | See Global Mirror for z/Series. |
| z/Series | IBM enterprise servers based on z/Architecture. |
