Controlling configuration and change management: IT process controls

Controlling configuration and change management: IT process controls

Adam Trujillo, Assistant Editor

Gene Kim is the lead researcher for the IT Process Institute (ITPI), a research organization whose mission is to better understand what differentiates high performing IT organizations from medium and low performers. Gene is also the CTO and co-founder of Tripwire, a company that specializes in change and configuration management controls.

According the results of ITPI's study, a crucial part of creating an efficient IT organization is process control. In other words, managing the frameworks that govern configuration and change management is the key to increasing data center productivity. The detailed findings can be found in ITPI's book The Visible Ops Handbook. Gene Kim discusses some of those findings in this exclusive audiocast.

 

  IT process controls  
  • What the IT Process Institute does and Gene Kim's role (2:39)

     

  • ITIL and COBIT, deciding what works (1:12)

     

  • IT process control for reigning in ITSM frameworks (:49)

     

  • The 80:20 principle in high-performing IT organizations (3:10)

     

  • Defined consequences minimizes risks (3:10)

     

  • The role of standards in IT process controls (3:12)

     

  • Standards don't always yield positive results (:48)

     

  • IT process controls and the data center (2:08)

     

  • Do things like ITIL and COBIT really work? (1:55)

 

  More on configuration and change management  
  • ITIL in the data center: Organizing your IT processes
    In this five-part series on ITIL in the data center, you'll learn about how some IT departments implemented a service management structures successfully.

     

  • Expert offers roadmap for the ITIL data center
    Alasdair Meldrum, European Program Director for the Uptime Institute and an independent consultant, literally wrote the book on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

     

  • CMDB special report
    Configuration management database (CMDB) software can help data center pros get a holistic view of data center components. Check out our special report on getting started with CMDB.

This was first published in April 2007

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