become-itil-foundation-certified-abhinav-kaiser(www.ebook-dl.com)

Chapter 5 ■ Service Design
5.7.7.4 Risk Assessment
I have touched on risk assessment and management in the risk management process in
the service strategy lifecycle phase. The area surrounding risks is critical to organizations,
and generally they hire many risk management experts to deal with risks in the
organization and their mitigation. In service strategy, it is looked at from a strategic
perspective. Here, I’ll delve deeper and embed risk mitigations in the design of IT
services.
There is a distinct difference between risk assessment and risk management. Risk
assessment deals with the possibility of threats and the potential impact the risks bring
to the table. It also works with various design processes to reduce risks in the system. It
is somewhat like having a backup diesel generator (DG) and an uninterrupted power
supply (UPS) for data centers housed in countries where power shutdowns are common.
Risk management, on the other hand, looks at the response when risks materialize. For
all the identified risks, a mitigation action (risk management responses) is identified, and
when the risk materializes, the planned responses are carried out to the tee.
To reduce risks, here are some countermeasures undertaken by IT service providers:
1. Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network Area Storage (NAS)
storage solutions for ensuring multiple resilience layers to
secure data
2. Full, incremental, and differential backups to ensure data are
safeguarded
3. Installation of diesel generators (DG) and uninterrupted
power supply (UPS)
4. Autofailover for IT components like servers, switches, and
routers
5. Elimination of single point of failures in service design
5.7.8 Design Coordination
There are seven processes in the service design lifecycle phase, excluding the design
coordination. All seven processes contribute to the design of IT services. They do not
work in isolation, and yet they need to be coordinated and brought under a single
umbrella for alignment with the objectives, sequencing, timelines, and synergies. The
process that connects various dots in the service design lifecycle phase, that manages
end-to-end design activities, and that communicates evenly with all other design
processes is the design coordination process. It is like a project management process,
setting objectives, tracking, measuring, and resolving conflicts if any arise.
Design coordination is a small process as it does not add anything directly to the
design of IT services. But it opens up communication channels between processes and
provides all the support that is needed for achieving design objectives. Although it is a
small process, it is an important and integral part of service design.
108