How to use a service model to estimate risks when making changes to the IT infrastructure
When making changes in the IT infrastructure, it is vital to adequately estimate all possible risks. Making a change to an item in the infrastructure may affect the availability of other configuration items and services. Relationships between services and configuration items registered in form a common service model, which enables you to foresee possible consequences of changes to any of the IT infrastructure components.
How to open the service model diagram
Use the [Display dependencies] action on a service or configuration item page to view the IT infrastructure items that are connected to the selected service or configuration item:
1.Go the [Changes] section.
2.Select the configuration item or service in the corresponding detail on the [Classification] tab.
3.Select the [Show dependencies] action from the menu of the corresponding detail (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 Service model connections view for changes
The service model diagram will open, showing the dependency connections for the configuration item or service (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 Service model connections view for changes
How to determine risks using the service model diagram
The diagram displays all incoming and outgoing dependencies of the selected configuration item or service. The item at the center of the diagram represents the current configuration item or service. The affecting services and configuration items are to the left, the affected ones are to the right. For example, the diagram (Fig. 3) shows that the switchboard depends on the server, while the “PBX setup” and “Internal phone number setup” services depend on the switchboard.
Fig. 3 Configuration item connections example
In this case, when planning a change to the switchboard configuration item, you can easily see which dependent services (i.e. “PBX setup” and “Internal phone number setup”) and configuration items (i.e. “IP phone”) may be affected.
Note
Learn more about how to work with the connection diagram from the How to manage the service model connections article.
See also
•How to use the service model for case management
•How to use a service model while working with the problems
•How to manage the service model connections
