While DevOps emphasizes collaboration and communication, so does ITIL®. In fact, there is no inherent conflict between the two. Upon examination, it becomes obvious that they are very complementary. DevOps provides us with a fresh perspective to examine the ITIL framework in several key areas that will improve core processes, functions and principles within ITIL.
DevOps can be a positive influence on ITIL by enabling improvements in various processes across the service lifecycle. A collaborative DevOps approach adds value:
- In service strategy, by ensuring that operations and development functions are included during the development of overall IT business strategy.
- During service design, by ensuring that design coordination includes active participation from both operations and development.
- When improving design functionality, performance and operational support and performance as well as operational support.
Service Transition
During a service transition DevOps facilitates the effectiveness and efficiency of change management and the process of release and deployment management. By encouraging greater collaboration between departments — development, operations and IT — DevOps can facilitate knowledge management as well.
Service Operation
During service operation a DevOps approach can help to ensure closer collaboration between the service desk, back-end support and development teams — resulting in more effective incident and problem management. It also emphasizes the need for applying automation to change management as well as release and deployment management models. By incorporating DevOps you facilitate the frequency of deployments, improve service quality and provide a more consistent delivery of new and changed releases.
Continual Service Improvement
The Continual Service Improvement (CSI) process also benefits from a greater level of communication and collaboration between development and operations teams, resulting in higher levels of teamwork, synergy and creativity. Your newly empowered team will be able to identify improvement opportunities across the lifecycle, many of which will be turned into formal CSI improvement proposals. Some of which will be approved and chartered for implementation. The result is higher program performance, lower costs and improved service quality.
There is no question that ITIL is the core of industry best practices for IT. But IT service providers must benefit from and incorporate the best complementary practices. This includes DevOps, which improves alignment with the business and customer, raises the quality and performance of IT services, improves the throughput of delivery and lowers overall IT costs.
Related Courses
DevOps Implementation Boot Camp
ITIL Foundation