IT SERVICES ARCHITECTURE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
Technology for evaluating an IT enterprise is provided. The technology models all information technology or solutions as services which are provided to a business organization. Each service can itself consume and be consumed by other services. Using a defined model service portfolio, the business goals of an organization are mapped against the portfolio to derive a services portfolio for a given business. Real world constraints such as budgeting and existing technology are then applied against the developed portfolio to derive a service plan.
1 . A method of planning an information technology architecture for a business organization, comprising:
defining an information technology architecture as an information technology (IT) service;
mapping the attributes to other services;
determining future business goals for the organization and for each goal, the information services required to support such goal; and
creating a services portfolio comprising an organization of at least some of said IT services.
2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the step of defining includes defining a functional capability for each IT service.
3 . The method of claim 2 wherein each functional capability includes at least one attribute.
4 . The method of claim 3 wherein said at least one attribute includes an attribute selected from a set of attributed including:
access, delivery, information, transaction, communication, collaboration, consolidation, integration, infrastructure, security, performance, operations and organization.
5 . The method of claim 1 wherein the step of mapping includes determining for a given service whether the service consumes or is consumed by another service, and identifying any consumed service in a service definition of a consuming service.
6 . The method of claim 1 further including the step, following said mapping step, of creating a preliminary services portfolio model.
7 . The method of claim 1 wherein the services portfolio includes at least a subset of functional capabilities of those in the preliminary services portfolio model.
8 . The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining future business goals includes the steps of determining, for a particular business goal:
what content is needed;
who might need the content,
where the content might be needed,
when the content might be needed; and
how the content might be provided.
9 . The method of claim 8 wherein each said step of determining is mapped to a particular attribute of an IT service definition.
10 . The method of claim 1 further including the step of applying constraints to the services portfolio to define a statement of direction.
11 . The method of claim 1 wherein the statement of direction includes a gap analysis.
12 . A method of planning an information technology architecture, comprising
building a model services portfolio for a business enterprise comprising a set of services defined by functional capabilities and attributes;
gathering a series of business goals for the organization; and
creating a modified services portfolio based on the forward looking business goals.
13 . The method of claim 12 wherein the step of building includes defining each solution in an information technology architecture as an IT service; and mapping the attributes to other services.
14 . The method of claim 13 wherein the step of defining includes applying a service definition taxonomy including a functional capability and a set of attributes including access, delivery, information, transaction, communication, collaboration, consolidation, integration, infrastructure, security, performance, operations and organization.
15 . The method of claim 13 wherein the step of building a model services portfolio includes determining for a given service whether the service consumes or is consumed by another service, and identifying any consumed service in a service definition of a consuming service.
16 . The method of claim 12 wherein the step of gathering includes the steps of determining, for a particular business goal:
what content is needed;
who might need the content,
where the content might be needed,
when the content might be needed; and
how the content might be provided.
17 . The method of claim 16 wherein each said step of determining is mapped to a particular attribute of an information service definition.
18 . The method of claim 12 further including the step of applying constraints to the services portfolio to define a statement of direction.
19 . The method of claim 18 wherein the statement of direction includes a gap analysis.
20 . A method for evaluating information technology of a business, comprising:
defining an information technology architecture as an IT service;
mapping the attributes to other services;
creating a model services portfolio;
determining future business goals for the organization and for each goal, the information services required to support such goal; and
creating a modified services portfolio comprising an organization of at least some of said IT services.