Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Vacation rental means renting out a furnished apartment or house on a temporary basis to tourists as an alternative to a hotel. Vacation rentals are becoming increasingly popular across the world. A good and complete site to book your vacation home rental is VacationRental.org.

Vacation rentals are available in most states of the US and in major tourist areas such as Hawaii, California, and Florida. For example, check out these vacation rental homes in Orlando, Florida.

Vacation rental is very popular in Europe. If your thinking to stay in Europe and visit the, for example, the Spanish Costa del Sol, then you can check this overview of Spanish vacation rental homes.

Ad by VacationRental.org
Sponsor of the ITIL Weblog!

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Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Today I received a message from Matt Miller from the 7C-Alliance. 

Hi René,

I found an interesting article and would like to share it with you. Being made aware of this has come about as a result of connections made with leading representatives of the TSO at the Service Desk show.

It would be great if you could post this on the ITIL Weblog!!

Matt

I agree with Matt. The Best Practise Live site is worth publicating on the ITIL Weblog. The site offers lot of information. Check out the site and tell us what you think of it.

Best Practice in ITIL – A New Initiative by the TSO

http://www.bestpracticelive.com/ | May 19, 2009 | 07:38 AM PDT

To access the new TSO site, check out the latest link at the bottom of 7C Alliance Links Page and click on the link for “Best Practice Live”. I look forward to receiving your feedback on this – which will be consolidated and passed back to the TSO.

As Matt is interested in comment about the Best Practise Live site, feel free to comment on this post (or at the site of 7C-Alliance). I’ll make sure that your comments will be delivered at Matt and TSO.

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Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> The ITIL Weblog has added a free ITIL online training module from Beewiser.com.

The training module is contributed by Vlado Randa. He told us that the ITIL Weblog looks good, and he likes the free content for all the students. As a fact Vlado wanted to contribute by sending us his free ITIL introduction module. Check out this free online ITIL introduction.

ITIL – Introduction

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Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> ITIL Version 3 is all about IT Service Management. ITIL V3 contains the following core publications:

• Service Strategy
  Service Strategy is about the identification of market opportunities for which services could be developed. This is done in order to meet a requirement on the part of customers. Output of the Service Strategy is a strategy for the design, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the service as an organizational capability and a strategic asset. Key areas of the Service Strategy volume are:
  • Service Portfolio Management;
  • Financial Management.
• Service Design
  Service Design is about the activities that take place in order to develop the service strategy into a design document. This design document addresses all aspects of the proposed service, as well as the processes intended to support it. Key areas of the Service Design are:
  • Availability Management;
  • Capacity Management;
  • Continuity Management;
  • Security Management.
• Service Transition
  Service Transition is about implementing the output of the service design activities and the creation of a production service or modification of an existing service. There is an area of overlap between Service Transition and Service Operation. Key areas of this volume are:
  • Change Management;
  • Release Management;
  • Configuration Management;
  • Service Knowledge Management.
• Service Operation
  Service Operation is about the activities required to operate the services and maintain their functionality as defined in the Service Level Agreements with the customers. Key areas of this volume are:
  • Incident Management;
  • Problem Management;
  • Request Fulfilment.

  A new process added to this area is Event Management, which is concerned with normal and exception condition events. Events have been defined into three categories:

  • Informational events — which are logged;
  • Warning events — also called alerts, where an event exceeds a specified threshold;
  • Critical events — which typically will lead to the generation of Incidents
• Continual Service Improvement
  Continual Service Improvement is about the ability to deliver continual improvement to the quality of the services that the IT organization delivers to the business. Key areas of this volume are:
  • Service Reporting;
  • Service Measurement;
  • Service Level Management.

Related articles:

• Review ITIL

  http://itsmconcepts.cyeblog.com/

  Configuration management – Configuration management helps to define the core infrastructure. The high level activities are Risk Analysis, Contingency Plan Management, Contingency Plan Testing, and Risk Management. Review ITIL Commonly the business continuity life cycle is as a … Butterworth-Heinemann (Computer Weekly Professional Series) also has developed a notable set of publications covering IT Service Management, with particular attention to IT portfolio topics. …

• To get the whole ITIL picture, you or your company should invest…
  http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/
  As the five core titles reflect the lifecycle of services- their appeal encompasses the entire spectrum of people involved at any stage of the framework. So, without being the prime audience, everyone involved will benefit from access to … The ITIL Lifecycle Publication Suite contains ITIL’s most recent version, Version 3 (V3), and represents an important evolutionary step in its life. The refresh has transformed the guidance from providing a great service to being the …
• ITIL VERSION 3 REFRESH

  http://www.itsmsolutions.com/DITY/

  ITIL v3 has a new “hub-and-spoke” design with a descriptive core framework as the hub, and prescriptive solutions as spokes. Perhaps most useful are new implementation templates based on industry, firm size and business model. … Complementary publications address application of the generic core guidance in particular market or technological contexts. The Complimentary components will change as required, perhaps annually, quarterly, even monthly for some. …

• Free Online Sample ITIL v3 Foundation Exam | ITIL Weblog for …
  http://itil.healthcheck-online.com/
  1, 2, 3 and 4. The ITIL CORE publications are structured around the Service Lifecycle. Which of the following statements about the ITIL COMPLEMENTARY guidance is CORRECT? It is also structured around the Service Lifecycle …
• ITIL v3 – The Top 3 Myths From 2008 – To ITIL® V3 and Beyond …

  http://www.ca.com/us/blogs/default.aspx?pgtype=com&id=141428

  The current development is of more complementary publications that will give a greater degree of prescription to you as a practitioner to implement a specific process or set of processes faster and with more detail. … To get started with ITIL, many IT practitioners will start with existing process areas that they already have and want to improve. Most commonly, these will be the key process areas at the core of almost any IT operation: change and configuration …

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Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Title: Service Desk and IT Support show
Location: Earls Court London
Link out: Click here
Description: An opportunity to gather some FREE information
If you’re in London 28th – 29th April 2009 why not pop into Earls Court and visit the Service Desk and IT Support Show.

In fact the show is the UK’s leading event for IT Service Management, and many people make the effort to travel from outside the UK to attend the show.

All of the leading experts and suppliers from Service Management will be there, so whether you are looking for new solutions, strategies and techniques to improve effectiveness, or individual certifications to move you a rung up the ladder, or even your next job, this is the show to attend.

Entry is FREE and all sessions are FREE, so what are you waiting for?

Visit www.servicedeskshow.com to register

Purple Griffon, the ITIL Training Specialists will be on Stand 926, so why not pay us a visit to discuss your Training and Consultancy requirements, and enter our prize draw, which this year is a FREE 3 day course on one of our UK public schedules courses.

It’s well worth investing a day of your time to visit the show to gain some information, motivation and inspiration.

If you are only going to attend one trade show this year this is the one for you, and what’s more it’s FREE.

We look forward to seeing you there

Regards Steve
www.purplegriffon.com

Start Date: 2009-04-28
End Date: 2009-04-29

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Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> The ITIL Weblog is pleased to provide the ITIL Weblog Newsletter:

“Stay Informed with Us”

Keep up-to-date with the latest information about the ITIL Weblog, ITIL and the ITIL practise exams. Sign up by leaving your email address at the sidebar.

Your email adress will only be used for sending an automated newsletter or mailing from the ITIL Weblog. It will never be given to third parties.

Registered users have received a mail where they have to confirm that they want to receive the ITIL Weblog Newsletter. If you do not confirm, you willnot receive any newsletter.

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Continue reading » No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> The ITIL Weblog has moved to another hoster. We think that the new hoster provides a faster platform and has a better control panel. Moving to another hoster also is a nice test case to see how ITIL minded this change was performed. To be very short: it could be much better, but also much worse…..

In order to move the ITIL Weblog (and with it also the Prince2 Weblog, the MSP Weblog and the Free Online Health Check….) a plan was made. The plan consisted of 3 separate changes to be performed by 3 diffent parties.

1. Prepare the new ‘healthcheck-online.com’ environment by putting a backup from the ‘old’  environment up-and-running;
2. Inform the ‘old’ provider that the Weblogs have to be moved and that the contract will be ended;
3. Adjust the DNS setting so the ‘old’ provider will point to the ‘new’ location and the ‘old’ websites will not be used even before the move.

So far so good. Step 1 was performed by requesting a move from the domain at the new provider. The webserver was adjusted so it would recognize requests for healthcheck-online.com. The files were copied and the databases partially moved at day 1. Day 2 would be the day to finish this job.

Step 2 was also started by sending a letter and requesting the move and an EPP code (needed to transfer the domain). The provider responder very fast and the EPP code was sent to the new provider.

Meanwhile step 3 was performed. The old DNS entries were edited and 1 of the weblogs was tested (the MSP weblog, since it has less viewers….). The Weblog seemed to work fine so the other two weblog entries were changed too.

So far everything was planned fine: risk and impact analysis performed, steps in a controlled way performed and always checked. It felt good to be in control with this change!

But then….

Just to make sure that everything was working fine I tried to read a post: a 404 error appeared!

An incident was created and right away escalated (in my head…..) I started working as a problem manager taking control of the situation and performing the fall-back scenario: Adjust the DNS settings so the old Weblogs would be up and running again…..did it, everything under control. Damage: a short period of 404′s when people tried to read posts, front page worked fine though.

Analysing the problem the cause for the problem was found and adjustments to the new environments was made. The Weblogs needed 1 configuration file extra. This was created and added to the weblogs and so the DNS settings were switched back again. Phew….it is fun to be a rapid reaction team by yourself…..it’s time for a break so step one can be continued and the Free Online Health Check can be put online too.

The next day the new provider adjusted his DNS settings and was given control to the domain….meaning that the ‘old’ DNS settings were no longer active…… But hey: I wasn’t ready with putting the backups on the new environment!!!!

You can guess that I stressed again and had to rapidly copy the files and put the database online in the new environment. And the…everything worked fine…but I realised that I wasn’t in control pro-active but reactive. The plan was good, the fall-back worked but I had no control of the two providers who worked both surprisingly fast….

In the end my service to you was interrupted two times. Creating 404 pages and confusing for people looking for sample exams or information. I really apologize for the inconvenience!

Good luck with ITIL and let’s hope that the new enviroment will serve us better and faster.

Lessons learned

• Prepare a move like this and also think of fall back scenarios;
• Perform the steps faster then the webhoster. Stay ahead!
• Test the sites after moving really good. It’s not enough to just see the frontpage. All separate posts could not be found….
• Created information pages so the visitor doesn’t get a 404 page…but a maintenance page.

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