Configuration Management and the Cloud

Service is about the intentional and dynamic configuration and interaction of the service provider’s and the service consumer’s resources (in the broadest sense of the word).

In an IT service context, IT service is all about the underlying IT service resources such as applications and infrastructure are configured and how they interact, together with people and organization, partners and suppliers. You can’t actually do anything with IT service apart from define it and provide it – if you want to do anything substantive, you have to act on the underlying applications and infrastructures.

DevOps is about doing substantive things to and with applications and infrastructure. Contributing to the emergence of IT service when all the stars are aligned. The stars need to be aligned because of all the other disciplines (and often organizational entities) that also play a role.

Using these concepts gives you a better grip on who is (probably) responsible for what, enabling you to establish a better working relationship.

​We are in confusing times when it comes to adopting ITSM to deliver functional technology services to the business. ITSM seems to be out-dating itself with ever-changing operating models. This can negatively impact strategies to mature IT and the Business together. The role of IT provider over the last three decades of rapid technological advancement hasn’t adapted nearly enough to mature the company.

You may of heard this many times - "IT must focus on aligning to the business and have a primary focus on service integration". Is your ITSM program working to achieve this focus? Most likely you are among the growing population that is failing or missing the target in order to achieve results with ITSM that ensures business quality and maturity. Listen to Beverly Weed-Schertzer as she explains a fresh perspective on ITSM from practical experiences spanning over three decades.

Take back control of your ITSM program!

I was recently working with an organization where Developers and Operations were fighting what one person described as ‘religious wars’. Developers in the world of Scaled Agile (SAFe) and Operations with ITIL. Different planets. Or were they? We sat down and looked closely at the guiding principles of both SAFe and ITIL and decided that they actually were much more closely aligned than we thought possible. The webinar will highlight the findings with tips for your journey.

What are the advantages of ITIL 4 in the modern world?

Find out from Marcel Foederer - Lead Architect Team in Axelos and ITIL Trainer at ITpreneuers in this Future of ITSM session.

ITIL has long been established as the de-facto framework for the management of IT services. However, the world has moved on. Our IT services are delivered differently and the tools we use to deliver them are commonly cloud-based or delivered by complex multi-vendor models.

Like a prize-fighter, ITIL is being dusted-off for one last crack of the title, whilst new younger fighters enter the ring. Should we still be looking to optimise our processes using ITIL as a reference point? What other alternatives are available?

This presentation will look at how to use ITIL as the basis for an effective IT operating model, and what else you ought to be looking at to successful deliver today’s complex digital IT services.

For many organizations, the prevailing impact of DevOps on service delivery within ITSM is more prominent now than ever before. When your Dev, Ops or both processes are outsourced to one or multiple vendors, it complicates everything for your organization, its users and leadership even more. Add to that the increased importance placed upon service teams to improve customer experience and you can see how ITSM and DevOps are siloes that must be broken down.

Knowing where DevOps, ITSM and business principles originate and how to align them is a first step towards better service delivery. However, achieving a truly excellent customer experience takes radical transparency throughout the entire service chain.

In this presentation, Nancy will walk you through the varying steps you can take to achieve excellent customer experience by aligning DevOps and ITSM. She will define what radical transparency looks like at the various parts of the chain -- whether your Dev, Ops or ITSM processes are in-house or outsourced.

Nancy Van Elsacker Louisnord is the president TOPdesk USA. She’s also a public speaker, a contributor to numerous leading industry publications and a service management expert.

This is not going to be a normal BrightTalk event of sharing slides but instead an open conversation with Daniel Blander, well-known author of technology security practices and how to best blend them into DevOps, ITSM or general organisational practices. Daniel and I will spend 15-20 minutes discussing some basics, but we are looking for your questions on how to use security to help your staff, processes, suppliers and customers benefit from a safer technology product and services provider.

Daniel Blander leads the Security Portfolio for Virtual Clarity. He is a highly experienced and recognized expert in the fields of information security, risk management, compliance, operations, and organizational change. He has over 20 years of global experience as CTO, CSO, as well as an advisor to Fortune 100 and startups alike in the fields of Banking, Healthcare, Retail, Technology, Airline, Hospitality, Government, and Entertainment. His work resulted in his nomination in 2008 as Information Security of the Year for the West by the Executive Alliance and is a frequent lecturer at security conferences around the world. Daniel has also been recognised for his contributions to DevOps and the publications many view as the main books of knowledge such as The DevOps Handbook.

This session will be facilitated by Daniel Breston, a long-time technology professional in Banking and Utilities. Constantly involved in service management practices and events, Daniel has learned how to blend lean and agile to help leaders and teams make the best use of technology to serve their customers. Now Daniel is using this knowledge to look at cloud and other virtualisation practices to create the paradigm of technology and people.

"In the age of breaches, enterprises are looking to understand the security and compliance risks associated with data stored in, and accesible from, cloud applications so they can better prepare should the unthinkable happen. With data and workloads moving to the cloud, securing the enterprise is more critical than ever.

Join cloud, security and compliance experts as they discuss:
- How to proactively analyze security risk from the business perspective
- What you need to know about your data, and how to ensure it is compliant when in the cloud
- How to automate security policy changes
- Top challenges for CISOs and CIOs
- Achieving security and compliance across multiple clouds
- Steps to take today"

Presenters
Benny Czarny, CEO and Founder, OPSWAT
Tzach Horowitz, Pre-Sale Director, Cybergym
Ariel Zeitlin, CTO and co-founder, Guardicore
Diana Kelley, Cybersecurity Field CTO, Microsoft

Making sure security is included at every step in the software or application development lifecycle is key in the age of breaches, data leaks and third party security risks.

Join experts from the industry to learn more about:
- Security challenges and vulnerabilities
- DevOps vs DevSecOps: What's the difference?
- How to make disjointed security and DevOps teams work effectively
- DevOps security scans
- Steps to better application security

Panellists
Ran Ilany, CEO, Portshift
Bar Hofesh, CTO, NeuraLegion
Ory Segal, CTO, PureSec
Guy Dagan, Cofounder and Partner, Consienta

There are different schools of thought on how to bring Dev and Ops together. Join Dimitri van den Broek as he discusses and shares examples from leading organizations, explaining how they build integrated teams. Learn about investing in Culture and T-shaped individuals and why they are critical for DevOps success.

It’s all about the interactions! Each organisation is different in the way it is structured, how it
communicates and what capabilities are in place to deliver their services. So, it follows that the
pipeline of ‘how’ their processes move through the organisation is also different. Simplicity and
smooth-flowing operations takes more than DevOps. Help unlock the combination of DevOps, ITIL
and other ITSM Practices. Build a strong base from which to take the next leap into the future by
making your pipeline of processes viable, dynamic and useful. Simone takes you through the
process conversation, improving the H2H component (human-to-human) and being effective in
bringing it together.

Join Phyllis Drucker and learn about Automating Service Management.

Automation brings several obvious benefits to any IT estate. These include more consistent performance of critical and mundane tasks and compliance with business processes. But when intelligently applied, IT automation can deliver significant additional benefits and business value.

• Free up skills for more complex, higher-value tasks
• Ensure timely updates of CMDB data as changes occur across the environment
• Better cyber security through more consistent, more timely patch and update deployment

You need a clearly defined set of goals and a solid plan to achieve intelligent automation. And you need to ensure your IT management solutions are up to the tasks required.

Join industry experts Mike Bombard, Robert Roberts, Director of IT Operations and Support at Segra and Michael Dortch for an informative, thought-provoking discussion of the benefits and challenges of intelligent IT automation. You’ll learn things you can do now and things you should be thinking about to achieve and extend intelligent automation across your IT estate.

Explore how automation will revolutionise Service Management in the coming years. This webinar provides an overview of the most important and latest trends related to automation with the IT organization.


Learn about the most important technology trends transforming the IT operating model and way of working within the IT service organization (mapped to the IT4IT standard from The Open Group).