Presentation Abstracts
There are links
to those papers/slides online for each presentation below.
Sharon Taylor (keynote) - "The ITIL Refresh
and Change Configuration and Release Management"
Slides
Sharon's keynote will cover the major shift that ITIL V3 will introduce
for both service management and in particular people involved in change,
configuration and release management. ITIL V3 introduces service management
from a life-cycle perspective, as opposed to just a process-based view. It
covers strategic considerations, the design implications, the cultural and
organizational change implications that will enable organisations to improve
both their services and their service management capabilities - including
change, configuration and released management.
ITIL® V3 is the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) new guidance being
published by the TSO. The new set of core books, following a service life cycle model are:
- Service Strategy
- Service Design
- Service Transition
- Service Operation
- Continual Service Improvement
Justifying the financial value of configuration management is difficult
when you try and put forward a business case. Building on a previous
BCS-CMSG event this workshop should be both enlightening and fun for those
involved.
David Cuthbertson
- "Increasing the Value and Use of ITIL CMDB" (workshop)
If you have a CMDB already, how can you get it used by technical and
service teams as part of their everyday processes? In his presentation,
David will show techniques and examples of using existing CI data to help
improve change, release, incident, problem and business continuity
processes.
Glenn Ellis -
"Configuration Management in support of Product Acquisition to
Transitional Through Life Support and onto a Performance Based Through Life
Support "
Slides
The Australian Department of Defence is implementing ‘Performance Based
Through LifeSupport’ (PBTLS) for new contracts.
Utilising an actual program, the paper will describe the important role
of Configuration Management in the transition from the ‘Build’ phase, to
conventional ‘Through Life Support’,and then into the ‘PBTLS’ environment.
Contemporary information illustrates that ‘PBTLS’ requirements are not
only confined to the Defence area, with Commercial and other government
departments also embracing the concept of ‘PBTLS’.
The paper will establish the importance of an accurate and definitive
understanding of the Configuration Management of a product, that the process
must be responsive and most importantly integrated with other program
disciplines. It will identify the contributors to the process, special data
requirements, acquisition, processing, access and maintenance.
Keith Allen
- "Application Change from Cradle to Production"
Slides
This paper walks the user through a CMMI approach in managing any
application change request from initial request through to code development
, testing and subsequent deployment to a production environment. Tools
used cover help desk, change tracking, project management, testing and
software change and configuration with software deployment. The paper looks
at the associated best practices that should be implemented in order for any
organisation to meet SOX and compliance audits.
René Schaap
- "Association of the iNTernational Certified Configuration Manager"
Slides
This presentation provides an overview of the reason why the
association was founded in 2006, its objectives, which qualification levels
are available, the value of international certifications, and how
certifications can be achieved.
The association has been set up to bring together configuration
management specialists around the world to work on one set of terminology
and syllabuses with a view to allow certification in Configuration
Management to be internationally recognised and coordinated. The work is
highly independent of specific methods, standards and supporting technology.
John Metcalfe
- "Release Management Workshop"
This interactive workshop will allow participants to work through a
scenario and draw appropriate lessons around the theme of release
management.
Don Page
- "Release Management - The Political Process"
Slides
This interactive workshop uses Marval’s experiences and the problems
encountered during their ISO/IEC 20000 accreditation, which caused them to
re-think their approach to release. It will specifically go through Marval’s
step-by-step, practical approach; from planning to deployment, involving the
Applications Team to the Service Desk.
“Release Management is the final hurdle to overcome. If not done properly,
it will invalidate everyone’s hard work and result in nothing more than
delivering a Poor Customer Experience”.
Carol
Hulm
- "ISEB Qualifications for Professional Development"
Slides
Carol will present the wider view of qualifications offered by ISEB to
meet the needs of IT Professionals including links to Skills Framework for
the Information Age (SFIA) and the overall Professionalism in IT programme (ProfIT),
and provide specific information of what is available to professionals
working in the Configuration Management section
Paper
Related products frequently share much of the same software, with only a
few differences realizing product-specific functionality. Much of the
challenge of developing related products comes from managing these
differences.
Variant Management is emerging as a best-practice approach to managing
portfolios of related products (Product Lines) across the life cycle.
Cathy Wright
- "Configuration Management of Services"
Slides
The paper will cover BT's approach to mapping Services from an end to end
view back down into the infrastructure. It will also cover the benefits of
recording and maintaining this information to the business and to the other
ITSM process areas and detail the challenges BT overcame to reach their
current position.
Phil Illingworth
- "Transferable Skills and Career Opportunities"
Paper
Future business in the defence sector will focus on the 'Through Life
Capability Management', of both new equipment as well as equipment that is
already in-service. This strategy involves a more efficient information
infrastructure with open and consistent architectures on which new and
existing data and voice communication systems can operate that will enable
collaborative working and greater interoperability between MoD and its
coalition partners. This “through life capability” requires a combination of
specialist skills that will embrace all industry sectors. This session
reviews the current and future skill requirements and opportunities for
people whose skills are current and transferable across industries.
Kevin Lee
- "Global Develop & Deploy: The politics, patterns and process of
implementing distributed software configuration management"
Slides
In order for businesses to continue to leverage the benefits of a "flat"
world and globalised economy, the implementation of distributed
configuration, change and release management processes across an enterprise
is key. Successful implementation of such processes should not simply
concentrate on technical infrastructure, but rather on the people involved,
their culture and the decisions and trade-offs that they have to make. This
presentation will look at practical experiences of how IBM Services have
helped customers implement global development and deployment solutions. It
will define consistent terminology and patterns that can be re-used across
different implementation and at how "right-weight" software configuration
management processes to support such environments can be achieved.
Tony Smith
- "Using SCM to Align Software Development Process with Business Needs"
Slides
Software Development is no longer a small-team process: modern software
development organizations are routinely distributed across continents and
time zones, but rather than embracing global developments many organizations
still try to manage it as a series of local developments. The teams work
separately and tend to merge their work in a 'big-bang' more likely to
produce an explosion than working code. All too often progress is glacial as
development teams are mired in process and procedure. By continually
aligning the SCM processes with the business processes, organizations can
turn the corner and gain a competitive advantage.
Peter McLoughlin
- "Using a CM Tool for Asset/Inventory Management"
Slides
This presentation explores the use of a sophisticated Configuration
Management Tool (PCMS/PVCS Dimensions/Merant Dimensions/Serena Dimensions)
to capture Information for Inventory/Asset Management. The presentation
deals with the increasingly ambitious aims of using a tool which was itself
becoming more sophisticated. It covers 3 different implementations over a
period of years.
Shirley Lacy - "ITIL V3 Service
Transition - Managing Configurations"
Shirley will provide an overview of the new guidance that aims to
effectively manage the complexity associated with changes to service assets
and configurations across the service life cycle. Service Transition
guidance aims to ensure the requirements of the Service Strategy encoded in
Service Design are effectively realized in Service Operations in a way that
they can be continually improved. The session will include an overview of
the revised Change, Service Asset and Configuration Management, Release and
Deployment Management guidance that helps a service provider to prevent
undesired consequences while allowing for innovation.
Chris White
- "Getting Started with ITIL: Survival Guide to Improved IT
Processes Contact"
Strict adherance to process guidelines is essential for
organizations to survive and grow which is why ITIL has taken the tech world
by storm. Today, ITIL should be seriously considered for any organisation
that wants to remain competitive. The question on the minds of many IT
managers and developers is “Where do I get started?” The answer is you must
first choose the guidelines that make the most sense for your business to
implement. Start small and gradually build upon your adherence to the
processes that ITIL provides.
Ultimately, for ITIL to work, people must
follow the processes. The best way to ensure this happens is to give IT
staffers a system that does it for them. That system is The Configuration
Management Database (CMDB) -- the technical foundation of all ITIL
projects. Today, the best software change and configuration management (SCM)
solutions on the market contain that CMDB that allows you to track assets
and provides an ongoing history of everything you have done with that
asset. SCM will also provide an alignment of services and development
processes for increased predictability, as well as automated workflow and
change management for improved process enforcement and visibility. In this
presentation you will learn how to implement ITIL the proper way with the
right Change and Configuration management solutions.
Sarathi Srinivasan
- "Do It Right the First Time All the Time - Building and Deploying Software Releases using Process Centric SCM tools"
Slides
Wherever there is a desire for quality, everyone is aware of the Quality
Doctrine “Do It Right The First Time”. With global outsourcing, process
centric Source Configuration and Management (SCM) has gained a lot of
importance and has caught the attention of many CTOs and CIOs.
This presentation will focus on the power and benefits of a Process-Centric
SCM system as the gatekeeper and enforcer of the build and deployment
process of your application or product. The process becomes repeatable,
reproducible and fully auditable, so that “Do It Right The First Time All
The Time” is definitely within your reach !!!
John Carey Bennett
- "CMDB: Fast-Track to the Benefits in a Lo-Tech Situation"
Slides (with notes)
A company needed to be compliant with Security Audit to ISO 27001:2005
standards. In six weeks, two of us transformed the operations of the
company. We introduced continuous improvement despite cultural barriers,
undocumented processes and a virtual asset list. The catalyst was an
inexpensive Configuration Management tool. The approach ensures
future-proofing, minimal maintenance and a low total cost of ownership.
Robert Cowham
- "Herding Baselines into Service – A Configuration Management Improvement Journey"
Slides
This presentation will describe a case study of an organisation with many projects delivering
into service across many different technologies from PC to mainframe. Due to
expensive high severity service outages, a configuration management improvement project
was setup, and this describes the approach which initially focused on
managing baselines across the organization.
Marc Girod
- "Points of View: Case Unclear"
Paper
ClearCase has been a market leader in the SCM arena for 15 years. The
last years’ developments, especially since the adoption of the UCM
extension, show however signs that it might be reaching the end of its life.
Its most faithful users are thus looking for a replacement, especially from
the Open Source.
Ken Turbitt
- "ITIL and the CMDB – what’s next for Service Management"
Slides
What if you are part of an organization that has already successfully
implemented a configuration management database (CMDB), the heart of ITIL -
what happens next? Ken answers that question in this presentation with the
Gartner Hype Cycle for IT Operations Management. He discusses the
technologies you need to understand now and the key market drivers like IT
maturity, infrastructure stability, and organizational agility. IT
controls, governance, and the ability to follow regulatory compliance
mandates is a challenge, and the technology is there to overcome it. So,
what should you do next?
Ryan Lloyd
- "The Convergence of ITSM and ALM"
Slides
Application Development and IT Operations teams are responsible for much
of the change introduced by new strategic projects and maintenance of
existing IT systems. However, these distinct teams are often managed in
silos, with very little collaboration, the ITIL framework aims to bridge
that gap. This paper will outline the current state of the IT Service
Management and Application Lifecycle Management markets and discuss the
growing trend in consolidation that will enable organizations to take better
advantage of all IT resources, assisting in planning / forecasting as well
as capturing meaningful metrics that are pertinent to the most senior IT
executives.
Pablo S. Luaces
- "Freeride development: Continuous versus Controlled Integration"
Slides
Since agile methods went public around 2000, continuous integration
techniques have been key to implement development processes worldwide. Being
able to avoid some of the past "big bang" based integration drawbacks has
been key to achieve the needed agility and stability clients were
demanding.But, is continuous integration, as we know it today, the last step
in the release management evolution? Obviously not.
The basis of continuous
integration can be traced back to open source development techniques, quite
popular nowadays, and heavily dependent on the state of the art of free
configuration management tools. Mainline corruption, lack of true parallel
development and high risk to fall back into a code and fix scenario are some
of the risks derived from this way of working. Using well-known branching
patterns and a combination of free and commercial software tools,
alternative ways to traditional continuous integration will be introduced,
creating a more controlled but still agile build management procedure.
Michael Kennedy
- "Points of View: Where are CM systems and tools going and where should they be going?
"
This open debate session will include a panel of invited speakers and
also vendor representatives to discuss this issues. All delegates will be
able to participate.
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