MOF Executive Overview v3.

Abstract
This MOF Executive Overview white paper summarizes the content of Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and presents the business value realized by its adoption. MOF describes proven team structures and operational processes and applies best information technology (IT) practices to improve the efficiency and quality of IT operations. It has its basis within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), published by the United Kingdoms Office of Government Commerce (OGC), and extends ITIL through the inclusion of guidance and best practices derived from the experience of Microsoft operations groups, partners, and customers. This white paper explains the business case for adopting MOF and briefly summarizes the Team Model, Process Model, and Risk Management Discipline that are its core components. The paper provides a foundation for understanding the in-depth information provided in companion MOF white papers and guidance documents. To access these other publications, see the MOF Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/mof. Top of page

Whats New?
Microsoft Operations Framework version 3.0 represents a significant update to the core MOF content. This version was developed to make MOF more streamlined and easier to implement and to align it more closely with ITIL version 2.0 and Microsoft Solutions Framework version 3.0, among other enhancements. This Executive Overview has been updated to highlight the business value realized by adopting MOF and to reduce redundancy in descriptions of MOF details used in associated documents. The overview also reflects the recent changes published in MOF version 3.0, including changes to the Process and Team Models and Risk Management Discipline. Top of page

Introduction
Microsoft has long recognized the value of industry best practices and standards for IT operations. In particular, guidance provided through ITIL has been globally acknowledged as providing a sound basis and de facto standard for IT service management. In keeping with ITILs spirit to adopt and adapt, Microsoft has chosen to provide additional, specific guidance, which is applicable to customers using Microsoft technologies within their environments. Microsoft created the first version of Microsoft Operations Framework in 1999. MOF was designed to complement the well-established

Microsoft Solutions Framework for solution and application development. Together, the combined frameworks provide guidance throughout the IT life cycle. Top of page

The Customer Perspective: Operations and the State of Business

Organizations are increasingly dependent on IT to support and enhance the business processes required to meet their organizational and customer needs. In many cases, IT services form the basis for the entire business model; in these instances, IT does not merely support the business it is the business. Yet, despite the importance now attached to IT, intense competitive and economic pressures on business are often reflected through corporate mandates to maintain, or even to decrease, their current IT budgets. At the same time expectations of IT for quality, innovation, and value continue to increase. As IT continues to grow in significance to most organizations, it is imperative that IT groups take a business- and service-oriented approach to operations rather than a technology-centric one. IT service management is concerned with delivering and supporting IT services that are implemented in direct response to the organizations business requirements. While it is essential that an organizations IT services support core business activities, it is also increasingly important that these same IT services facilitate change as businesses evolve and compete in a global marketplace. IT must become a primary stakeholder in the business decision-making process.

Enhancing IT Business Value

In order to establish their credibility and elevate their strategic impact within the corporate sphere, IT groups must clearly focus on directly supporting the business objectives of the organization and emphasizing the business value IT provides. IT enables new ways of doing business and is better managed when considered as an asset to the development and execution of key business strategies. This requires IT groups to be able to show how their services make specific, tangible, and critical contributions to achieving business outcomes. It also requires that IT groups show how they are achieving the levels of security, efficiency, reliability, and agility that their businesses require. This approach is more proactive than has been typical in the past. The traditional, perhaps legacy, view of IT has typically been that IT is a significant, potentially strategic investment, but not one that is expected to drive business value. At best, efficiently managed IT operations could be considered to contribute some cost savings to the organization, but frequently even these benefits cannot be seen or quantified because there is no mechanism in place to capture the metrics.

In reality, IT can drive significant value in such non-traditional IT business areas as sales and customer support, in addition to such traditional IT areas as operational efficiency. In order to do this, IT groups must embrace a variety of business terminologies, methods, techniques, and concepts that are commonly employed elsewhere in the business world. Example: MOF and Remote Access Service at Microsoft One example of how MOF helps drive IT business value was the evolution of Remote Access Service (RAS) from a non-core, secondary service to a secure, easily usable, highly available, integral component of the Microsoft IT infrastructure. Over a 24-month period, the Microsoft IT organization undertook a top-to-bottom overhaul of the RAS infrastructure that included monitoring, alarming, metrics gathering, and the setting of new standards for client technologies and applications to access the network. In parallel to these technology upgrades, Microsoft IT began a phased implementation of MOF to help manage the upgrade and service improvement projects. As a result of this technology and service improvement effort, RAS quickly evolved into a strategic business-enabling service that is used to enhance staff mobility and reduce business unit costs. The Microsoft IT RAS solution seeks to make the user experience on a remote access session virtually indistinguishable from a corporate-connected LAN experience in accessibility, security, and performance. Approximately 8590 percent of Microsofts 55,000 workers regularly access the service on a daily basis. According to Microsoft IT, without a disciplined support model in place across the organization, the service quality and total cost of ownership goals simply could not be met. MOF has provided that level of discipline. Improving IT Cost Allocation Without the ability to equate services with costs, it is practically impossible to quantify IT value to the bottom line. Conversely, exhibiting cost savings can graphically demonstrate IT service value. MOF provides a way to capture and present these data. The table below illustrates a few examples of this concept in other industries. In each case, costs are allocated to a measurable service task or component. Table 1 Industry Telecom Automobile Consulting Activity Cost Telephone call cost per minute Replacement cost of defective parts Benefit Ability to build profit margin into customer price Ability to cost-justify manufacturing process improvements to remove defects, and to increase warranty coverage at minimum risk Hourly cost per consultant Ability to build sales costs into consulting skill level and per sales hourly rate agent

Similarly, the table below shows examples of IT service costs and their associated benefits. These quantified benefits can clearly show the business value realized through effective operations management. Table 2 IT Function Help desk Activity Cost Benefit Cost per incident per user Ability to build help desk staff increases into project budgets (capital expenditures) based on estimates of new user/new incident volumes, thus preventing productivity losses when users suffer system- or service-related work stoppages and help desk is not adequately staffed to handle the request volumes System Cost per change type Ability to provide operational cost estimates to administration (major, standard, and so keep applications/systems up-to-date once in on) production Monitoring Cost per minute/hour of Ability to demonstrate value to the bottom line downtime per application provided by problem resolution effectiveness and by preventative measures IT must not only translate business requirements into services that meet these requirements, it must also strive for inclusion up front in the business strategy planning. This ensures that business and IT are aligned from the outset when new initiatives are established and facilitates IT in guiding business direction on the basis of new technology as it becomes available. For example, if the business is planning a partnership with another business, the business strategy would differ based on the business understanding of available business-to-business technology options. Example: Service Improvement at Microsoft Microsoft IT is responsible for building, operating, and managing the global Microsoft IT infrastructure. From this position, Microsoft IT can provide valuable feedback on the application and implementation of new Microsoft products to any enterprise business process. As a result, Microsoft expects Microsoft IT to be its first and best customer. Microsoft IT is an early adopter of Microsoft products, technologies, and processes, using the beta releases to provide feedback to improve the quality and functionality of released solutions and products. By implementing and testing new products within the Microsoft business processes, the business values can be documented to provide prescriptive guidance and advice to customers. Microsoft IT creates IT Showcase documentation that describes the business scenarios theyve used and provides implementation and management guidance to ensure that customers can effectively use the new products they adopt. The guidance and best practices provided by showcasing new products within the Microsoft IT business processes can help to reduce implementation and deployment costs

for all customers. As part of its ongoing commitment to utilize Microsoft technologies and practices, Microsoft IT has made a CIO-level commitment to ensure that all operations processes are based on MOF. MOF provides improvements in consistency and maturity for diverse operations processes. In return, Microsoft IT documents both its own and customers data to improve and enhance prescriptive guidance for future MOF and product releases. The results across the board from all six projects showed a dramatic increase in the process maturity, organization, and execution on the service management improvements, which we expect to be visible at the TCO level. Mike Carlson, Senior IT Director, Microsoft

In late 2002, Microsoft IT conducted a MOF assessment of its operations in six of the MOF service management functions to identify redundant processes and optimize on best practices, following MOF guidelines to improve process maturity. Although the assessment demonstrated that Microsoft IT generally had practices and processes in place for most common tasks, in many cases they were not well documented or coordinated. For example, different groups within the organization had different ways to handle change management, using multiple change management tools. Microsoft IT has spent the last year running service improvement projects based on the recommendations from the MOF assessment with dramatic results.

Other Microsoft operations groups, for example MSN and Microsoft.com, have also embraced MOF principles in structuring and managing their operations. These relationships between Microsoft operations groups and the MOF development group have greatly assisted in ongoing MOF development, through the ability to rapidly evaluate and capture feedback relating to MOF guidance. As Microsoft rolls out next generation infrastructure for in-house beta testing prior to release, MOF guidance to deploy, operate, support, and optimize that infrastructure is developed in parallel. Top of page

Enhancing Your Organization with MOF

The IT Life Cycle and Microsoft Frameworks
Within any organization, the IT services and the applications and infrastructure that support them have a finite life cycle. This cycle may be divided into three key sets of activities: Understand the business and operational needs for the service and create a solution that delivers these within the specified constraints. Effectively and efficiently deploy the solution to users with as little disruption to the business as the service levels specify. Operate the solution with excellence in order to deliver a service that the business trusts.

Microsoft provides guidance and implementation packages for the effective employment of our technologies across the entire gamut of the IT life cycle. This guidance is clustered into two frameworksMicrosoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). MSF addresses the first set of activities (analyzing the need and creating a high-value solution); MSF and MOF coordinate processes and activities to deploy the solution in the second set; and MOF addresses the final set of activities until the solution is retired. MOF also incorporates and extends a wealth of guidance that is already available through other existing (and developing) IT standards organizations. These relationships are summarized in the following sections. The life cycle and how MSF and MOF interact throughout it are depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The IT life cycle and Microsoft frameworks The development and deployment of an IT solution typically involves two IT teams. The project team is assembled for a limited time to plan, build, and deploy the solution. MSF provides a flexible and scalable way to plan, design, develop, and deploy successful IT solutions. MSF guidance consists of principles, models, and disciplines for managing the people, process, technology elements, risks, and the trade-offs that most projects encounter. For more information about MSF, see http://www.microsoft.com/msf. In contrast, the operations team is permanent and is responsible for the solutions daily operations and management. MOF is designed to guide the operations teams. It provides technical guidance that enables organizations to achieve mission-critical system reliability, availability, supportability, and manageability of IT solutions built with

Microsoft products and technologies. MOFs guidance addresses the people, process, technology, and management issues pertaining to operating complex, distributed, heterogeneous IT environments. For more information about MOF, see http://www.microsoft.com/mof. The two frameworks are complementary, minimizing the time to valuethat is, the time between recognition of the need and delivery of the service. Consistency of terminology and concepts between the two frameworks also supports the delivery of a high-quality service. The two frameworks are also well integrated. For example, the deployment of an IT solution requires knowledge of the solutions requirements and user controls as well as the system requirements to operate it. MSF and MOF both include guidance for team roles and processes that ensure a successful deployment into the production environment. Throughout development, MSF and MOF emphasize the institution of processes to ensure that the solution (or any change to the IT environment) is built for operability and supportability, and that it meets release requirements. MOF guidance is based on the direct knowledge and experience of Microsoft, its partners, and consultants in the daily operation of large and small IT environments and execution of software and IT service development projects. Microsoft also incorporates and aligns with acknowledged standards from within the worldwide IT industry, often enhancing and extending generic standards to facilitate their employment in Windowsbased operating environments.

Implementing MOF: Service Improvement Projects and Solution Accelerators

MOF core guidance, available through white papers and other guidance documents, provides a solid foundation upon which to deploy and operate successful IT solutions. MOF is also incorporated into prescriptive guidance to enhance IT operations for specific functions and processes and in business solutions that combine tools and technologies with MOF operations guidance. The diagram below illustrates the relationship between MOF and these prescriptive solutions. Core MOF guidance resides at the center of Microsoft operations guidance. These core principles are elaborated upon through a catalog of more than 20 service management function (SMF) documents, each of which describes and provides guidance on a specific set of IT activities. In turn, the SMFs serve as the foundation for progressively more prescriptive guidance to achieve specific objectives. This guidance is available through service improvement project (SIP) guides and solution accelerators. Each service improvement project (SIP) is intended to provide prescriptive guidance on implementing or enhancing a particular service management function (or set thereof). For example, an organization may conduct a SIP specifically to enhance its support functions by improving help desk operations. MOF has released a SIP guide to provide generic

assistance in implementing projects of this type and is developing SIP guidance for specific SMFs for future release. Solution accelerators combine Microsoft products, additional tools and technologies, and related SMFs to provide a packaged solution that adds service capabilities and business value to your IT organization. Solution accelerators are available that assist in solving several common business challenges, such as ensuring the efficient, reliable deployment of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and business desktops, patch management, service monitoring and control, and others. By basing these solution accelerators on a MOF foundation, Microsoft enhances the operability of deployed solutions, now and in the future.

Figure 2. MOF core guidance supports actionable solutions Currently available MSIM solution accelerators include: Business Desktop Deployment Enterprise Messaging Internet Data Center Service Monitoring and Control Domain Server Consolidation and Migration File and Print Server Consolidation and Migration Patch Management (several versions)

Windows Server Deployment For more information on these solution accelerators, visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet.

MOF and ITIL

MOF aligns and builds on the IT service management practices that have been documented within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) maintained by the United Kingdoms Office of Government Commerce (OGC). The OGC is a U.K. government executive agency chartered with development of best-practice advice and guidance on the use of information technology in service management and operations. Microsoft has been actively involved with the ITIL community since 1999, both using the ITIL content and contributing to new and updated documentation, including co-authoring several books. ITIL currently includes more than 40 books. Of these, ten are of particular significance to a corporate IT organization. Figure 3 illustrates these ten titles and their relationships.

Figure 3. The ITIL publication framework Each of these ITIL publications is devoted to a function of IT service management and contains cross-references to its companion publications. One goal of MOF is to extend and enhance the practices and guidance offered through ITIL in order to provide more detailed prescriptive guidance in specific areas of IT management.

Microsoft uses ITIL MOF is similar to ITIL in several ways: both as the basis for Microsoft Operations MOF (in conjunction with MSF) spans the entire IT life cycle. Framework, on best practices for IT management, drawing on the expertise of an MOF is based which is our structured international group of practitioners, including Microsoft World Wide Services, approach to helping Microsoft Partners, Microsoft customers, and the internal (and extensive) Microsoft IT customers achieve operations group. IT operational The MOF body of knowledge is applicable across the business communityfrom small excellence, and in business to enterprise. MOF is not just for those operating on the Microsoft platform how homogenous environments. within we operate our own systems. We are Like ITIL, MOF has expanded to include more than just a documentation set. MOF is a proud to have core component of the MSIM solution accelerators, ensuring that solutions are operable incontributed as lead your IT environment, post-deployment. Furthermore, a variety of resources have been authors to the writing developed to support MOF principles and guidance, including self-assessments, IT of the Application management tools that incorporate MOF terminology and features, training programs Management and the and certification, and consulting services. These are offered by numerous third-party Planning to vendors and consultants. Implement Service Management books MOF expands upon and extends ITIL through the following: in the ITIL collection. Addition of the MOF Team and Process Models and Risk Management Discipline Rick Devenuti, CIO (summarized subsequently within this document). and Corporate IT processes into a simple diagrammatic model, with all components Simplification ofVice President, Microsoft and their relationships visible at a glance. Services Focus on the service-delivery level of IT management, rather than on IT operations in their entirety. For example, ITIL identifies individual service functions such as Service Level Management and Capacity Management; these are described within the ITIL Service Delivery publication. In contrast, MOF individually recognizes over 20 service delivery functions and devotes an entire publication to each of them, providing descriptions, examples, and best practice guidance. Combination of ITIL collaborative industry standards with specific guidelines for using Microsoft products and technologies. Scalability of MOF guidance and principles from implementation within a single service to implementation across a high-order structure such as a data center or entire operations environment. MOF also extends the ITIL code of practice to support distributed IT environments and industry trends such as application hosting and Web-based transactional and e-commerce systems. Top of page

MOF and Quality of Service Improvement Initiatives

IT organizations often implement service improvement programs as a result of feedback obtained through MOF-based review exercises or other review processes. The question may arise, Is MOF compatible with my preferred quality improvement methodology?

In most cases, the answer is Yes. MOF and ITIL can be applied simultaneously with most of the project management methodologies and standards that are currently employed for service improvement. The following are some examples of compatible programs: PRINCE2 is a standard project management methodology (developed and made available by the OGC) that can be applied to ensure improvement projects are managed systematically. Like MSF, PRINCE2 can be used to apply good project management skills to an operations environment for a structured approach to release rollouts and/or service improvement projects. Six Sigma techniques are applicable, for example, to establish project rationales and charters for quality improvement projects; these techniques can be used to implement the original design and improvements to it. Total Quality Management (TQM), a related methodology, can be used in much the same way. Quality-management standards, such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000, can be applied in conjunction with ITIL to good effect. (For more information, see the ITIL publication Quality Management for IT Services.) Qualitymanagement systems, such as the EFQM Excellence Model in Europe and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the United States, complement these efforts. Capability maturity models (CMMs)such as Carnegie Mellons CMM and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)and ISO 15504, also known as Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE), can be used with MOF to determine the capability of ones MOF SMFs against an industry-standard framework; the MOF Operations Assessment, for example, uses the ISO 15504 standard as its basis. The IT Governance Institute develops and publishes its guidelines on IT governance as Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT). Especially with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, corporate governance and audit are increasingly important with businesses of all sizes. Within MOF, several mechanisms have been included to assist in monitoring and enhancing quality of service. The Service Level Management SMF provides a means for IT operations to negotiate the service levels they will provide to service customers and to monitor metrics to evaluate the quality provided. The MOF Optimizing Quadrant, one of four areas within the MOF Process Model, is dedicated to the assessment and enhancement of quality IT service. Top of page

Getting Started with MOF

MOF provides IT with an internationally recognized body of guidance to facilitate the management and operation of the IT infrastructure. Guidance may be applied within organizations of all sizesfrom small businesses to global enterprises. An IT organization can begin to apply MOF anywhere in the environment and then branch out

into other areas. Furthermore, MOF guidance may be applied incrementally, adding additional components as an organization matures in its operating capabilities. The MOF Team Model, described later in this document, defines a set of roles that encompass the full range of activities involved in operating an IT infrastructure. MOF provides flexibility in assigning these roles within an existing corporate organizational hierarchy. Similarly, the MOF Process Model groups together common IT processes at various stages of the IT life cycle and associates them with the relevant roles. Implementation of MOF may progress toward various levels of maturity. In addition, different processes and functions within MOF may progress at rates that are best suited for your business. The first step is to understand your current organizations strengths and weaknesses, and to prioritize your goals for improvement. Following that, organizations typically implement one or more service improvement projects (SIPs) to upgrade their capabilities within the desired IT service functions. In short, the flexibility and modularity of the MOF framework permits you to quickly adapt MOF to fit your needs and your organizational structure. Top of page

The MOF Components

MOF comprises several components: core knowledge provided through white papers, prescriptive guidance presented through SIPs, SMFs, and solution accelerators, and training, made available through a network of qualified training partners. All of these components are based on these foundation elements of MOF: The Team Model The Process Model The Risk Management Discipline These provide guidance about people, process, and risk management in IT service management. Each focuses on enabling technologies and best practices for achieving high systems availability, reliability, supportability, and manageability on the Microsoft platform. They also provide guidance on interoperability with other technology platforms. The sections that follow discuss the three MOF components.

The MOF Team Model

Overview The MOF Team Model was developed to provide agility in adapting to the complexities of geographically or institutionally distributed teams managing distributed systems. While maintaining a high degree of flexibility, the MOF Team Model also assigns specific accountability and responsibility to team roles; this enables a MOF-based

organization to measure and improve its effectiveness even though service functions may be spread across multiple locations and even through multiple subgroups. The MOF Team Model organizes an IT operations organization into several role clusters; these are individuals or groups who perform related activities to accomplish a particular component of an IT service. These role cluster assignments are based on industry best practices for structuring operations teams. MOF then provides additional guidance that applies collectively and individually to the role clusters, describing: Key activities and competencies of each role cluster. Recommendations for scaling the teams for different sizes and types of organizations. Effective combination of roles for smaller teams. Interaction of MOF operations teams with MSF development teams. Guiding Principles Building successful, efficient operations teams requires more than just role and responsibility descriptions. It also requires shared principles that instill a sense of business priorities and establish set guidelines for how the team should function. The five primary principles and guidelines that apply to all role clusters within the MOF Team Model are: To provide timely, efficient, and accurate customer service. To understand the business priorities and enable IT to add business value. To build strong, synergistic virtual teams. To leverage IT automation and knowledge management tools. To attract, develop, and retain strong IT operations staff. Team Model Role Clusters Experience has shown that, to be successful, IT management teams must achieve numerous quality goals associated with key service functions. The role clusters of the MOF Team Model are organized around seven general categories of activities and processes, each with its own set of quality goals. Role descriptions within a cluster are focused specifically on activities directed to meet the quality goals; they are not job descriptions, and they do not imply any kind of corporate organization. The following diagram maps the seven role clusters to two dozen possible functional roles or function teams in a typical operations organization. The rest of this section summarizes the functions of each of the seven role clusters.

Figure 4. MOF Team Model role clusters and examples of functional roles or function teams See full-sized image
Role Cluster Details

Descriptions for each of the role clusters are provided in the table below. Table 3 Role Cluster Release Description Tracks changes and lessons learned in a corporate knowledge base. Tracks inventory and changes in a configuration management database (CMDB). Acts as liaison between the change development team and the operations groups; it encompasses the ITIL disciplines of configuration management and software control and distribution. Defines physical environment standards. Manages physical assets. Maintains the IT infrastructure and oversees IT architecture evolution. Coordinates building and office moves, expansions and acquisitions, and physical environment changes such as wiring, lab space, and user connectivity.

Infrastructure

Role Cluster Support

Description Provides technical support for internal and external customers, resolving incidents and problems using highly automated tools and knowledge base systems. Provides production support for line-of-business (LOB) applications.

Operations

Gives feedback to the development and design team. Ensures that daily, routine tasks are performed reliably within specific technology areas and production systems (messaging, system administration, etc.). Performs scheduled and repeatable processes such as data backup, archiving and storage, output management, system monitoring and event log management, and file and print server management. Defines and manages partnerships in a mutually beneficial and costeffective manner. Includes both the internal manager responsible for the relationships with external parties, and those parties themselves. Ensures data confidentiality, data integrity, and data availability. Influences business policies, such as defining exit procedures to follow when an employee leaves the company. Ensures that all of the IT services being provided to customers are aligned to the customers need for them. Maintains a working relationship with customers, understanding their need for IT services, and managing the introduction of new services, service improvements, and (eventually) service reductions and retirements.

Partner

Security

Service

The MOF Process Model

Overview The MOF Process Model provides a functional blueprint and description of the processes that operations teams perform to manage and maintain IT services. It assumes that the operations groups main responsibility is managing change in the IT environment. The most effective way to deal with change throughout the lifespan of a service is to group related changes together into a package called a release, so that the changes can be planned and managed as a unit. The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can be applied to any release and the processes and activities that make up each part of that life cycle. Guiding Principles

The MOF Process Model is based on four guiding principles: Structured architecture. The MOF Process Model organizes all operational activities needed for mission-critical computing in a complex IT environment. Rapid life cycle, iterative improvement. MOF supports an iterative IT life cycle that facilitates rapid assessment and change to respond to evolving business needs. Review-driven management. The Process Model requires operations management reviews (OMRs) at key points in the life cycle. In these reviews, the team and key stakeholders evaluate performance for release-based activities as well as time-based operational activities. Embedded risk management. Since the ultimate business cost of an IT service failure can be catastrophic, MOF proactively manages risk throughout operational processes. Process Model Quadrants The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can be applied to releases of any size and relating to any service solution. The model groups similar IT management functions called service management functions (SMFs) into each of four quadrants. Each quadrant owns a specific mission of service. Note that, although the circular aspect of the MOF Process Model implies that management activities occur sequentially, in fact several releases, each at a different stage in the IT life cycle, may occur simultaneously within an IT organization. Furthermore, the service management functions described in the Operating and Supporting quadrants all occur continuously and simultaneously within the data center. The following diagram illustrates the basic life cycle, including the four quadrants and the four OMRs.

Figure 5. The MOF Process Model The following table lists the mission of service and the OMR for each quadrant. Table 4 Quadrant Changing Mission of Service Introduce new service solutions, technologies, systems, applications, hardware, and processes. Execute day-to-day tasks effectively and efficiently. OMR Release Readiness Review provides approval to deploy the fully developed and tested release.

Operating

Operations Review is scheduled periodically to evaluate IT staffs ability to maintain a given service, meet service level requirements, and document its experience in a knowledge base. Supporting Resolve incidents, problems, and Service level agreement (SLA) is inquiries quickly. performed periodically and evaluates the staffs ability to meet the service level requirements defined in the service level agreement. Optimizing Drive changes to optimize cost, Change Initiation Review increases performance, capacity, and likelihood that proposed changes are in

Quadrant

Mission of Service availability in the delivery of IT services.

OMR alignment with business objectives and operability requirements.

Two of the OMRs are driven by the release schedule. The Change Initiation Review (formerly the Release Approved Review) is completed before formal development work begins on a new or updated release, and the Release Readiness Review is conducted before deploying the release into the production environment. The Operations Review and the SLA Review are held at regular intervals after the introduction of a release in order to assess the internal operations and performance against customer service levels. As a result, the Operating Quadrant is where MOF will provide the majority of the operations guidance specific to Microsoft products and technologies. In addition, due to the focus that Microsoft applies to IT operations, many products are now incorporating features and functions directly targeted at making them more supportable, reliable, and manageable. Where applicable, MOF extends the foundational IT SMFs of ITIL with specific references to Microsoft products and features that either automate or improve the delivery of the SMF. The Service Management Functions Each of the SMFs within a particular quadrant shares a common mission of service, or goal. Many of the SMFs are based upon the OGCs IT Infrastructure Library. The notable exceptions are Workforce Management (in the Optimizing Quadrant) and all SMFs in the Operating Quadrant. Because ITIL is platform-independent, it does not cover these items. SMFs are best practices and typically will require customization to address unique or specific requirements of a particular operations environment. The SMFs and the quadrants they belong to are shown in the following figure.

Figure 6. MOF Process Model and SMFs Each SMF has specific guidance written for it within MOF. Each guidance document typically provides: General principles for the specific service management functional area. A description of the roles involved in implementing the service function and their responsibilities. Annotated lists of the daily, weekly, monthly, and as-needed tasks required to apply the SMF in a production environment. A more detailed overview of the SMFs and their components is provided in the MOF Process Model white paper. Process and Team Model Convergence The MOF Team Model role clusters generally align with the four process quadrants of the MOF Process Model, as shown in the following diagram. Note that multiple roles may be involved in a single quadrant, and a single role (such as Supplier or Security) may be involved in multiple quadrants. The Partner Role Cluster may be involved anywhere within the Process Model, so is omitted for brevity.

Figure 7. MOF Team Model role clusters and their alignment to the MOF Process Model

The MOF Risk Management Discipline

Overview MOF and MSF collect guidance pertaining to risk management into a body of knowledge called a discipline. A distinction is made between disciplines and models, since knowledge contained within a discipline may be applied at any stage of any process. The MOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines are substantially identical, although descriptions and examples provided in their detailed presentations may vary. The Risk Management Discipline for operations applies proven risk management techniques to the daily problems faced by operations staff. Many models, frameworks, and processes exist for managing risks. These all share similarities in how they identify and manage risk. The MOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines improve upon most of these risk management schemes through the application of key principles, a customized terminology, a structured and repeatable risk analysis and evaluation process, and integration into a larger operations framework. Guiding Principles

The Risk Management Discipline for operations advocates these principles for successful risk management in operations: Assess risks continuously. This means the team never stops searching for new risks, and it means that existing risks are periodically re-evaluated. Integrate risk management into every role and every function. At a high level, this means that every IT role shares part of the responsibility for managing risk, and every IT process is designed with risk management in mind. Treat risk identification positively. For risk management to succeed, team members must be willing to identify risk without fear of retribution or criticism. Use risk-based scheduling. Maintaining an environment often means making changes in a sequence; and, where possible, the team should make the riskiest changes first to avoid wasting time and resources on changes that cannot be released. Establish an acceptable level of formality. Success requires a process that the team understands and uses. These principles are summarized in the word proactive. A team that practices proactive risk management acknowledges that risk is a normal part of operations and, instead of fearing risk, the team views it as an opportunity to safeguard the future. Team members demonstrate a proactive mindset by adopting a visible, measurable, repeatable, continuous process through which they objectively evaluate risks and opportunities and take action that addresses the causes of risk as well as its symptoms. Risk Management Process The following diagram illustrates the steps of the risk management process: identify, analyze, plan, track, control, and learn. It is important to understand that each risk goes through all of these steps at least once and often cycles through each of them numerous times. Also, each risk has its own timeline, so multiple risks might be in each step at any point in time.

Figure 8. The process of managing risk