Understanding Service Instances
The Configuration Management process is normally triggered by Workflow Management by means of a task requesting an update of the configuration management information. In Bob’s inbox you will find such a task. It is task #6373, requesting to relate CIs to a new service instance.
When you look at the workflow to which task #6373 is related, you learn that Widget’s Human Resource department requires a dedicated training environment to allow them to develop Widget’s sales force more effectively. Management has decided to make the Thomas Jefferson conference room on the 4th floor of Widget’s New York headquarters available for this. This conference room was never used much anyway.
When you look at the predecessor of task #6373, you will see that the service “Training Center” and the service instance “New York Training Center” have already been registered.
A service instance is an environment that makes the functionality of a service available. Several of such environments may exist that deliver essentially the same functionality, but for different purposes and/or to different users. Two service instances may, for example, have been set up for the Email service. One of these instances may be used by the organization’s employees in North America, while the other is used by its employees in Europe. By linking a service instance, rather than a service, to an incident, 4me is able to accurately calculate the actual level of service that was provided to each customer. For example, when an incident affects the Email service instance in Europe, it is important that this incident is not included in the service level management reports for the North American customers of the Email service. Service instances are also used to differentiate between the production environment of a service and its development and test environments. This allows incidents affecting the development and test environments to be excluded from the service level management reports that are prepared for customers that only use the production environment. A service instance can be made up of several configuration items (e.g. an application and web server software), and several child service instances (e.g. a Unix service instance and a database service instance). In turn, a child service instance can also consist of several configuration items (e.g. a Unix server and a Unix operating system), and several child service instances (e.g. a storage service instance and a rack space service instance).
Start this training by setting task #6373 to the status “In Progress” to inform the workflow manager that you are working on it. In the next exercise you will link the configuration items (CIs) that belong to the “New York Training Center” to this service instance.