Why MOF and not just ITIL?
Are you very familiar with ITIL concepts and wonder why implement MOF? A new white paper on MOF: An Actionable and Prescriptive Approach to ITIL has been published to the Microsoft Download Center. This white paper explains how MOF builds on and extends (or adopts and adapts if you like those words better) ITIL, to provide improved and actionable guidance for IT operations.
The paper goes into the contrast of ITIL being more descriptive and MOF being more prescriptive with process driven tools and best practices. A great comparison table shows specific topics, how ITIL defines them, and how MOF expands on what ITIL covers. For example:
Topic Area –
- Business Perspective
ITIL Definition –
- Business continuity management, partnerships and outsourcing, surviving change, and transformation of business practices through radical change.
- Looks at IT in business terms as a means of improving services and reducing costs.
- Includes cross-organizational integration with IT services and decision-making governance.
How MOF Expands on ITIL –
- Continuous Improvement Roadmap (CIR) applies business perspectives to IT as a strategic asset.
- Helps companies assess current service management and form a Service Improvement Program (SIP) based on business value.
- Changing Quadrant highlights best practices for planning and managing change.
- MOF Team Model defines roles and responsibilities for a transparent decision-making process.
There is a valuable section that highlights the solution accelerators which help automate key service management scenarios. Solutions like:
This is a quick and easy to read document. If you require further reading, links to additional detail are provided within it.