Service Catalogs

At catalog conference next week

I'll be attending newScale's Service Catalog conference next week in Palm Springs.  There are some great sessions, including one of the most popular ever: Stump the Expert. Every year, our customers try to stump our experts and ... sometimes they do. Hilarity ensues.

Here's the full agenda. Hope to see you there.

Day 1 — Monday, May 5th

12:00 - 7:00pm	Registration
12:00 - 5:30pm	Optional Pre-Conference Working Session
	Solving Advanced Service Catalog Challenges (Exclusive session - available for newScale customers, by advance registration only - includes lunch) Stump the Experts! In this focused drill-down session, join a team of newScale experts to dive into real life Service Catalog design challenges and solutions. Registrants will be invited to submit their toughest challenges two weeks prior to the conference. During the session, the experts will present their solutions to your challenges to the group. Challenge categories include: User Friendliness:  Get help designing your request forms that are understandable to the user, and efficient and thorough for IT. Reporting:  For good reporting, you'll need to design services that are measurable, and integrate them with your reporting tools. Interactive Forms:  Need help creating an Interactive Service Form?  Submit a challenge to the newScale team. Other Challenges:  Submit to the team and we'll field as many as time allows.
6:00 - 7:30pm	Welcome Reception

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Day 2 — Tuesday, May 6th

7:30 - 8:30am	Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:30 - 8:45am	Welcome & Introductions
8:45 - 9:45am	Opening Keynote - Introducing IT 2.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Scott Hammond, CEO, newScale The role of IT continues to evolve. Today it is no longer sufficient to provide a reliable, effective infrastructure. Your business customers expect more. This session will introduce IT 2.0: a new era where IT must become a relevant change agent for the business. It's a model where IT truly takes care of business - both managing IT as a business and moving forward the business of the enterprise. Are you ready? Scott will outline where a Service Catalog fits in the IT 2.0 model, and how it can help IT implement the Front Office processes required to take care of business.
9:45 - 10:15am	General Session - Service Catalog: "One of the Best Things IT Has Ever Done" A Service Catalog and Request Fulfillment Case Study Presentation Learn why the Service Catalog initiative was a huge success for this global IT organization and how it became the leading light within their reinvigorated ITIL program. Hear how they deployed an actionable Service Catalog integrated with request fulfillment, providing a one stop shop for all IT service requests. Find out how they achieved immediate benefits, including both financial payback and greater IT credibility - with improved IT governance, service automation, cost controls, and feedback that the Service Catalog is "One of the best things IT has ever done".
10:15 - 10:305am	Break
10:30 - 11:20am	General Session - Executive Panel: CIO Priorities and the IT Service Catalog Featuring Executive Panel Members from Multiple Industries Sometimes it seems like the priorities of the CIO just don't align with the day-to-day realities of delivering IT services to the business. This panel discussion - featuring IT executives from several different industries - will provide insight into what keeps CIOs up at night, what their metrics for success are, and how a Service Catalog project can help the CIO achieve these goals. The panelists will share their own experiences and challenges in this interactive discussion.
11:20 - 11:50am	General Session - Service Catalog: Foundation for Strategic Business Alignment A Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management Case Study Presentation This case study - from one of the world's largest and most admired investment firms - highlights how a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog can improve cost transparency, demand management, and IT-business alignment. Learn what methodologies they used, including ITIL and analyst research, to define their portfolio of IT service offerings. Hear how they are rolling out their Service Catalog to establish a cost model for annual budgeting, benchmark services against industry standards, and quantify the value of IT for the business in financial terms.
11:50 - 12:00pm	Break for Lunch
12:00 - 1:15pm	Lunch - Sponsored by ManageSoft
	Business Track		Technical Track
1:15 - 2:00pm	Rolling Out Services in a Shared Services Environment The shared services model allows organizations to centralize and consolidate common corporate services, in order to improve efficiency and achieve economies of scale. Hear real-world examples of how to deploy a Service Catalog in a shared services model. Learn from a panel of newScale customers as they talk about their experiences with rolling out IT services across multiple business units.		Enabling Service Automation and Operational Efficiency Through Integration This panel discussion focuses on best practices for integration in a Service Catalog program. We will review example integrations with LDAP/SSO, help desk, ID management, software distribution, and other 3rd party systems. This session will also examine the benefits of integration, based on real-world examples - including process efficiency, improved reliability, and faster cycle times.
2:00 - 2:15pm	Break
	Business Track		Technical Track
2:15 - 3:00pm	Organizing Your Project Team For Success - Roles and Staffing Best Practices Centralized or de-centralized service teams, on-site or off-shore staff, face-to-face interaction or on-line collaboration? These are just a few of the questions involved in determining the right roles, structure, and staff for your Service Catalog program. Panelists from the hospitality, financial services, and manufacturing industries will discuss team structures that worked for them and provide suggestions on roles and staffing.		Real-World Scenarios for  Deploying a Service Catalog in a Global Organization This panel features representatives from U.S.-based and international organizations in retail, energy, financial services, and other sectors - for a discussion on best practices for deploying a Service Catalog in a global environment. The panel will cover both technical and business topics, including global standards, distributed service design across multiple geographies, and service delivery in a 24 x 7 world.
3:00 - 3:15pm	Break
3:15 - 4:00pm	Using Your Service Catalog as the Cornerstone for ITIL v3 and a Service-Centric Transformation As the foundation for defining services and communicating with the business, the Service Catalog can ensure a service-centric approach to ITIL. This panel session features ITIL practitioners and industry experts discussing the implications of changes from v2 to v3, perspectives on ITIL adoption, and how ITIL v3 can help increase the visibility and impact of your Service Catalog initiative.		Leveraging Packaged Content to Accelerate Service Catalog Time-to-Value This interactive workshop presentation will showcase innovative new capabilities and pre-built Service Catalog content. Learn about new packaged service content and how tools to move and share content across systems can help to shorten deployment times for new services, facilitate service component re-use, and make complex service design easier.
4:00 - 4:15pm	Break
4:15 - 6:15pm	Service Catalog Expo and Cocktail Reception Come ready to ask questions of the experts at newScale and other premier Service Catalog solution providers. Product managers and services staff will be available in a series of booths to provide insights on key solutions, review new service offerings, discuss specific customer issues, and provide feedback and answers to individual questions. Expo areas will showcase several providers and solutions, including: Accenture ManageSoft Northwind Siemens Third Sky newScale Strategic Services newScale Content Libraries newScale  Knowledge Services newScale PortfolioCenter and DemandCenter newScale Analytics and Reporting newScale RequestCenter
7:00 - 10:30pm	Conference Dinner Event - Sponsored by newScale and Partners

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Day 3 — Wednesday, May 7th

8:00 - 9:00am	Registration & Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:45am	General Session - A Transformation Approach for IT Service Management Diamond Sponsor Presentation - Featuring Accenture Intensifying scrutiny on business performance presents a clear imperative to build and secure the relevance of IT within the business. Failure to do so could result in a decline in the influence of IT across the organization. ITIL version 3 provides the platform to reshape and reposition the IT department as a true service provider to the business. Hear Accenture's recommendations on how to achieve this transformation and best maximize success with ITIL version 3.
9:45 - 10:15am	General Session - The Service Catalog Journey: Establishing an IT Front Office Featuring Service Catalog Experts and Panel Members from Multiple Industries Most IT organizations are at the early stages of their Service Catalog journey - we still have a lot to learn from each other. What have we learned from our collective experiences? What are the learnings and best practices? What kind of organizational change is required? What does the optimal project team look like? What kind of skill set is needed for a successful Service Catalog? This panel discussion will cover the key elements of the Service Catalog journey, addressing the Strategy, Process, People & Technology requirements for a customer-focused IT Front Office.
10:30 - 10:55am	Break
10:55 - 11:40am	General Session - Unique and Impactful Use Cases that Extend the Value of a Service Catalog for Greater Business Impact Featuring Service Catalog Experts and Panel Members from Multiple Industries Once again, our team of experts has compiled some of the most unique and impactful uses of newScale Service Catalog solutions from our customer base. These include an end-to-end ID provisioning process; an automated service migration process; a closed loop requisition-delivery-invoicing process for telecom services; usability testing that borrows from B2C e-commerce concepts; and more. Discover these innovative ideas and apply them to our own organization to extend the value of your Service Catalog program!
	Business Track		Technical Track
11:40 - 12:25pm	Service Catalog Case Study Presented by Siemens Many IT shops are modeling their operations to run more like that of an external service provider. Here's your chance to learn how they do it! Siemens is deploying newScale RequestCenter to provide self-service Request Management and a consolidated view into the Siemens Service Catalog for their clients. Hear how services are designed, published, requested, and delivered at a leading managed services provider. Specific topics will include integrated self-help & software license management.		SPACL - Service Portfolio and Catalog Language How do you define a "service"? Services are defined at different levels in the Service Catalog, in the Service Portfolio, in financial systems, in provisioning systems, and a myriad of other applications. But there hasn't been a common definition that can traverse these systems. The Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) provides a standards-based framework to share Service Catalog information with other IT functional areas and promote the exchange of service definition content across multiple systems.
12:25 - 12:35pm	Break for Lunch
12:35 - 1:45pm	Birds-of-a-Feather Lunch
	Departure or Dinner on Your Own

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Exclusive Customer-Only Sessions

1:45 - 2:25pm	General Session - Preview of Enhancements in the Upcoming newScale 2008 Product Release The next major release for the newScale FrontOffice™ Suite is quickly approaching. Learn about the new features and enhancements of this release to plan your Service Catalog program for 2008. This newScale-led session will include highlights of the new capabilities and a sneak peek product demonstration, with audience feedback and discussion.
	Customers - Business Track		Customers - Technical Track
2:30 - 3:15pm	Driving Continual Service Improvement With Analytics and Reporting The old saying goes, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it". How do you apply this to your Service Catalog initiative? A panel of experts - featuring both product specialists and fellow practitioners - will discuss how advanced reporting and analysis can help to provide visibility into service demand, streamline the service delivery process, and eliminate fulfillment bottlenecks.		newScale Upgrade Best Practices and Methodologies Learn how to plan for future upgrades, when to time your upgrades, and what to expect with your next upgrade. This newScale customer-led discussion will dig into practical examples of what works - and what doesn't work - to ensure a smooth and successful transition in your upgrade. Learn the keys to success for upgrades from fellow customers and implementation experts.
3:15 - 3:30pm	Break
	Customers - Business Track		Customers - Technical Track
3:30 - 4:15pm	How to Successfully Expand Your Service Catalog Program This session will address long-term program planning, with anecdotal experiences and best practices from successful multi-year programs. Panelists will discuss how their programs evolved over time and how they plan ahead for maximum effectiveness. Topics covered include newScale upgrade strategies, expansion projects, staffing over time, and more.		Tips and Tricks for Effective Service Design - Learn from the Experts This interactive workshop presentation will dive into practical examples of service design, with tips and tricks based on real-world situations. Learn how to leverage advanced newScale product capabilities for designing effective services. Discover best practices and how to avoid common service design pitfalls from product specialists and implementation experts.
4:15 - 4:20pm	Break
	newScale Customer Track
4:20 - 5:00pm	General Session - newScale Solutions Roadmap - 2008 and Beyond Presenter: Bill Fine, Product Strategy, newScale newScale’s product management executive will present the roadmap and strategic direction for upcoming product enhancements and long-term future products from the Service Catalog market leader. This "can't miss" session includes previews of innovative new product capabilities and highlights many of the key business benefits to expect from future releases.
5:00 - 5:15pm	Final Conference Wrap-up
	Departure or Dinner on Your Own

Big announcement: The Service Portfolio and Catalog Language

We are making a big announcement today: the formation of a industry standards group to define standards for the exchange of service portfolio and service catalog information between different systems and vendors. This standard will be known as the Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL)

ITIL v3 introduced service portfolio, catalog, and request processes which have generated great excitement and a number of projects. In fact, in ITIL v3 the catalog is the beginning of the ITSM journey. 

Unfortunately, ITIL v3 does not provide specific schemas or models.  This creates significant confusion, waste and rework among end users.  They struggle with questions such as:

What should be documented in a Service Portfolio / Service Catalog?

How will this information be used with other IT functional areas?

What operational attributes should traverse different systems?

How can I interchange catalog information between different systems?

How can I be assured that my catalog can be made actionable with in a multivendor environment?

How can I bring in my supplier’s or managed service provider’s catalog into my own?

The end result is that customers spent a lot of money and effort to document services that cannot be used inside any toolset. Everyone has a different framework, structure, concept; interoperability is non-existent. 

Thus the urgent need exists for a standard.  This standard will support the growth of the industry by establishing a basic Service Portfolio and Service Request schema  that is implementation-independent, definitional and open.  This model should map to ITIL v3, be rigorous enough that tools can consume it,  and extensible to support specific needs of vendors and customers, but still remain interoperable.

We are opening a forum for questions at:  servicecatalogs.com

See announcement below

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Service Catalog Community Announces Service Catalog Standards Initiative

Interested Parties Invited to Attend Initial Meeting February 20th in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, NV – February 19, 2008 - The Service Catalog Community announced that it is hosting a forum on Wednesday, February 20th – at the Pink Elephant IT Service Management Conference – for interested parties to discuss formation of Service Catalog industry standards.  A recent survey of community members showed that 70% of IT organizations plan on deploying a Service Catalog in the next 12 months. But the survey also showed that organizations are struggling to achieve their Service Catalog objectives due to the lack of standardized structures, elements, content, implementation guides, and clarity on how to use their Service Catalog across different systems.

To address this issue, representatives from leading Service Catalog providers, IT Service Management industry associations, systems integrators, consultants, and the Service Catalog user community have been invited to meet at the Bellagio Hotel, Cezanne Room 1 in Las Vegas starting at Noon on Wednesday, February 20th to initiate the formation of the Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) group.

“IT organizations are looking for guidance on what should be documented in a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.  With version 3 of ITIL, the Service Catalog and service definition are central to a successful ITIL program. These service definitions live in the Service Portfolio, in financial systems, in provisioning systems, and a myriad of other systems. Until now there hasn’t been a common definition that can traverse these systems,” says Rodrigo Flores, CTO of newScale and chairman of the Service Catalog Community editorial board. The Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) proposal provides a standards-based framework that will allow Service Catalog information to be shared with other IT functional areas and to promote the exchange of Service Portfolio and Service Catalog content among multiple vendors.  The goal of this initiative is to establish a working technical group within 60 days to define the standard.

Parties interested in learning more about SPACL can register on www.ServiceCatalogs.com. Alternatively, you can contact the chairman directly.  With more than 4,500 members, the Open Source Service Catalog Community is the most popular forum worldwide for IT practitioners to leverage best practices and proven examples as they get started with their Service Catalog initiatives. The vendor-neutral community includes areas for members to download Service Catalog templates, and encourages members to upload their Service Catalog examples to share among the community. The site also includes free resources, articles, community forums and links to relevant blogs.

Membership to the community is free and open to everyone, to encourage cross-industry collaboration and an open dialogue among ITIL experts, practitioners, and novices.

About The Open Source Service Catalog Community
This community is dedicated to the creation, sharing and distribution of Service Catalog and Service Portfolio best practices. The community is created, managed and maintained by independent IT practitioners committed to helping you deliver greater IT value and to foster better IT-business alignment. As an Open Source community – your contributions are critical to building and fostering a vibrant forum to achieve our goals. For more information, please visit the Open Source Service Catalog Community web site at www.servicecatalogs.com.

The State of the CIO 2008: The CIO's Time to Shine

Link: The State of the CIO 2008: The CIO's Time to Shine.

Stop Talking About Alignment

We can't imagine a CIO who doesn't know that technology must support the business's processes and goals. If you don't understand that, nothing in this survey will help you. In our 2008 "State of the CIO" survey, 82 percent of respondents said that aligning IT and business was their number-one activity. Of course it was. Does a therapist listen? Does a general command?

It's clear, however, that CIOs who worry about alignment conceive of themselves, their function and their department as a thing apart. Whether that's a problem of their own making or a dysfunction generated by their executive peers and their enterprise's culture, these CIOs have already lost. As Roger Parks, VP of information technology and CIO at J.R. Simplot, a $4.2 billion agribusiness, puts it, "If other senior executives don't see you as one of them, you usually can't change their minds. You have to realize that."

"The IT discipline still has some maturing to do," says Rick Roy, senior vice president of customer operations at CUNA Mutual Group. Before he took over Customer operations, Roy was CIO at the financial services company from 2003 to 2005 when it had $15.2 billion in assets. "I don't talk about aligning customer service operations with the business," says Roy. "The CFO doesn't talk about financial alignment with the business. So why say 'align IT and the business?'

"Language informs approach."

Census Results: the vision and value for service catalog. Part 2

Continuing with the Census survey results. Part 2. In this part we will use the comments and answers. We have such tremendous participation [thank you!] that it's taken a while for me to go through it all and come to a conclusion.  Some of 130 + meaningful, thoughtful answers.  I have taken just sample, to give you a flavor of them. Other than editing for spelling, they are provided verbatim.

We Are Pretty Clear of the Value of a Service Catalog

Over 50% said, our catalog would help:

1. Explain What IT does for the business
2. Standardize services
3. Make it easy to request services
4. Improve operational efficiencies

Only a few thought of using it for compliance or to use pricing to manage supply and demand.  And only 35% are using the service catalog to support an asset management or CMDB. That feels right. The first four problems are much more important.

We Have a Clear Vision of What to Do

We seem know what needs to be done, but are not sure how to get there. Many wrote these comments:

We have developed a portfolio that is geared towards understanding service costs. Taking it to the next level in terms of service level development and actionable requests will most likely require a tool.

Need for a culture change to turn the organization from an IT technology silo orientation to a service organization

Technology is in people's mind, not the Service [this was said a lot, the need to change to a culture of service]

We have built a service catalog from scratch but are having difficulty aligning costs and ownership since out IT organization is not structured around the services

Extremely fragmented IT organization with competing interests and services.

The biggest issue is moving staff at all levels to change their thinking to service based culture, they are still in the mind set of the first column of the Cycle of Distrust.

We Have a Good Sense of What Success Looks Like
When asked about what the success factors would be you wrote these comments. 

The internal customer satisfaction is very important to us because now every employees hates IT. They don't understand our tasks, roles, responsibilities ... nothing at all.  We have to understand the business as well.

Must be written in user terms. Must be complete and include value added services. Must be actionable. Must be kept up-to-date

We traditionally do not think in business terms, the catalog will change that thinking. It is essential to be able to show we are achieving agreed service levels. Providing transparency to customer and getting IT staff to think Customers not users are the key success factors initially.

Alignment of resources, management commitment, and staff effort behind visible, measurable services.

Moving business and IT perspective to a user rather than technology view of service

Adherence to the concepts of standardization and process management.

Understanding the Business's view of IT 'services' needed and presenting the service catalog in a meaningful, intuitive way. Our Service Catalog must be easily understood by our customers and explain in business terms the services that we offer and the target service levels that each are matched to.

Understanding who uses services will make it easier to gauge impact of loss/downgrade of service. We are not aware when some users stop using services so if services costed if only notionally we may be freed up from making available, services that are no longer needed

We are working towards consolidation, standardization, and abstraction of services. The catalog sets the new direction.

Next, we'll explore the obstacles and issues.

Census Result: part 1

These are the results of the Fall 2007 Community Census. 3000+ members are currently registered at www.servicecatalogs.com;  We had 150 responses, which makes this survey a statistically valid sample.

In fact, this census represents the only complete survey of the community of practitioners building service catalogs in the world.  Over the next few days, I will unveil the results here and in the community site.   

So let's start with who we are.  Twenty percent of us are Service Level Managers, while 13% of you are consultants (see chart below). 

But a over 30% of you  indicated that you are other.  Most are either analysts or involved in service deliver.  Some of the sample titles are:

                                                           

Service Delivery Lead
IT Architect
Service   Analyst
Sr. System Programmer
ITSM Manager
Systems Coordinator
Marketing director in IT
Support Manager
IT Manager
Sr. business analysist
Architect
IT Operations Manager
IT Services Manager
Manager, Design and Planning
Helpdesk Manager
Service Desk Manager
IT Customer Service Manager
Manager, IT Governance
Configuration Manager
Process Coordinator
Business Systems Analyst

And many of us (not surprisingly) are working in producing a service catalog.  In fact, 34% already have a "first generation" service catalog, some of us are working on "fixing a failed project. 36% will have a service catalog in 6 months, and about 20% of us will have one within 12 to 18 months. 

I was surprised by how many of us already have a a catalog. But as we'll see later in the survey, we mostly don't consider we have succeeded, or are working on fixing a failure, or just can't get attention from the rest of IT for our effort. 

In fact, most of us are actually writing the catalog. Thirty percent of you are the project implementation leads. 15% are managing the existing catalog, 15% are the th IT sponsors, and 23% don't have a formal role yet -- mostly getting ready to produce one or getting educated.

Two early conclusions from the data thus far. The fact that roles are all over the map, indicates that organizations are still immature in their service catalog journey. For the most part they are not sure who should do the job and what organization should own it. 

Tomorrow, we'll reveal how well the journey is going.  It won't be pretty. 

Survey results coming tomorrow

Some may recall that we ran a survey about a month ago.  Participation was phenomenal. We really got a great sample of responses.   It's taken me a while to post the results for two reasons: too much traveling on my part, and we received very good written feedback to a number of questions.  I mean, really very good feedback that actually affects the results.  So besides reading and internalizing I have been struggled on how to best provide this data.

So what I have decided is to blog it over several days starting tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

HP is offering my book for free!

Looks like HP really likes our book  “Defining IT Success through the Service Catalog” because they are offering it for free. I guess when it comes to best practices they recognize us as the thought leaders.   The HP web site says: 

A limited number of complimentary copies of “Defining IT Success through the Service Catalog” are available in the U.S. only on a first come/serve basis.

Authors: Rodrigo Flores, Bill Fine

This major new title includes a wealth of information about using a Service Catalog within the wider context of delivering value to the business. It focuses on embedding a truly customer-oriented IT service.

It seems they forgot that Troy Du Moulin of Pink Elephant is also a co-author. 
You can find the offer here and save yourself some money but they will make you talk to a sales person.  So get your free book and then talk to us.

Thanks HP. I take it as a great compliment.  And yes: that is my tongue, firmly in cheek.

First Community Census: Need Help

In the next few weeks we will launch our first catalog community census.  We are almost at 3000 registrations and I need your help!

In true community spirit, we will launch a survey to the community and we will publish the results to everyone.  And since we all benefit from learning where each of us is in the journey, I'd like your help in proposing questions for the survey.

What would you like to know from your fellow practitioners? Please propose questions in the forum.  The draft list of questions is here, and if you are a community member, you can edit directly.   Very cool 

New look for our site

Today we are launching a new, streamlined look for our community site.
First, we are introducing a more portal-like  interface  to accommodate access to more blogs and news sites. We'll be adding these over the next few days and weeks. 

There are also two new portlets, one to show you who is active in the community right now and what are the latest postings which will give you at a glance some of the activity going on in the community.
When you click on the name of the person, you are taken to a page that shows all their contributions and comments; this is a useful guide read everything one of your favorite poster has written.

And my blog is integrated!  In a few weeks, we will be adding real time chat to the site, so in addition to forums you can see who is online and talk to them.

First Editor's Choice

Today I am very proud to announce our First Editor's Choice Award at ServiceCatalogs.com for a member-submitted contribution.  Congratulations to Smcd, our great contributor! Stop by the forum and wish him congratulations; he has helped a lot of people and well deserves this recognition.

Let me  back up and  catch everyone up  to what we are really up to.  When created the community, the purpose was to develop a shared repository of knowledge about Service Design, Service Portfolio, and Service Catalogs. (All this concepts are now part of ITIL V3). And the way we would create knowledge would be through your contributions which our esteemed editorial board would select on a quarterly basis. The editorial board reads the submissions selected for consideration and picks the best one.   

Today we are announcing our first selection for the Service Offering "Dedicated Hosting Environment."

The winning Dedicated Hosting Environment service offering describes the end-to-end delivery and back-end management of a Windows or Linux application hosting environment.  Unlike other entries that were focused on IT services provided to an end user or business unit, this particular service offering is an Infrastructure service provided to other IT groups or application development teams in a large enterprise.  As a result, this service offering would ultimately be included as a component within a bundled service under the category of Application Services or Application Management.
According to Martin Gandar of the Butler Group, “The description of this service offering is excellent.  It outlines the service level options and pricing – and the different tiers of service are clearly defined.  For IT practitioners seeking to define their application hosting services, this provides an excellent starting point and a valuable contribution to the community.”

The Dedicated Hosting Environment service includes a companion service request template, for requesting the setup, maintenance and on-going management of a new dedicated hosting environment in a shared data center.  This template provides a real-world depiction of how to link the service definition in an actionable Service Catalog to the Request Fulfillment process for provisioning.

You can see the service portfolio definition here and the service request definition here.  You can use them as long as you attribute it to smcd -- it's the meaning of open source that you can also modified and improve it.  And if you do, contribute your changes back. 

smcd has given us an excellent definition, and I can imagine many useful variations -- so feel free to create your own.