A Miracle Worker Ask: What is a "service"? Tumult Ensues. Thunder, Too (ITIL)

Alison, who is a miracle worker, asked this question yesterday.

At various points throughout my IT career, I have had reason to ask "What do you mean by Service?" and had different responses under each circumstance.

For example, I am currently putting together a draft Service Catalog awhere our senior manager defines "E-Mail" as a service, whereas the team handling request fulfilment define "Move 1-9 PCs" as a service (it having its own SLA within our current system). In addition, another contributor wants every software application we manage listed as a service as well, giving us a catalog with almost 1000 entries. This feels unwieldy and unmanagable to me!

So, at what level should we define "Service" to make this practical?

This led to spirited and excellent discussion.   Please join?

UPDATE:  Here's the Link. Longest thread so far and it's very good.

Comments

[John Worthington]

I'd be interested in the discussion....

not at all sure that EVERY supported application needs to be defined as a service...seems to me there may be some apps that are components/CI's of a broader-based service, particularly in the Tech Svc Catalog.

if we're talking about Business applications, looking at all apps might be a good place to start but again business processes may have you bundling apps in a way that makes sense to the customer.

be interested in this dialog though!

[Jordan]

I have had simialr spirited discussions. For example, do you bundle, IM, e-mail, and blackberry services into one overall service call messaging services? If so, how do you effectively develop an SLA for this service, and more importantly, measure and report on the SLA?

[Aniruddha]

I think defining service depend upon the customer or end user of the service. It can be bundled or can be individual.