With drift and other issues putting your desired state at risk every day, you may wonder: What is configuration management? And how does it work? Every organization needs to define the ideal configuration of its systems. That ideal configuration, or desired state, is the state in which systems and resources are aligned to support development, network performance, and efficiency. In short, you want your environment to keep running in a desired state. Configuration management helps you do that.

PeopleCert announced the launch of a new Continuing Professional Development program by which “all candidates with a PeopleCert Global Best Practice certification can choose to renew within three years of their original certification dates.” This radically changes the situation for certified professionals since ITIL certifications were perpetual – until now.

Companies depend on IT services to support their business operations, and to meet the demands of their customers. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) are frameworks to help organizations manage their IT services. While these two do have elements in common, they also have important differences. ITIL is a set of best practices for IT service management which emphasizes the alignment of IT with the needs of the business.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is an industry standard for IT service management, and it has become the go-to framework for organizations that need to manage their IT services. One of the critical components of ITIL is the Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS). An SKMS is a comprehensive repository of all the information related to IT services, including processes, procedures, and best practices.

As the person on the front lines, you know that providing the best service possible can be what makes your ITSM organization succeed. Every day, you work to build the relationships that help your organization create value for end-users. However, when you have inefficient processes, you end up having to be the person responding to an upset user.

When it comes to managing IT services, there are two schools of thought: DevOps and ITIL. DevOps is a newer approach, while ITIL has been around for decades. Both have their pros and cons, but which method is the right one for your business? Is ITIL still relevant in an era of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and IoT? ‍

As an IT service manager, you love solving problems and helping your people improve business processes. You thrive on those unexpected moments where your experience adds value, whether providing advice to someone in-house or collaborating with a customer. However, you need to have efficient processes and practices in place. Otherwise, you’re never going to be able to do the things you love the most.

Both DevOps and ITIL are two popular frameworks in the IT space and get a lot of attention. However, while both are frameworks, DevOps is more of a collaboration method and shift in thinking vs. ITIL, which is a set of detailed guidelines for IT service management. You can be fairly flexible when it comes to your DevOps implementation in your organization, ITIL is more rigid, with very prescriptive guidance necessary for it to earn the label of ITIL.

ITIL 4 value streams have become a hot new topic for ITSM teams all over the world. The latest version of ITIL may have caused a learning curve for IT professionals and left a lot of room for discussion and elaboration. Value streams are not new; in fact, the concept has been around since as early as the beginning of the 20th century in Ford’s factories. Now, ITIL 4 has leveraged value streams as a core concept in an attempt to deliver value to all stakeholders.