What activities occur as part of the service asset and configuration management process?

Service transition contains detailed descriptions of which processes?

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ITIL Service Asset and Configuration Management Sub-Process:
1) Management and Planning:
2) Configuration Identification:
3) Configuration Control:
4) Status Accounting and Reporting:
5) Verification and Audit:
6) Managing information:
Service Asset and Configuration Management definitions:
1. Planning
2. Identification
4. Status Accounting
5. Verification and Audit
Which of the following is an activity of the service asset and configuration management Process?
What is service asset and configuration management used for?
What is configuration management in asset management?
Is configuration management part of asset management?

A. Change management, service asset and configuration management, release and deployment management
B. Change management, capacity management event management, service request management
C. Service level management, service portfolio management, service asset and configuration management
D. Service asset and configuration management, release and deployment management, request fulfillment

ITIL Service Asset and Configuration Management Sub-Process:

As defined in ITIL v3, Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITIL SACM) process has six sub-processes operating under it. Below are the objectives and description of those sub-processes, followed by a diagram illustrating the SACM Process FLow:

1) Management and Planning:

A well-managed Service Asset and Configuration Management Process requires thorough planning and proper management, for the operation of the SACM process to work.

The primary objective of this Management and Planning sub-process is to define the strategy, policy, scope, objectives, processes, procedures, Roles, and Responsibilities for SACM process.

It also defines the location of storage areas and libraries used to hold hardware, software, and documentation. Apart from that, it manages the CMDB, CMS, DML schemas and designs.

This sub-process is the central reference point of the entire ITIL SACM process.

2) Configuration Identification:

This sub-process deals with the selection, identification, labeling, and registration of CIs. It is responsible for determining what CIs will be recorded, what their attributes are, and what relationships exist with other CIs.

This process maintains the underlying structure of the CMS so that it can hold all required information on Configuration Items (CIs).

Potential attributes you may want to capture include:

The unique CI identifier and CI type - ITIL recommends that every CI should have their unique identification number.
The name and description of the CI
Version numbers, since multiple versions or releases of the same CI often exist
Location and owner information, so that you know where to find it
Current status (ordered, in development, in production, etc.)
When necessary, supplier information, related documentation, etc.

3) Configuration Control:

The main purpose of ITIL Configuration Control is to review the modifications made to the Configuration Management System (CMS) to protect the integrity of the database. It ensures that the information stored in the CMS is complete and the modification was done by authorized personnel only.

This sub-process is initiated whenever there is an alteration made to the CMDB or in the RFCs received from change management process.

4) Status Accounting and Reporting:

It is the means of fetching & reporting of all current and historical data concerned with each CI throughout its lifecycle.

It can fetch & provide data on configuration baselines, latest software versions, CI’s change/incident history, and about the person who changed the status of CI.

A Status Reports typically include things like:

An inventory of CIs and their baseline configurations
An itemization of any unauthorized CIs
Updates on recent changes or exceptions
An itemization of hardware and software assets

5) Verification and Audit:

Responsible for running an audit to review and verify the existence of CIs and checking that if they are correctly recorded in the CMDB. It also checks for any difference between the documented baselines and the actual environment to which they refer.

Verification and Audit is generally a periodic job, but in some cases, this job is manually initiated, such as before & after any major change, after recovery from disaster, and detection of any unauthorized CIs.

The output of this process is Configuration Audit Report.

6) Managing information:

This sub-process ensures that the integrity of your configuration and asset data is maintained properly.

As part of the ITIL Service Asset and Configuration Management process, you need to regularly back up the CMS and CMDB, maintain detailed records about archived and historical CI versions, and take appropriate actions to ensure data integrity throughout the entire lifecycle.

The diagram shown below describes the full process flow, inputs and outputs:

Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM), an ITIL Service Transition process, is often one of the first ITIL processes implemented in any organization. SACM helps leadership understand what they own in terms of assets and how a change in configuration affects other assets, which helps an organization deliver effective service management and tangibly improves its bottom line.

Service Asset and Configuration Management definitions:

Service assets are resources required to deliver IT services. They can include data, hardware, applications and people.
Configuration items (CI) are resources that have to be configured in specific ways to deliver a service. When you design your configuration, you can decide how granular you want to get: Is a server a CI, or is the motherboard within your server a CI, too? Also, things like vendor contracts and other variables that can significantly impact service delivery should also be considered as CIs.
The configuration management database (CMDB) stores information about your CIs, each distinguished by a unique identifier, including identifying information like its serial number, MAC address or IP address; its current version; its location; and its vendor and supplier information.
The configuration management system (CMS) is the set of tools that gather information on the CMDB and the items therein. It often includes records on related incidents, problems, changes, and releases.

ITIL asset management may provide a rough schedule and budget over an IT asset's lifecycle. It's about managing IT assets, including hardware, software, and applications, throughout their lifecycle, and making decisions about those assets around procurement, repair, updating and decommissioning.The configuration management process maps out the effect that each configuration item has on the others. It evaluates and records what changes when a CI changes in status and how that change impacts all hardware that connects to the asset, all applications that communicate with it and even the people who are affected by it. SACM is generally implemented in five steps.

1. Planning

Create a list of services delivered by your organization and come up with a service management plan for each. It should explain what the service does, who uses it, what processes are involved, what CIs it requires and how those CIs relate to others. A good IT service management plan also spells out how change management and configuration management interact. It may include information on other steps of the SACM process, such as information on configuration controls for the service and how you plan to audit it. Whenever you deploy a new service, create a service management plan for it. The plans may seem cumbersome at first, but they're your bedrock for sound financial management and high-performance service delivery. Map out the steps for updating these plans and for enabling authorized stakeholders to access this information.

2. Identification

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

Develop a complete record of your configuration baseline. Identify what you have now and how each CI interacts with the others; this inventory becomes your CMDB.[/caption]

3. Control

All configuration adjustments need to be recorded so that you know the status of the CIs that support your services. They should be captured as close to the time of the actual adjustment as possible, so your CMDB is always current. The control process ensures accurate and timely documentation by clarifying who makes changes, records them, and when -- automation can be a big helper in that process. It covers not only adjustments in response to incidents, but also adjustments around changes and releases. License management can also be a part of the control process.

4. Status Accounting

Status accounting is a report of your CIs and their configuration, so you know where it stands at any moment -- whether that moment is now or you're reviewing a service's historical status. When you view the status of a service, you should note anomalies like unauthorized CIs and the effects that any updates or adjustments have had compared to prior status.

5. Verification and Audit

Periodically, you need to confirm that your CMDB is accurate and up-to-date and that your current configuration manages your assumed configuration baseline. Schedule times for audits, and prioritize according to risk. A service that is low-priority doesn't need to be audited as often as a service that, if impacted, could lead to major downtime or financial loss. It's also a good idea to include disaster recovery preparation in your audit discussions. You should make sure you're backing up your CMDB and have a process in place for recovering it in case of a disruption. If you want to explore ITIL asset management in more depth, download our white paper: The Secret Life of IT Assets. Strong planning and deliberate information management can prevent many headaches.

Which of the following is an activity of the service asset and configuration management Process?

In ITIL v3, Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) is about properly planning and managing (and reporting and auditing) the relationships and attributes of all of these components, across every service in your infrastructure.

What is service asset and configuration management used for?

According to the ITIL Service Transition manual, the purpose of Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) is to: Identify, control, record, report, audit, and verify service assets and configuration items, including versions, baselines, constituent components, their attributes, and relationships.

What is configuration management in asset management?

Configuration management is focused on managing asset information that can be managed and controlled. This info includes attributes of CIs, like owner, type, version, etc., as well as how these CIs are configured and interact with other CIs when provisioning products and services.

Is configuration management part of asset management?

While similar in certain ways, they are not the same thing. Configuration management and asset management move in the same orbit -- the management of an organization's systems and services -- but they have different purposes and goals.