MOF Executive Overview

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MOF Executive Overviewversion 3.0

Published: August 2004

Reformatted: January 2005

For the latest information, please see http://www.microsoft.com/mof

http://www.microsoft.com/mof




ii MOF Executive Overview

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MOF Executive Overview iii

Contents

1 1

Abstract..............................................................................................1

What’s New?.......................................................................................12 3

Introduction.......................................................................................3

3 13

The MOF Components .......................................................................13

4 23

Appendix: Suggested Reading and Training.......................................23



1

Abstract

This MOF Executive Overview summarizes the content of Microsoft® OperationsFramework (MOF) and presents the business value realized by its adoption. MOFdescribes proven team structures and operational processes and applies best informationtechnology (IT) practices to improve the efficiency and quality of IT operations. MOF hasits basis within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), published by the United Kingdom’sOffice of Government Commerce (OGC), and further extends ITIL through the inclusionof guidance and best practices derived from the experience of Microsoft operationsgroups, partners, and customers. This paper explains the business case for adoptingMOF and briefly summarizes its core components: the Team Model, Process Model, andRisk Management Discipline. This paper provides a foundation for understanding the in-depth information provided in companion MOF white papers and guidance documents.To access these other publications, see the MOF Web site athttp://www.microsoft.com/mof .

What’s New?

Microsoft Operations Framework version 3.0 represents a significant update to the coreMOF content. This version was developed to make MOF more streamlined and easier toimplement and to align it more closely with ITIL version 2.0 and Microsoft SolutionsFramework version 3.0, among other enhancements. This MOF Executive Overview hasbeen updated to highlight the business value realized by adopting MOF and to reduceredundancy in descriptions of MOF details used in associated documents. The overviewalso reflects the recent changes published in MOF version 3.0, including changes to theProcess and Team Models and Risk Management Discipline.





2

Introduction

Microsoft has long recognized the value of industry best practices and standards for IToperations. In particular, guidance provided through ITIL has been globally acknowledgedas providing a sound basis and de facto standard for IT service management.

In keeping with ITIL’s spirit to “adopt and adapt,” Microsoft has chosen to provideadditional, specific guidance, which is applicable to customers using Microsofttechnologies within their environments. Microsoft created the first version of MicrosoftOperations Framework in 1999. MOF was designed to complement the well-establishedMicrosoft Solutions Framework for solution and application development. Together, thecombined frameworks provide guidance throughout the IT life cycle.

The Customer Perspective: Operations and

the State of Business Organizations are increasingly dependent on IT to support and enhance the businessprocesses required to meet their organizational and customer needs. In many cases, ITservices form the basis for the entire business model; in these instances, IT does notmerely support the business —it is the business. Yet, despite the importance nowattached to IT, intense competitive and economic pressures on business are oftenreflected through corporate mandates to maintain, or even to decrease, their current ITbudgets. At the same time expectations of IT for quality, innovation, and value continue toincrease. As IT continues to grow in significance to most organizations, it is imperativethat IT groups take a business- and service-oriented approach to operations rather than atechnology-centric one.

IT service management is concerned with delivering and supporting IT services that are

implemented in direct response to the organization’s business requirements. While it isessential that an organization’s IT services support core business activities, it is alsoincreasingly important that these same IT services facilitate change as businesses evolveand compete in a global marketplace. IT must become a primary stakeholder in thebusiness decision-making process.

Enhancing IT Business Value

In order to establish their credibility and elevate their strategic impact within the corporatesphere, IT groups must clearly focus on directly supporting the business objectives of theorganization and emphasizing the business value IT provides. IT enables new ways of doing business and is better managed when considered as an asset to the developmentand execution of key business strategies. This requires IT groups to be able to show howtheir services make specific, tangible, and critical contributions to achieving businessoutcomes. It also requires that IT groups show how they are achieving the levels of security, efficiency, reliability, and agility that their businesses require.

This approach is more proactive than has been typical in the past. The traditional,perhaps legacy, view of IT has typically been that IT is a significant, potentially strategicinvestment, but not one that is expected to drive business value. At best, efficientlymanaged IT operations could be considered to contribute some cost savings to theorganization, but frequently even these benefits cannot be seen or quantified becausethere is no mechanism in place to capture the metrics.



In reality, IT can drive significant value in such non-traditional IT business areas as salesand customer support, in addition to such traditional IT areas as operational efficiency. Inorder to do this, IT groups must embrace a variety of business terminologies, methods,techniques, and concepts that are commonly employed elsewhere in the business world.

Example: MOF and Remote Access Service at Microsoft One example of how MOF helps drive IT business value was the evolution of Remote

Access Service (RAS) from a non-core, secondary service to a secure, easily usable,highly available, integral component of the Microsoft IT infrastructure. Over a 24-monthperiod, the Microsoft IT organization undertook a top-to-bottom overhaul of the RASinfrastructure that included monitoring, alarming, metrics gathering, and the setting of new standards for client technologies and applications to access the network. In parallelto these technology upgrades, Microsoft IT began a phased implementation of MOF tohelp manage the upgrade and service improvement projects.

As a result of this technology and service improvement effort, RAS quickly evolved into astrategic business-enabling service that is used to enhance staff mobility and reducebusiness unit costs. The Microsoft IT RAS solution seeks to make the user experience ona remote access session virtually indistinguishable from a corporate-connected LANexperience in accessibility, security, and performance. Approximately 85–90 percent of Microsoft’s 55,000 workers regularly access the service on a daily basis. According toMicrosoft IT, without a disciplined support model in place across the organization, theservice quality and total cost of ownership goals simply could not be met. MOF hasprovided that level of discipline.

Improving IT Cost Allocation

Without the ability to equate services with costs, it is practically impossible to quantify ITvalue to the bottom line. Conversely, exhibiting cost savings can graphically demonstrateIT service value. MOF provides a way to capture and present this data.

The table below illustrates a few examples of this concept in other industries. In each

case, costs are allocated to a measurable service task or component.Table 1. Examples of Cost Allocations and Benefits

Industry Activity Cost Benefit

Telecom Telephone call cost per minute

Ability to build profit margininto customer price.

Automobile Replacement cost of defective parts

Ability to cost-justifymanufacturing processimprovements to removedefects, and to increasewarranty coverage atminimum risk.

Consulting Hourly cost per consultantskill level and per salesagent

Ability to build sales costsinto consulting hourly rate.



MOF Executive Overview 5

Similarly, the following table shows examples of IT service costs and their associatedbenefits. These quantified benefits can clearly show the business value realized througheffective operations management.

Table 2. Examples of IT Cost Allocations and Benefits

IT Function Activity Cost Benefit

Help desk Cost per incident per user Ability to build help deskstaff increases into projectbudgets (capitalexpenditures) based onestimates of new user/newincident volumes, thuspreventing productivitylosses when users suffer system- or service-relatedwork stoppages and thehelp desk is not adequatelystaffed to handle therequest volumes.

System administration Cost per change type(major, standard, and soon)

Ability to provideoperational cost estimatesto keepapplications/systems up-to-date once in production.

Monitoring Cost per minute/hour of downtime per application

Ability to demonstrate valueto the bottom line providedby problem resolutioneffectiveness and bypreventative measures.

IT must not only translate business requirements into services that meet these

requirements, it must also strive for inclusion up front in the business’ strategy planning.This ensures that business and IT are aligned from the outset when new initiatives areestablished and facilitates IT in guiding business direction on the basis of new technologyas it becomes available. For example, if the business is planning a partnership withanother business, the business strategy would differ based on the business’understanding of available business-to-business technology options.

Example: Service Improvement at Microsoft

Microsoft IT is responsible for building, operating, and managing the global Microsoft ITinfrastructure. From this position, Microsoft IT can provide valuable feedback on theapplication and implementation of new Microsoft products to any enterprise businessprocess. As a result, Microsoft expects Microsoft IT to be its first and best customer.

Microsoft IT is an early adopter of Microsoft products, technologies, and processes, usingthe beta releases to provide feedback to improve the quality and functionality of releasedsolutions and products. By implementing and testing new products within the Microsoftbusiness processes, the business values can be documented to provide prescriptiveguidance and advice to customers. Microsoft IT creates IT Showcase documentation thatdescribes the business scenarios they’ve used and provides implementation andmanagement guidance to ensure that customers can effectively use the new productsthey adopt. The guidance and best practices provided by showcasing new productswithin the Microsoft IT business processes can help to reduce implementation anddeployment costs for all customers. As part of its ongoing commitment to utilize Microsoft



6 MOF Executive Overview

technologies and practices, Microsoft IT has made a CIO-level commitment to ensurethat all operations processes are based on MOF. MOF provides improvements inconsistency and maturity for diverse operational processes. In return, Microsoft ITdocuments both its own and customers’ data to improve and enhance prescriptiveguidance for future MOF and product releases.

In late 2002, Microsoft IT conducted a MOF assessment of its operations in six of the

MOF service management functions to identify redundant processes and optimize onbest practices, following MOF guidelines to improve process maturity. Although theassessment demonstrated that Microsoft IT generally had practices and processes inplace for most common tasks, in many cases they were not well documented or coordinated. For example, different groups within the organization had different ways tohandle change management, using multiple change management tools. Microsoft IT hasspent the last year running service improvement projects based on the recommendationsfrom the MOF assessment with dramatic results.

Other Microsoft operations groups, for example MSN and Microsoft.com, have alsoembraced MOF principles in structuring and managing their operations. Theserelationships between Microsoft operations groups and the MOF development grouphave greatly assisted in ongoing MOF development, through the ability to rapidlyevaluate and capture feedback relating to MOF guidance. As Microsoft rolls out next

generation infrastructure for in-house beta testing prior to release, MOF guidance todeploy, operate, support, and optimize that infrastructure is being developed in parallel.

Enhancing Your Organization with MOF

The following sections discuss the business value of adopting and using the variouscomponents of MOF

The IT Life Cycle and Microsoft Frameworks

Within any organization, the IT services and the applications and infrastructure thatsupport them have a finite life cycle. This cycle may be divided into three key sets of activities:

• Understand the business and operational needs for the service and create a solutionthat delivers these within the specified constraints.

• Effectively and efficiently deploy the solution to users with as little disruption to thebusiness as the service levels specify.

• Operate the solution with excellence in order to deliver a service that the businesstrusts.

Microsoft provides guidance and implementation packages for the effective employmentof our technologies across the entire gamut of the IT life cycle. This guidance is clusteredinto two frameworks—Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and Microsoft OperationsFramework (MOF). MSF addresses the first set of activities (analyzing the need andcreating a high-value solution); MSF and MOF coordinate processes and activities to

deploy the solution in the second set; and MOF addresses the final set of activities untilthe solution is retired. MOF also incorporates and extends a wealth of guidance that isalready available through other existing (and developing) IT standards organizations.These relationships are summarized in the following sections.




The IT life cycle and how MSF and MOF interact throughout it are depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The IT life cycle and Microsoft frameworks

The development and deployment of an IT solution typically involves two IT teams. The project team is assembled for a limited time to plan, build, and deploy the solution. MSFprovides a flexible and scalable way to plan, design, develop, and deploy successful ITsolutions. MSF guidance consists of principles, models, and disciplines for managing thepeople, process, technology elements, risks, and the trade-offs that most projectsencounter. For more information about MSF, see http://www.microsoft.com/msf .

In contrast, the operations team is permanent and is responsible for the solution’s dailyoperations and management. MOF is designed to guide the operations teams. It provides

technical guidance that enables organizations to achieve mission-critical systemreliability, availability, supportability, and manageability of IT solutions built with Microsoftproducts and technologies. MOF’s guidance addresses the people, process, technology,and management issues pertaining to operating complex, distributed, heterogeneous ITenvironments. For more information about MOF, see http://www.microsoft.com/mof .

The two frameworks are complementary, minimizing the time to value—that is, the timebetween recognition of the need and delivery of the service. Consistency of terminologyand concepts between the two frameworks also supports the delivery of a high-qualityservice.

The two frameworks are also well integrated. For example, the deployment of an ITsolution requires knowledge of the solution’s requirements and user controls as well asthe system requirements to operate it. MSF and MOF both include guidance for team

roles and processes that ensure a successful deployment into the productionenvironment. Throughout development, MSF and MOF emphasize the institution of processes to ensure that the solution (or any change to the IT environment) is built for operability and supportability and that it meets release requirements.

MOF guidance is based on the direct knowledge and experience of Microsoft, itspartners, and consultants in the daily operation of large and small IT environments andexecution of software and IT service development projects. Microsoft also incorporatesand aligns with acknowledged standards from within the worldwide IT industry, often

http://www.microsoft.com/msf









enhancing and extending generic standards to facilitate their employment in Windows-based operating environments.

Implementing MOF: Service Improvement Projectsand Solution Accelerators

MOF core guidance, available through white papers and other guidance documents,provides a solid foundation upon which to deploy and operate successful IT solutions.MOF is also incorporated into prescriptive guidance to enhance IT operations for specificfunctions and processes and in business solutions that combine tools and technologieswith MOF operations guidance.

The diagram below illustrates the relationship between MOF and these prescriptivesolutions. Core MOF guidance resides at the center of Microsoft operations guidance.These core principles are elaborated upon through a catalog of more than 20 servicemanagement function (SMF) documents, each of which describes and provides guidanceon a specific set of IT activities. In turn, the SMFs serve as the foundation for progressively more prescriptive guidance to achieve specific objectives. This guidance isavailable through service improvement project (SIP) guides and solution accelerators.

Each service improvement project (SIP) is intended to provide prescriptive guidance onimplementing or enhancing a particular service management function (or set thereof). For example, an organization may conduct a SIP specifically to enhance its support functionsby improving help desk operations. MOF has released a SIP guide to provide genericassistance in implementing projects of this type and is developing SIP guidance for specific SMFs for future release.

Solution accelerators combine Microsoft products, additional tools and technologies, andrelated SMFs to provide a packaged solution that adds service capabilities and businessvalue to your IT organization. Solution accelerators are available that assist in solvingseveral common business challenges, such as ensuring the efficient, reliable deploymentof Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 and business desktops, patch management, servicemonitoring and control, and others. By basing these solution accelerators on a MOFfoundation, Microsoft enhances the operability of deployed solutions, now and in the

future.




Figure 2 shows how MOF core guidance supports actionable solutions.

Figure 2. MOF core guidance supports actionable solutions

Currently available MSIM solution accelerators include:

• Business Desktop Deployment

• Enterprise Messaging

• Internet Data Center

• Service Monitoring and Control

• Domain Server Consolidation and Migration

• File and Print Server Consolidation and Migration

• Patch Management (several versions)

• Windows Server Deployment

For more information on these solution accelerators, visithttp://www.microsoft.com/technet.

MOF and ITIL

MOF aligns and builds on the IT service management practices that have beendocumented within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) maintained by the UnitedKingdom’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC). The OGC is a U.K. governmentexecutive agency chartered with development of best-practices advice and guidance onthe use of information technology in service management and operations. Microsoft hasbeen actively involved with the ITIL community since 1999, both using the ITIL contentand contributing to new and updated documentation, including co-authoring severalbooks.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet






ITIL currently includes more than 40 books. Of these, ten are of particular significance toa corporate IT organization. Figure 3 illustrates these ten titles and their relationships.

Figure 3. The ITIL publication framework

Each of these ITIL publications is devoted to a function of IT service management andcontains cross-references to its companion publications.

One goal of MOF is to extend and enhance the practices and guidance offered throughITIL in order to provide more detailed prescriptive guidance in specific areas of ITmanagement.

MOF is similar to ITIL in several ways:

• MOF (in conjunction with MSF) spans the entire IT life cycle.

• MOF is based on best practices for IT management, drawing on the expertise of an

international group of practitioners, including Microsoft World Wide Services,Microsoft Partners, Microsoft customers, and the internal (and extensive) Microsoft IToperations group.

• The MOF body of knowledge is applicable across the business community—fromsmall business to enterprise. MOF is not just for those operating on the Microsoftplatform within homogenous environments.

• Like ITIL, MOF has expanded to include more than just a documentation set. MOF isa core component of the MSIM solution accelerators, ensuring that solutions areoperable in your IT environment post-deployment. Furthermore, a variety of resources have been developed to support MOF principles and guidance, includingself-assessments, IT management tools that incorporate MOF terminology andfeatures, training programs and certification, and consulting services. These areoffered by numerous third-party vendors and consultants.

MOF expands upon and extends ITIL through the following:

• Addition of the MOF Team and Process Models and Risk Management Discipline(summarized subsequently within this document).

• Simplification of IT processes into a simple diagrammatic model, with all componentsand their relationships visible at a glance.

• Focus on the service-delivery level of IT management, rather than on IT operations intheir entirety. For example, ITIL identifies individual service functions such as ServiceLevel Management and Capacity Management; these are described within the ITIL




Service Delivery publication. In contrast, MOF individually recognizes over 20 servicedelivery functions (called service management functions in MOF) and devotes anentire publication to each of them, providing descriptions, examples, and bestpractice guidance.

• Combination of ITIL collaborative industry standards with specific guidelines for usingMicrosoft products and technologies.

• Scalability of MOF guidance and principles from implementation within a singleservice to implementation across a high-order structure such as a data center or entire operations environment. MOF also extends the ITIL code of practice to supportdistributed IT environments and such industry trends as application hosting and Web-based transactional and e-commerce systems.

MOF and Quality of Service Improvement Initiatives

IT organizations often implement service improvement programs as a result of feedbackobtained through MOF-based review exercises or other review processes. The questionmay arise, “Is MOF compatible with my preferred quality improvement methodology?”

In most cases, the answer is “Yes.” MOF and ITIL can be applied simultaneously withmost of the project management methodologies and standards that are currently

employed for service improvement. The following are some examples of compatibleprograms:

• PRINCE2 is a standard project management methodology (developed and madeavailable by the OGC) that can be applied to ensure improvement projects aremanaged systematically. Like MSF, PRINCE2 can be used to apply good projectmanagement skills to an operations environment for a structured approach to releaserollouts and/or service improvement projects.

• Six Sigma techniques are applicable, for example, to establish project rationales andcharters for quality improvement projects; these techniques can be used toimplement the original design and improvements to it. Total Quality Management(TQM), a related methodology, can be used in much the same way.

• Quality-management standards, such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000, can be applied in conjunction with ITIL to good effect.(For more information, see the ITIL publication Quality Management for IT Services.)Quality-management systems, such as the EFQM Excellence Model in Europe andthe Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the United States,complement these efforts.

• Capability maturity models (CMMs), such as Carnegie Mellon’s CMM and CapabilityMaturity Model Integration (CMMI), and ISO 15504, also known as Software ProcessImprovement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE), can be used with MOF todetermine the capability of one’s MOF SMFs against an industry-standardframework. The MOF Operations Assessment, for example, uses the ISO 15504standard as its basis.

• The IT Governance Institute develops and publishes its guidelines on IT governanceas Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT). Especially with

the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, corporate governance and audit are increasinglyimportant with businesses of all sizes.

Within MOF, several mechanisms have been included to assist in monitoring andenhancing quality of service. The Service Level Management SMF provides a means for IT operations to negotiate the service levels they will provide to service customers and tomonitor metrics to evaluate the quality provided. The MOF Optimizing Quadrant, one of four areas within the MOF Process Model, is dedicated to the assessment andenhancement of quality IT service.




Getting Started with MOF

MOF provides IT with an internationally recognized body of guidance to facilitate themanagement and operation of the IT infrastructure. Guidance may be applied withinorganizations of all sizes—from small businesses to global enterprises. An ITorganization can begin to apply MOF anywhere in the environment and then branch out

into other areas. Furthermore, MOF guidance may be applied incrementally, addingadditional components as an organization matures in its operating capabilities.

The MOF Team Model, described later in this document, defines a set of roles thatencompass the full range of activities involved in operating an IT infrastructure. MOFprovides flexibility in assigning these roles within an existing corporate organizationalhierarchy. Similarly, the MOF Process Model groups together common IT processes atvarious stages of the IT life cycle and associates them with the relevant roles.

Implementation of MOF may progress toward various levels of maturity. In addition,different processes and functions within MOF may progress at rates that are best suitedfor your business. The first step is to understand your current organization’s strengthsand weaknesses and then to prioritize your goals for improvement. Following that,organizations typically implement one or more service improvement projects (SIPs) toupgrade their capabilities within the desired IT service functions. In short, the flexibilityand modularity of the MOF structure permits you to quickly adapt MOF to fit your needsand your organizational structure.



3

The MOF Components

MOF comprises several components: core knowledge provided through white papers,prescriptive guidance presented through SIPs, SMFs, and solution accelerators, andtraining, made available through a network of qualified training partners. All of thesecomponents are based on these foundation elements of MOF:

• The Team Model

• The Process Model

• The Risk Management Discipline

These provide guidance about people, process, and risk management in IT servicemanagement. Each focuses on enabling technologies and best practices for achievinghigh systems availability, reliability, supportability, and manageability on the Microsoftplatform. They also provide guidance on interoperability with other technology platforms.

The sections that follow discuss the three MOF components.

The MOF Team Model

The MOF Team Model was developed to provide agility in adapting to the complexities of geographically or institutionally distributed teams managing distributed systems. Whilemaintaining a high degree of flexibility, the MOF Team Model also assigns specificaccountability and responsibility to team roles; this enables a MOF-based organization tomeasure and improve its effectiveness even though service functions may be spreadacross multiple locations and even through multiple subgroups.

The MOF Team Model organizes an IT operations organization into several role clusters;these are individuals or groups who perform related activities to accomplish a particular

component of an IT service. These role cluster assignments are based on industry bestpractices for structuring operations teams. MOF then provides additional guidance thatapplies collectively and individually to the role clusters, describing:

• Recommendations for scaling the teams for different sizes and types of organizations.

• Effective combination of roles for smaller teams.

• Interaction of MOF operations teams with MSF development teams.

Guiding Principles

Building successful, efficient operations teams requires more than just role andresponsibility descriptions. It also requires shared principles that instill a sense of

business priorities and establish set guidelines for how the team should function. The fiveprimary principles and guidelines that apply to all role clusters within the MOF TeamModel are:

• To provide timely, efficient, and accurate customer service.

• To understand the business priorities and enable IT to add business value.

• To build strong, synergistic virtual teams.

• To leverage IT automation and knowledge management tools.



• To attract, develop, and retain strong IT operations staff.

Team Model Role Clusters

Experience has shown that to be successful, IT management teams must achievenumerous quality goals associated with key service functions. The role clusters of theMOF Team Model are organized around seven general categories of activities andprocesses, each with its own set of quality goals. Role descriptions within a cluster arefocused specifically on activities directed to meet the quality goals; they are not jobdescriptions, and they do not imply any kind of corporate organization.

The following diagram maps the seven role clusters to two dozen possible functionalroles or function teams in a typical operations organization. The rest of this sectionsummarizes the functions of each of the seven role clusters.

Figure 4. MOF Team Model role clusters and examples of functional roles or function teams




Role Cluster Details

Descriptions for each of the role clusters are provided in the following table.

Table 3. Functions of MOF Role Clusters

Role Cluster Description

Infrastructure Defines physical environment standards.

Manages physical assets.

Maintains the IT infrastructure and oversees IT architectureevolution.

Coordinates building and office moves, expansions and acquisitions,and physical environment changes such as wiring, lab space, anduser connectivity.

Operations Ensures that daily, routine tasks are performed reliably withinspecific technology areas and production systems (messaging,system administration, and so on).

Performs such scheduled and repeatable processes as data backup,archiving and storage, output management, system monitoring andevent log management, and file and print server management.

Partner Defines and manages partnerships in a mutually beneficial and cost-effective manner.

Includes both the internal manager responsible for the relationshipswith external parties, and those parties themselves.

Release Tracks changes and lessons learned in a corporate knowledge base.

Tracks inventory and changes in a configuration managementdatabase (CMDB).

Acts as liaison between the change development team and theoperations groups; it encompasses the ITIL disciplines of configuration management and software control and distribution.

Security Ensures data confidentiality, data integrity, and data availability.

Influences business policies, such as defining exit procedures tofollow when an employee leaves the company.

Service Ensures that all of the IT services being provided to customers arealigned to the customers’ need for them.

Maintains a working relationship with customers, understanding their need for IT services, and managing the introduction of new services,service improvements, and (eventually) service reductions andretirements.

Support Provides technical support for internal and external customers,resolving incidents and problems using highly automated tools andknowledge base systems.

Provides production support for line-of-business (LOB) applications.

Gives feedback to the development and design team.




The MOF Process Model

The MOF Process Model provides a functional blueprint and description of the processesthat operations teams perform to manage and maintain IT services. It assumes that theoperations group’s main responsibility is managing change in the IT environment. Themost effective way to deal with change throughout the lifespan of a service is to group

related changes together into a package called a release, so that the changes can beplanned and managed as a unit. The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that canbe applied to any release and the processes and activities that make up each part of thatlife cycle.

Guiding Principles

The MOF Process Model is based on four guiding principles:

• Structured architecture. The MOF Process Model organizes all operational activitiesneeded for mission-critical computing in a complex IT environment.

• Rapid life cycle, iterative improvement. MOF supports an iterative IT life cycle thatfacilitates rapid assessment and change to respond to evolving business needs.

•Review-driven management. The Process Model requires operations managementreviews (OMRs) at key points in the life cycle. In these reviews, the team and keystakeholders evaluate performance for release-based activities as well as time-basedoperational activities.

• Embedded risk management. Since the ultimate business cost of an IT service failurecan be catastrophic, MOF proactively manages risk throughout operationalprocesses.

Process Model Quadrants

The MOF Process Model describes a life cycle that can be applied to releases of any sizeand relating to any service solution. The model groups similar IT management functionscalled service management functions (SMFs) into each of four quadrants. Each quadrant

owns a specific mission of service. Note that, although the circular aspect of the MOFProcess Model implies that management activities occur sequentially, in fact severalreleases, each at a different stage in the IT life cycle, may occur simultaneously within anIT organization. Furthermore, the service management functions described in theOperating and Supporting quadrants all occur continuously and simultaneously within thedata center.




The following diagram illustrates the basic life cycle, including the four quadrants and thefour OMRs.

Figure 5. The MOF Process Model

The following table lists the mission of service and the OMR for each quadrant.

Table 4.MOF Process Model Quadrants, Mission of Service, and OMRs

Quadrant Mission of Service OMR

Changing Introduce new service solutions,technologies, systems, applications,hardware, and processes.

Release Readiness Reviewprovides approval to deploy thefully developed and testedrelease.

Operating Execute day-to-day tasks effectively

and efficiently.

Operations Review is

scheduled periodically toevaluate IT staff’s ability tomaintain a given service, meetservice level requirements, anddocument its experience in aknowledge base.

Supporting Resolve incidents, problems, andinquiries quickly.

Service level agreement (SLA)is performed periodically andevaluates the staff’s ability tomeet the service levelrequirements defined in theservice level agreement.

Optimizing Drive changes to optimize cost,performance, capacity, andavailability in the delivery of ITservices.

Change Initiation Reviewincreases the likelihood thatproposed changes are inalignment with businessobjectives and operabilityrequirements.

Two of the OMRs are driven by the release schedule. The Change Initiation Review(formerly the Release Approved Review) is completed before formal development workbegins on a new or updated release, and the Release Readiness Review is conducted




before deploying the release into the production environment. The Operations Reviewand the SLA Review are held at regular intervals after the introduction of a release inorder to assess the internal operations and performance against customer service levels.

As a result, the Operating Quadrant is where MOF will provide the majority of theoperation’s guidance specific to Microsoft products and technologies. In addition, due tothe focus that Microsoft applies to IT operations, many products are now incorporating

features and functions directly targeted at making them more supportable, reliable, andmanageable. Where applicable, MOF extends the foundational IT SMFs of ITIL withspecific references to Microsoft products and features that either automate or improve thedelivery of the SMF.

The Service Management Functions

Each of the SMFs within a particular quadrant shares a common mission of service or goal. Many of the SMFs are based upon the OGC’s IT Infrastructure Library. The notableexceptions are Workforce Management (in the Optimizing Quadrant) and all SMFs in theOperating Quadrant. Because ITIL is platform-independent, it does not cover these items.SMFs are best practices and typically will require customization to address unique or specific requirements of a particular operations environment.

The SMFs and the quadrants they belong to are shown in the following figure.

Figure 6. MOF Process Model and SMFs




Each SMF has specific guidance written for it within MOF. Each guidance documenttypically provides:

• General principles for the specific service management functional area.

• A description of the roles involved in implementing the service function and their responsibilities.

• Annotated lists of the daily, weekly, monthly, and as-needed tasks required to applythe SMF in a production environment.

A more detailed overview of the SMFs and their components is provided in the MOF Process Model for Operations document.

Process and Team Model Convergence

The MOF Team Model role clusters generally align with the four process quadrants of theMOF Process Model, as shown in the following diagram. Note that multiple roles may beinvolved in a single quadrant, and a single role (such as Supplier or Security) may beinvolved in multiple quadrants. The Partner Role Cluster may be involved anywherewithin the Process Model, so is omitted for brevity.

Figure 7. MOF Team Model role clusters and their alignment to the MOF ProcessModel quadrants




The MOF Risk Management Discipline

MOF and MSF collect guidance pertaining to risk management into a body of knowledgecalled a discipline. A distinction is made between disciplines and models sinceknowledge contained within a discipline may be applied at any stage of any process. The

MOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines are substantially identical, althoughdescriptions and examples provided in their detailed presentations may vary.

The MOF Risk Management Discipline applies proven risk management techniques tothe daily problems faced by operations staff. Many models, frameworks, and processesexist for managing risks. These all share similarities in how they identify and manage risk.The MOF and MSF Risk Management Disciplines improve upon most of these riskmanagement schemes through the application of key principles, a customizedterminology, a structured and repeatable risk analysis and evaluation process, andintegration into a larger operations framework.

Guiding Principles

The MOF Risk Management Discipline advocates these principles for successful risk

management in operations:• Assess risks continuously. This means the team never stops searching for new risks,

and it means that existing risks are periodically re-evaluated.

• Integrate risk management into every role and every function. At a high level, thismeans that every IT role shares part of the responsibility for managing risk, and everyIT process is designed with risk management in mind.

• Treat risk identification positively. For risk management to succeed, team membersmust be willing to identify risk without fear of retribution or criticism.

• Use risk-based scheduling. Maintaining an environment often means makingchanges in a sequence and, where possible, making the riskiest changes first toavoid wasting time and resources on changes that cannot be released.

• Establish an acceptable level of formality. Success requires a process that the teamunderstands and uses.

These principles are summarized in the word proactive. A team that practices proactiverisk management acknowledges that risk is a normal part of operations and, instead of fearing risk, the team views it as an opportunity to safeguard the future. Team membersdemonstrate a proactive mindset by adopting a visible, measurable, repeatable,continuous process through which they objectively evaluate risks and opportunities andtake action that addresses the causes of risk as well as its symptoms.




Risk Management Process

The following diagram illustrates the steps of the risk management process: identify,analyze, plan, track, control, and learn. It is important to understand that each risk goesthrough all of these steps at least once and often cycles through each of them numeroustimes. Also, each risk has its own timeline, so multiple risks might be in each step at any

point in time.

Figure 8. The process of managing risk

The six steps in the process lead risk managers and team members through a process toidentify risk, determine its potential impact, and plan to deal with it in a proactive manner.Other steps in the process enable organizations to track risks throughout the IT life cycle,control risks as they occur, and learn from experience.



4

Appendix: Suggested Reading and

TrainingThe following guidance documents, solution accelerators, courses, and books offer additional information about MOF, ITIL, and IT service management.

Guidance Documents and Solution Accelerators

In-depth descriptions, explanations, and examples are available for the core MOFcomponents described in this overview. The MOF Team and Process Models, as well asthe Risk Management Discipline, are each fully developed in separate papers. Each of the service management functions listed is also the subject of a focused guidance

document. In turn, all of these resources list related and associated guidance documentsthat may be applied. These are available from the Microsoft MOF Web site athttp://www.microsoft.com/mof .

Further information on solution accelerators related to IT management may be viewed athttp://www.microsoft.com/business/reducecosts/efficiency/manageability/bestpractices.mspx.

Additional information on Microsoft Solutions Framework is available athttp://www.microsoft.com/msf/.

For additional information on ITIL, visit http://www.itil.co.uk/ .

Courses

Suggested courses on ITIL and MOF are:

• ITIL Service Management Essentials

• Microsoft Operations Framework Essentials (1737B)

• Microsoft Operations Framework Changing Quadrant (1787B)

For course availability, see http://www.microsoft.com/learning/training/default.asp.

Books

The following book is recommended for additional information about the concepts in thisdocument:

• IT Service Management, IT Service Management Forum/CCTA, ITIMF Ltd., 1995


http://www.microsoft.com/business/reducecosts/efficiency/manageability/bestpractices.mspx


http://www.microsoft.com/msf/


http://www.itil.co.uk/

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/training/default.asp






http://www.itil.co.uk/
