A service catalog, is an organized and curated collection of any and all
business and information technology related services that can be performed
by, for, or within an enterprise. Service catalogs act as knowledge
management tools for the employees and consultants of an enterprise, allowing
them to route their requests for and about services and services related
topics to the subject matter experts who own, are accountable for, and operate
them. Each service within such service catalogs is usually very repeatable and
has controlled inputs, processes, and outputs.
Service catalogs also allow leadership and management, for example the Chief
Operations Officer, to compartmentalize the enterprise into highly structured
and more efficient operational units, hence the descriptive phrase: "a
service-oriented enterprise." Service centralization
A service catalog is a means of centralizing all services that are
important to the stakeholders of the enterprises which implement and use it.
Given its digital and virtual implementation, via software, the
service catalog acts, at a minimum, as a digital registry and a means for highly
distributed enterprises to see, find, invoke, and execute services regardless
of where they exist in the world. This means that people in one part of the
world can find and utilize the same services that people in other parts of
the world use, eliminating the need to develop and support local services via a
federated implementation model. Centralizing services also acts as a
means of identifying service gaps and redundancies that can then be addressed
by the enterprise to improve itself. Service catalog composition
Service catalogs are implemented in a manner that facilitate the registration,
discovery, request, execution, and tracking of desired services for catalog
users. Each service within the catalog typically includes traits and elements
such as: Clear ownership of and accountability
for the service A name or identification label for the
service A description of the service
A service categorization or type that allows it to be grouped with other
similar services Related service request types
Any supporting or underpinning services Service level agreement data and
information that helps service providers set expectations for their service
requestors Who is entitled to request/view the
service Associated costs
How to request the service and how its delivery is fulfilled
Escalation points and key contacts The more descriptive the service details
are, the easier it is for end users of the service catalog to find and invoke
the services they desire. Catalog categories
A service catalog is commonly structured in a manner where its registered
services are categorized. A large percentage of Categories for services
are derived from the areas of an enterprise and the functions it
performs, such as Information Technology, Operations, and Fulfillment.
Examples of common service categories include Marketing Services, Product
Development Services, Fulfillment Services, and Support Services, which
are consumed and performed by most businesses.
The purpose of categorization of services is to facilitate service
curation, such as how books may be curated in a library.
Resource management The utilization of service catalogs
allow enterprises to allocate and track resources, both human and systemic,
which are required for successful service delivery, operations, and
support. This allows enterprises to understand where resources are
allocated, whether there are too many or too few resources allocated, and whether
or not the resources allocated are adequate for purpose. It also allows an
understanding of what resources are shared between multiple services versus
those that are fully dedicated to a single service.
Metrics driven transparency Benefits of implementing and maintaining
a service catalog include allowing an enterprise to track and manage metrics
that represent the utilization of services and service-related traits,
such as those associated with service supply and demand. For example,
enterprises can track and measure: Services that are most and least used
Services that are successfully delivering versus those that struggle to
deliver How many service requests are being
invoked for each service How many service deliverables are making
it to their targeted service requestors Who invokes what services most or least
How much time it takes to approve service requests
How much time it takes to deliver service outputs, once requests are
approved Service finances, such as how much is
spent on each service by those who invoke them and those who provide them
In addition to the above, a service catalog also helps leadership and
management better see and understand correlations of service related work,
assets, and resources to the people, organizations, and projects that request
them. IT service catalog
An IT service catalog is a subset of an enterprise service catalog and is
defined by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library Service Design to
be an exhaustive list of IT-only services that an organization provides
or offers to its employees or customers. The catalogue is the only part of the
Service Portfolio that is published to customers and is used to support the
sale and/or delivery of IT services. A user's perspective
A user goes to a website to search for a specific service, such as requesting a
new laptop, requesting a change in benefits, or adding a new employee to a
department. The service catalog site groups services by category and allows
for searching. The user selects a desired service and sees the description
and details. The user enters any pertinent information and submits the
request for service. The request requires approval, and goes through
routing, service-level management, and other processes necessary to fulfill the
request. The user may return to the site later to check on the status of a
request, or to view overall metrics on how well the organization is performing
the services it provides. A business unit manager's perspective
Business Unit Managers determine what services to "publish" to end-users via
the service catalog. Business Unit Managers and Analysts would determine
what questions are to be asked of the user, any approvals necessary for a
request, and what other systems or processes are needed to fulfill the
request. Once the service is defined and the fulfillment process organized, these
people or a more technical employee would build the requisite functionality
into the service definition and then publish this to the service catalog.
Service catalogs for cloud computing services
The use of a service catalog for cloud computing services is an integral part
of deploying services on private and public clouds. Users wishing to consume
cloud services would use a cloud service catalog to view what cloud services are
available, their function, and know the technologies used to provide the
services. Users would also see the available
different service level options based on latency and reliability. With this
knowledge, users are able to change the configuration of the technologies used
to deliver the services based on cost, performance and technology improvements.
By seeing and understanding the different services available through the
cloud users can better appreciate what is available to them, compared to
traditional IT whereby one group of users or business unit may be unaware of
the technologies available to another unit.
Accessed by self-service portals, service catalogs contain a list of cloud
services from which cloud consumers select for self-provisioning of cloud
services. This removes the need for users to work through various IT
departments in order to provision a cloud service, nor are users required to
provide detailed IT specifications. They are only required to provide business
and organization requirements. To make selection easier and to speed
service deployment, service definitions are often standardized in cloud service
catalogs. This presents three benefits: improved capacity planning, particularly
if standard components are used; quicker service provisioning; and better buying
forecasts which helps to lower costs. Automation is an aspect of cloud service
catalog that has been noted. Cloud service catalogs have been described as
enabling "cloud on auto-pilot" enabling cloud users to build cloud services
based on pre-built templates selected from catalogs.
See also IT Governance
Information Technology Infrastructure Library
IT Service Management References