Re: [soa-rm-ra] ITIL and SOA management

[michael.poulin@uk.fid-intl.com]

As a result of ITIL v.3 publication, we have an inquiry in Yahoo! SOA Group to understand a difference between ITIL definition of a service and OASIS definition of a business service. Below, I put an extract from the inquiry:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I'm having a hard time in determining if the service definition as
defined by the ITIL v3 process - "Service Portfolio Management (SPM)",
represents services the same way as OASIS defines them. Though I
understand that ITIL services are services provided by IT to the
business, wouldn't that be what a business service from the OASIS
perspective end up doing? While I'm still going through the in-depth
ITIL documentation, their definition of a service:
* A product is what we sell or deliver to customers
* A service is an IT activity that supports delivery of that product

In SOA, when a Business service is implemented, isn't that an IT
activity that supports the delivery of a product? A product that a
company offers may actually constitute many business functions and
would be mapped to different business services. So the ITIL
definitions seem valid, though I do feel like the ITIL definition of
services probably goes further to cover a more broad set of IT
specific functions that one wouldn't list as business services. For
example - I struggle to see Email (as per their example) as what is
called a customer facing service(CFS) , as a business service.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I agree with Jeff  ITIL service is ITs operational activity called service in our days. This is not a managed service in RA definition. However, the question was asked. I think, we have to answer.

In the ITIL definition A product is what we sell or deliver to customers, the word product is a substitute and not strong synonym to the IT action/activity. This leads to ambiguity. 

I see certain mixture in the authors explanations about product, business functions AND business services. Nevertheless, I think that major difference between ITIL product/service and our manageable business service is in the service provider: in the ITIL  it is the IT per se, in the RA  it is a business and/or technological component, which may include elements unrelated to IT (e.g. manual operations involved in the process managed by a SW service component). Also, I think that SOA service does not just support business, it is the part of the business service in the business (business model).

Cheers,
- Michael