A Detailed Guide on ITSM Application Management

As industries continue to expand, more and more businesses are turning towards the IT sector to digitalise their operations. The IT industry has had a major impact on most enterprises and helped transform how organisations function.

The IT sector has evolved in the past few years and has come up with solutions that have been of immense help to several businesses. One such product that has come out of this is the ITIL methodology falling under the ITSM framework.

ITSM, which stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a globally recognised service-based IT management approach meant to standardise the lifecycle of a service. It includes planning, maintenance, and delivery of services by integrating IT and business solutions.

ITSM application management is a process that falls under the ITSM framework. But what is it, and why is it considered to be one of the most important aspects of the system?

ITSM Application Management: An Overview

Any project or service has a life cycle, and ITSM takes care of this cycle by following a disciplined phase-oriented approach. Application management falls under ITSM and is a vital element of the process.

In simple words, application management is the process of handling, assisting, and controlling applications that come under a service life cycle. It is important for designing, developing, testing, and implementing IT services and applications.

The ITSM life cycle consists of five stages: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. Application management in ITSM oversees the applications that are present in each of these stages in the life cycle. It is not a one-time project. Application management, by its nature, is a continuous effort that requires constant overseeing and examination.

ITSM Application Management: Objectives

ITSM application management aims to improve business operations, manage, change, or eliminate applications, and create new ones as required. These objectives are achieved by

Creating applications that are smart, useful, and intelligent.
Making sure that the organization has the right tools to attain its objectives.
Ensuring that the technical staff is responsible for managing these applications that have specialized knowledge.
Finding and solving technical errors along the way.

ITSM Application Management Phase

Application Management that falls under ITIL has six different stages. These are:

Define

In the first phase, the IT team works with the business unit and defines the requirements of the application. This is done regardless of whether the application management is being customised or buying an existing application.

Design

After assessing the requirements, the next step is to convert them into technical solutions and specifications. Since it assesses the software engineering and operational needs of the project, it requires specialised IT infrastructural professionals to get involved and perform the necessary steps to achieve the results.

Build

This is when the coding and testing happen. Each component is tested individually as well as with others in order to find any structural errors. This is a repetitive phase, as customisation continuously occur as we continue testing.

Deploy

In this phase, the applications are released into production libraries. Here, we see how the applications function in a production environment.

Operate

In this phase, we understand the application’s operational model, addressing any changes in requirements. Here, one fixes all the flaws discovered during the operation and monitors and examines how the application is performing.

Optimise

In the operational phase, the applications are assessed and examined, and we get an overall idea of how it performs. In the last phase, the team looks into any improvement opportunities to optimise the performance of the applications, find any potential risks that can be encountered in the future, and finally, ensure that they achieve customer satisfaction.

Application Management Life Cycle

The application management life cycle has been an advantageous addition to the ITSM framework. It has streamlined the whole process of integrating applications and made it more transparent, making it the best practice.

As the life cycle goes through the first two phases, Define and Design, you identify what requirements are to be laid down to achieve the most out of these applications. It makes you look deeper into your resources and discover what works and doesn’t.

The next two phases work hand in hand with the application management lifecycle. This is where you start to build, create, test, and eventually see how they would work in a production environment. These two phases are continuously working together; once you build, you must deploy in order to find any structural flaws and fix them.

The last two phases form part of the software evaluation. Seeing the application operate in a real environment is essential, and once you do, you can find out what changes and improvements can be made to optimize its performance.

What are the Different Levels of ITSM Certification?

There are five levels to ITSM certification.

Foundation Level

You learn to understand the basic ITSM ideas, concepts and terminologies at this level. You can employ basic techniques to make operations efficient and simpler.

Practitioner Level

This level teaches you how to customise the ITSM and ITSM framework in order to achieve your organisation’s business goals. As an ITIL practitioner, you learn to create a strategy for Continual Service Improvement (CSI).

Intermediate Level

Here you get in-depth knowledge of the modular framework and learn more about service operations, technology, and managing success and risk factors.

Expert Level

This is an amalgamation of all the levels, giving you a thorough knowledge of the entire ITSM/ITSM framework.

Master Level

This is the highest form of certification and is for those ITSM professionals who have shown great expertise in using the ITSM management methodology. To get this certification, you must have five years of experience in leadership in management/upper-management positions.

In Conclusion

The ITSM Application Management may just be a function of ITSM, but it has one of the most important tasks of ensuring that the applications created and maintained under each stage are taken care of. With a certification in an already recognized IT service management approach, you can help enterprises with their IT-business integrations.