ASL (Application Services Library): A Framework for Application Management

Description

The Application Service Library IT is explained in this manual for managers, consultants, and service managers. The only public domain application management standard in the world, the ASL's best practices are covered as well as all the processes needed to provide a comprehensive application management service and create standard work processes, helping reduce costs and improve the quality of service.

CONTENTS:

ASL
ASL
a Framework
for Application
Management
a Framework
for Application
Management
Title: ASL A Framework for Application Management
Author: Remko van der Pols
Translation from Dutch: Hans van Bemmelen
Review board: Machteld Meijer, Brian Johnson, Dick Costeris, Bert Franken
Project management: BMG
Cover design: DTPresto grafisch ontwerp & layout
Layout and typesetting: beeldvorm, Pijnacker
Print: Hentenaar Boek
Publisher: Van Haren Publishing (info@vanharen.net)
Edition: First print, first edition, January 2004
ISBN: 90 77212 05 1
 ASL Foundation/Van Haren Publishing 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
5
Preface
Information systems have been developed, managed and maintained for decades. Every
application management organisation has developed its own way of working and so far
little effort has been made to standardise the maintenance and control of the application
management processes. This is surprising given that application management accounts
for a large proportion of IT expenditure. Standard work processes will generally lead to
cost reductions. As it is expensive to reinvent the wheel it is better to benefit from the
experiences of others.
Fortunately, the tide is turning and there is now an effective option for application management.
This has resulted in a process framework and underlying best practices for application
management (i.e. maintenance and control, enhancement and renovation of
applications). This framework is called ASL (Application Services Library) and is the
only public domain application management standard in the world. The framework includes
all processes needed to deliver a comprehensive application management service
and has been available for several years.
In this book Remko van der Pols gives a clear description of the Application Services Library
framework and provides the first in-depth description of the application management
processes. He has done an excellent job and clearly positions the ASL processes as
complementary to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). He also
identifies options to improve the provision of IT services as a whole. He was greatly supported
by colleagues such as Machteld Meijer-Veldman, one of the architects of ASL.
Some of the extensive ASL experience built up by PinkRoccade was incorporated into the
framework by Chris Nap, Kees Deurloo, Dolf Hoogland, Frank van Outvorst, Rene Sieders
and Leo Plucinski. The assessors were Rene Visser and, of course, Pieter Hofman, the
brains behind R2C, an earlier model on which parts of ASL are based.
As the Application Services Library is in the public domain, both internal as external IT
service providers can benefit from the standardisation of the application management
processes through uniform and unambiguous communications. There are very clear opportunities
for gains through a combination of cost reduction and quality improvement.
The ASL Foundation will promote ASL as the de facto standard for application management
through publicity, quality assurance and a knowledge database.
You will find more information on www.aslfoundation.org or you may contact us on
info@aslfoundation.org.
I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to the translation of this reference
work, especially the review board Machteld Meijer-Veldman, Brian Johnson, Bert Franken
and Dick Costeris and Herbert Boland, the project manager.
I hope that you will become as inspired by ASL as many before you and that you will be
able to benefit from it.
Bilthoven, January 2004
Gert J. van Heun
Managing director ASL Foundation
7
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
CHAPTER 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER 2 ASL position and messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 The application management environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 The ASL messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.1 Application management requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.2 The single point of contact: the service team . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.3 Clear agreements: service level agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.4 Looking towards the future: proactive IT support . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.5 Public domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
CHAPTER 3 The ASL framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1 Application management framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 The structure of the ASL framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.1 Services approach and applications approach . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.2 Strategy, management and operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER 4 The maintenance processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2 Incident management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3 Configuration management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4 Availability management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.5 Capacity management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.6 Continuity management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
CHAPTER 5 Enhancement and renovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2 Impact analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.3 Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.4 Realisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.5 Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.6 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
ASL A Framework for Application Management
8
CHAPTER 6 Connecting processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.2 Change management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.3 Software control and distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
CHAPTER 7 Management processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.2 Planning and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.3 Cost management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.4 Quality management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
7.5 Service level management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
CHAPTER 8 Applications Cycle Management (ACM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
8.2 ICT developments strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.3 Customer environment strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.4 Customer organisation strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
8.5 Life cycle management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
8.6 ICT portfolio management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
CHAPTER 9 Organisation Cycle Management (OCM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9.2 Market definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
9.3 Account definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
9.4 Skills definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
9.5 Technology definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
9.6 Service delivery definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
CHAPTER 10 Relationships with other forms of management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
10.2Why have ASL in addition to the other management models? . . . 147
10.3 Process interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
10.4 The service team and its structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
CHAPTER 11 Application and introduction of ASL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
11.1 Applying the ASL framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
11.2 Initial state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11.3 Implementing ASL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11.4 The end result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
APPENDIX 1 ASL processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
APPENDIX 2 Notes to the process flowcharts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
APPENDIX 3 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
APPENDIX 4 ASL Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
ASL is the acronym of Application Services Library; a collection
of best practice guidance about managing application development
and maintenance. There are four key messages:
 - Application management, the maintenance and enhancement of
Information Systems, is becoming increasingly important.
 - The market demands that application management becomes
more professional and more forward looking, this is partly a result
of the developments in infrastructure management (technical
management).
 - There are no standard management processes, the best practices
differ between organisations and systems.
 - There is now a generic framework for application management:
Application Services Library (ASL).
1.1 Background
The ever-increasing role of application management
Information systems have been managed, maintained and enhanced for over three decades.
Together, these activities are known as application management, and are probably
the most common job in the IT industry. The focus is usually on the development of information
systems, and rarely on their maintenance and enhancement (management
and updating). However, organisations are not interested in the development of information
systems for their own sake - they want to use and modify such systems to support
their operations.
The role of effective applications and application management will increase in the next
few years. Increasing connectivity will not reduce the need for information systems and
their effective maintenance and enhancement - on the contrary, their performance,
good or bad, will only become more apparent. The increasing need for flexibility and a
shorter time-to-market means that applications and their components will have a longer
life, simply because there is no time to replace them. Finally, now that information tech-
ASL A Framework for Application Management
10
nology has been used for forty years, the demand is for replacement of existing systems,
rather than introducing more information technology. The new applications will simply
replace the old ones.
There is a demand for more professional application management
Application management is essential because the operation of the business processes depends
on it. In recent years, interest in application management has increased significantly.
The introduction of ITIL greatly encouraged a service-based approach. However,
ITIL is primarily concerned with infrastructure. So far there has been no public domain
methodology for application maintenance and enhancement.
The lack of uniformity
Another development is the greater differentiation in application management and the
demands made of it. The technical developments of the last thirty years are reflected in
application management: the transition from large legacy systems (with strict requirements
in terms of stability, reliability and security) to the new legacy of client-server systems
and finally dynamic systems based on the Internet (the future legacy). All of these
require application management, and to add to the complexity, there are more dependencies
than ever before. This means that application management cannot depend on a
single standard solution, or one set of best practices. Instead, it demands a framework
which is filled with best practices to suit each situation.
ASL
All these needs are met by ASL. ASL is a framework for application management processes.
It is the public domain standard for application management. It is an independent
standard, separate from the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), but linked to it in terms of
adherence to standards for managing processes and providing a coherent, rigorous, public
domain set of guidance. The reason for this is that infrastructure management is different
from application management. Another aspect is that flexible business operations
do not require large organisations or processes, but instead small, complete units. ASL
ties in with all these developments.
ASL is more than just a framework. It is supported by best practices drawn from a
number of organisations (see www.aslfoundation.org). The ASL concept is continually
being developed by the foundation and its supporters.
This book introduces ASL and its philosophy for the maintenance and enhancement of
applications. Please note that elsewhere the ASL concepts of 'maintenance and enhancement'
are sometimes referred to as 'management and updating'.
It also includes a thorough discussion of the framework. The processes relevant to maintenance
and management are discussed on the basis of practical expertise, and the practical
approach extends to the examples and subjects covered. These processes set the di-
Chapter 1 Introduction
11
rection which ensures that an organisation will be able to operate effectively in the market
in the medium term, as there are now very few organisations which are not dependent
on information systems.
1.2 Objective
The requests for this book came from different backgrounds. The objectives of this book
are to provide:
p information about the background and objectives of ASL;
p a structure for setting up ASL processes and links to the associated best practices;
p a convenient reference book about the processes.
This book will therefore help you learn:
p more about the ASL framework and the links to the associated practices;
p more about the maintenance and enhancement of information systems;
p how to organise these activities, and what needs to be considered.
This book does not provide:
p ASL as a whole, the best practices: those are available from the ASL Foundation;
p a step-by-step manual for maintenance, enhancement and renovation - after all, application
management is not something you can just learn from a book.
1.3 Structure
The structure of this book is as follows: Chapter 2 discusses the environment surrounding
ASL, such as the trends, the requirements ASL aims to meet, and the major concepts.
Chapter 3 discusses the general ASL framework: the structure of the model in outline, as
well as the resulting clusters of ASL processes.
The following chapters develop these clusters and the underlying processes in greater
detail using a standard structure, starting with an introduction of the objective of the
process, followed by a description of the major issues relevant to the process, then the
process activities, results and relationships with other processes. The first two sections of
these chapters provide background and some details about ASL. The last three sections
of these chapters about each process (activities, results and relationships) are highly detailed
and provide the reference element of this book.
Chapter 10 discusses the position of ASL in its environment and how it fits into it, as well
as the detailed relationships between ASL and other models such as the Functional Management
model and ITIL. The implementation of ASL is discussed in Chapter 11.

13
CHAPTER 2
ASL position and messages
The ASL messages
 - Application management does not operate in a vacuum, it forms
the bridge between functional management (the client) and
technical management (the computer centre).
 - The requirements associated with application management include
uniformity, control, reliability, clear structure, and an eye
to the future.
 - ASL presents these messages through the service team, service
levels and associated customer units, the public domain approach,
and processes for the applications and application management
organisation which are ready for future challenges.
2.1 The application management environment
Application management does not operate in a vacuum, it has links with other forms of
management: functional management and technical management. These forms of management
were identified by M. Looijen in Information systems, Management, Control and
Maintenance, see Figure 1. This structure is also used in Thiadens' lectures and books, but
the naming of the management disciplines and processes is still being discussed within
the Netherlands. However, despite the ongoing terminology discussions, these elements
are now widely recognised.
Functional management is responsible for maintaining the functionality of an ICT resource,
on behalf of the user organisation. In essence, functional management acts as the
owner who commissions the information system.
Application management is responsible for maintaining and enhancing the application
software and databases. This means that it manages and maintains the information system
(application). This requires expertise in areas such as programming, systems development,
design and impact analysis.
ASL A Framework for Application Management
14
Technical management is responsible for maintaining the operations of the information
system, consisting of the hardware, software and databases. In essence, it is the organisation
which runs the information systems and maintains the infrastructure. This will often
be the computer centre. ITIL is a widely adopted standard in this area.
Fucntional
management
Technical
management
Application
management
ICT: information and communication technology
 - Operational perspective
 - Technical aspects
 - Computer/communications centre
IS: information systems/applications
 - Enhancement aspects
 - Information perspective
 - Enhancement organisation/systems
development
Provision of information
 - User/organisational perspective
 - Business aspects
 - System owner and functional managers
Figure 1 Forms of management
As its name suggests, ASL is only concerned with the second form of management: application
management.
2.2 The ASL messages
2.2.1 Application management requirements
The development of ASL was based on a number of requirements and developments. It
also benefited from the strengths of other management models. This led to the identification
of the requirements to be met by ASL, which include:
p Transparency, organisations have a great need for clear information about application
management services and the associated costs. Given the magnitude of these costs they
have to be in-line with market rates.
Chapter 2 ASL position and messages
15
p Management of costs, applications and the provision of services. Clearly, transparency is
useless if there is no management. In many organisations, the need for applications is
linked to the primary business processes. This requires careful consideration, valid basis,
and comparison of the alternatives (business case).
p Transferability and compatibility of people and the application management organisation.
The provision of information is essential to many businesses - without effective information
systems there is no business. The continuity of information systems is therefore essential
to the continuity of the organisation. Dependence on a few individuals (designers
or programmers) is incompatible with that.
p Flexibility of applications and a forward-looking approach. Information systems are now
so large that their replacement often takes years. Many applications have a longer life
than expected. Around 80% of the current applications will still be in use in five years. As
applications are at the core of the organisation they affect the competitive position of a
business, now and in five years. It would therefore be appropriate to take a longer term
approach to these information systems.
p Reliability, an inadequate information system poses an immediate, major risk to the continuity
of an information-intensive organisation.
p Uniformity of application management and compatibility between applications are increasingly
important given the explosive growth in connectivity between organisations.
ASL has four main concepts to meet these requirements:
p The service team concept: providing a central point of contact which is responsible for all
ICT services, to present a uniform interface to the user organisation.
p Service levels: as a tool for managing the provision of services, as well as providing information
about the costs.
p Proactive innovation of applications and services.
p The public domain concept.
2.2.2 The single point of contact: the service team
ASL assumes that there is one body, the service team which is responsible for managing
the entire life cycle of the provision of information. It serves as a bridge between the user
organisation and the IT professionals, and provides a clear point of contact for the customer.
A service team makes the ICT organisation transparent to the customer. There is one
body responsible for the operation, maintenance and updating of their information supply.
The service team operates as a partner of the user organisation, and as the IT services
contractor.
A service team provides a single point of contact for all organisations required to provide
the information supply service as a whole. Hence the service team may represent more
ASL is the name of the only public domain standard for application
management: Application Services Library.
This book is a standard book for anyone who wants to know what ASL
means for the application management domain. The book describes ASL
and all the processes involved. It is based on the experiences of many.
Title: ASL, a Framework for Application Management
ISBN: 90-77212-20-5-1
Author: Remko van der Pols
Publisher: Van Haren Publishing (http://www.vanharen.net)
Summary and additional information on ASL: see the ASL
Foundation website: http://www.aslfoundation.org/
Ordering information: the ASL book can be purchased at several sites,
like:
* Van Haren Publishing: http://www.vanharen.net/eng/bestelform.php?volgnummer=73
* ITIL BOOKS: http://www.itilbooks.com
* BOL: http://www.bol.com