Towards an information model for ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 processes

As IT service providers are adopting more comprehensive approaches towards IT service management (ITSM), they increasingly need to rely on ITSM software solutions in their day-to-day operations. However, when wishing to integrate ITSM software from one vendor with that of another, the lack of underlying standards becomes woefully apparent. Without any standardized information model for ITSM processes, efficient and integrated ITSM will remain a vision. While in the telecommunications sector, a lot of work has been invested into developing the shared information/data model (SID), a companion model for the industry-specific process framework enhanced telecom operations map (eTOM), no equivalent for the more general process frameworks of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 is in sight. This paper introduces an approach towards an information model for ITSM processes. The presented method leverages work done for SID, by adapting and complementing SID concepts and content to produce an information model compliant to ISO/IEC 20000 requirements and ITIL recommendations.