IT Service Failure Analysis

IT service failure analysis (SFA) is an important activity in the process of Availability Management (AVM) which is part of the processes of ITIL v2 Service Support. This process is then updated in a cycle in the ITIL Service Design v3.

The main purpose of the SFA activities include:

• To increase the level of availability - availability of IT services to generate a set of activities or service improvement recommendations.

• To identify and document the causes of IT service interruption to the service users.

• To assess the efficiency of IT Support Unit and work processes.

• To produce a report describing the findings and recommendations from one or more disorders.

There are several differences between the SFA with the methods of troubleshooting a problem (Root Cause Analysis - RCA) such as the use of the Ishikawa diagram or Kepner and Tregoe Analysis. Here are a few differences:

• Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
RCA is a part of the Problem Management process and concentrate on the identification problem of an incident that interfere with operating an IT service. RCA focuses only on technology components and a problem. After problems are identified, then this activity is complete.

• Service Failure Analysis (SFA)
SFA is part of the process Availabilty Management and concentrate on an IT services, where the analysis performed on more than one issue or incident that occurs. SFA approach is not only the technology component of a service, but also the internal processes of an IT organization that provides these services. So that SFA is more often considered as part of a quality improvement activities of IT services.

From the above definition can be concluded that the RCA is more of a tactical activities of daily operations conducted by a team of application / infrastructure support in dealing with an IT service problems. While SFA is the strategic nature of activities with the aim to improve the quality of IT services as a whole. SFA is an input to the IT management to take strategic steps in increasing the value of the IT organization.

SFA alone is generally known in two forms:

• To analyze several problems at once both to an IT service as well as several at once.

• To menganalsis a major character issues / critical, usually related to an IT service.

SFA is an administrative activity, because in general SFA also includes investment analysis will be directly related to the budget of a department / division IT. Unlike the RCA, which is more tactical, so it is more commonly categorized as operational activities.