Understand and capture your service architecture

The first task is to catalog business services and support services and the architecture that they rely on. Your catalog of services including their service level agreements will help you later expose dependencies and plan change.

• A business service is an activity, process, or solution offered by a service provider organization to meet the needs or requirements of the business by supporting a business capability. A business service is constituted by service items that provide the business service. Service items are provided by applications, deployments, organizations, or support services and delivered to end consumers, which are organizations such as partners and customers. Examples of business services are customer relationship management, payroll operations, or recruiting and talent acquisition.
• A support service is a technological activity, process, or solution offered by a service provider organization to support a business service. A support service is constituted by service items that provide the business service. Service items are provided by components, virtual servers, or physical servers. Examples of support services are hosting of IT capabilities, first-level support, or network administration.
• An SLA (service level agreement) defines that standards set between the service providers and consumers about the standards regarding service availability and service uptime that the business service or support service is obligated to meet. Every business service and support service should have one service level agreement.
• A service item is a reference that describes the application, deployment, organization, or support service that provides the business service, or the component, physical device, or virtual device that provides the support service.
• A service group bundles business services and support services in order to evaluate various aspects of the service portfolio and understand which services are important for the business. Services can be assigned to multiple service groups.