| Words |
Meaning |
| Absorbed
Overhead |
Overhead
which, by means absorption rates is included in costs of
specific products or saleable services, in a given period
of time. Under or over-absorbed overhead. The difference
between overhead. The difference between overhead cost
incurred and overhead cost absorbed: it may be split
into its two constituent parts for control purposes. |
| Absorption
costing |
A
principle whereby fixed as well as variable costs are
allotted to cost units and total overheads are absorbed
according to activity level. The term may be applied where
production costs only, or costs of all functions are so
allotted. |
| Action
lists |
Defined
actions, allocated to recovery teams and individuals,
within a phase of a plan. These are supported by reference
data. |
| Alert |
Warning
that a incident has occurred. |
| Alert
phase |
The
first phase of a business continuity plan in which initial
emergency procedures and damage assessments are activated. |
| Allocated
cost |
A
cost that can be directly identified with a business unit. |
| Apportioned
cost |
A
cost that is shared by a number of business units (an
indirect cost). This cost must be shared out between these
units on an equitable basis. |
| Asset |
Component
of a business process. Assets can include people,
accommodation, computer systems, networks, paper records,
fax machines, etc. |
| Asynchronous/synchronous |
In
a communications sense, the ability to transmit each
character as a self-contained unit of information, without
additional timing information. This method of transmitting
data is sometimes called start/stop. Synchronous working
involves the use of timing information to allow
transmission of data, which is normally done in blocks.
Synchronous transmission is usually more efficient than
the asynchronous method.
[ top ] |
| Availability |
Ability
of a component or service to perform its required
function at a stated instant or over a stated period of
time. It is usually expressed as the availability ratio,
i.e. the proportion of time that the service is actually
available for use by the Customers within the agreed
service hours. |
| Balanced
Scorecard |
An
aid to organizational performance management. It helps to
focus, not only on the financial targets but also on the
internal processes, Customers and learning and growth
issues. |
| Baseline |
A
snapshot or a position which is recorded. Although the
position may be updated later, the baseline remains
unchanged and available as a reference of the original
state and as a comparison against the current position
(PRINCE 2). |
| Baseline
Security |
The
security level adopted by the IT organization for its own
security and from the point of view of good 'due
diligence'. |
| Baselining |
Process
by which the quality and cost effectiveness of a service
is assessed, usually in advance of a change to the
service. Base lining usually includes comparison of the
service before and after the change or analysis of trend
information. The term benchmarking is usually used if the
comparison is made against other enterprises. |
| Bridge |
Equipment
and techniques used to match circuits to each other
ensuring minimum transmission impairment. |
| BS7799 |
The
British standard for Information Security Management. This
standard provides a comprehensive set of controls
comprising best practices in information security.
[ top ] |
| Budgeting |
Budgeting
is the process of predicting and controlling the spending
of money within the organisation and consists of a
periodic negotiation cycle to set budgets (usually annual)
and the day-to-day monitoring of current budgets. |
| Build |
The
final stage in producing a usable configuration. The
process involves taking one of more input Configuration
Items and processing them (building them) to create one or
more output Configuration Items e.g. software compile and
load. |
| Business
function |
A
business unit within an organisation, e.g. a department,
division, branch. |
| Business
process |
A
group of business activities undertaken by an organisation
in pursuit of a common goal. Typical business processes
include receiving orders, marketing services, selling
products, delivering services, distributing products,
invoicing for services, accounting for money received. A
business process usually depends upon several business
functions for support, e.g. IT, personnel, accommodation.
A business process rarely operates in isolation, i.e.
other business processes will depend on it and it will
depend on other processes. |
| Business
recovery objective |
The
desired time within which business processes should be
recovered, and the minimum staff, assets and services
required within this time. |
| Business
recovery plan framework |
A
template business recovery plan (or set of plans) produced
to allow the structure and proposed contents to be agreed
before the detailed business recovery plan is produced. |
| Business
recovery plans |
Documents
describing the roles, responsibilities and actions
necessary to resume business processes following a
business disruption.
[ top ] |
| Business
recovery team |
A
defined group of personnel with a defined role and
subordinate range of actions to facilitate recovery of a
business function or process. |
| Business
unit |
A
segment of the business entity by which both revenues are
received and expenditure are caused or controlled, such
revenues and expenditure being used to evaluate segmental
performance. |
Capital
Costs
|
Typically
those costs applying to the physical (substantial) assets
of the organisation. Traditionally this was the
accommodation and machinery necessary to produce the
enterprise’s product. Capital Costs are the purchase or
major enhancement of fixed assets, for example computer
equipment (building and plant) and are often also referred
to as ‘one-off’ costs. |
| Capital
investment appraisal |
The
process of evaluating proposed investment in specific
fixed assets and the benefits to be obtained from their
acquisition. The techniques used in the evaluation can be
summarised as non-discounting methods (i.e. simple
pay-back), return on capital employed and discounted cash
flow methods (i.e. yield, net present value and discounted
pay-back). |
| Capitalisation |
The
process of identifying major expenditure as Capital,
whether there is a substantial asset or not, to reduce the
impact on the current financial year of such expenditure.
The most common item for this to be applied to is
software, whether developed in-house or purchased. |
Category
|
Classification
of a group of Configuration Items, Change documents or
Problems. |
| Change |
The
addition, modification or removal of approved, supported
or baseline hardware, network, software, application,
environment, system, desktop build or associated
documentation.
[ top ] |
| Change
Advisory Board |
A
group of people who can give expert advice to Change
Management on the implementation of Changes. This Board is
likely to be made up of representatives from all areas
within IT and representatives from business units |
| Change
authority |
A
group that is given the authority to approve Change, e.g.
by a project board. Sometimes referred to as the
Configuration Board. |
| Change
control |
The
procedure to ensure that all Changes are controlled,
including the submission, analysis, decision making,
approval, implementation and post implementation of the
Change. |
| Change
document |
Request
for Change, Change control form, Change order, Change
record. |
| Change
history |
Auditable
information that records, for example, what was done, when
it was done, by whom and why. |
| Change
log |
A
log of Requests for Change raised during a project,
showing information on each Change, its evaluation, what
decisions have been made and its current status, e.g.
raised, reviewed, approved, implemented, or closed. |
| Change
Management |
Process
of controlling Changes to the infrastructure or any aspect
of services, in a controlled manner, enabling approved
Changes with minimum disruption. |
| Change
record |
A
record containing details of which CIs are affected by an authorized
Change (planned or implemented), and how. |
| Charging |
The
process of establishing charges in respect of business
units, and raising the relevant invoices for recovery from
customers. |
| Classification |
Process
of formally grouping Configuration Items by type, e.g.
software, hardware, documentation, environment,
application.
Process of formally identifying Changes by type e.g.
project scope Change request, validation Change request,
infrastructure Change request.
Process
of formally identifying Incidents, Problems and Known
Errors by origin, symptoms and cause.
[ top ] |
| Closure |
When
the Customer is satisfied that an incident has been
resolved. |
| Cold
stand-by |
See
'Gradual Recovery'. |
| Command,
control and communications |
The
processes by which an organisation retains overall
co-ordination of its recovery effort during invocation of
business recovery plans. |
| Computer-Aided
Systems Engineering (CASE) |
A
software tool for programmers. It provides help in the
Systems Engineering planning, analysis, design and
documentation of computer software. |
| Configuration
baseline |
Configuration
of a product or system established at a specific point in
time, which captures both the structure and details of
that product or system, and enables that product or system
to be rebuilt at a later date. A snapshot or a position
which is recorded. Although the position may be updated
later, the baseline remains unchanged and available as a
reference of the original state and as a comparison
against the current position (PRINCE2). |
| Configuration
control |
Activities
comprising the control of Changes to Configuration Items
after formally establishing its configuration documents.
It includes the evaluation, coordination, approval or
rejection of Changes. The implementation of Changes
includes changes, deviations and waivers that impact on
the configuration. |
| Configuration
documentation |
Documents
that define requirements, system design, build,
production, and verification for a Configuration Item. |
| Configuration
identification |
Activities
that determine the product structure, the selection of
Configuration Items, and the documentation of the
Configuration Item's physical and functional
characteristics, including interfaces and subsequent
Changes. It includes the allocation of identification
characters or numbers to the Configuration Items and their
documents. It also includes the unique numbering of
configuration control forms associated with Changes and
Problems
[ top ] |
| Configuration
item (CI) |
Component
of an infrastructure - or an item, such as a Request for
Change, associated with an infrastructure - that is (or is
to be) under the control of Configuration Management. CIs
may vary widely in complexity, size and type, from an
entire system (including all hardware, software and
documentation) to a single module or a minor hardware
component. |
| Configuration
Management |
The
process of identifying and defining Configuration Items in
a system, recording and reporting the status of
Configuration Items and Requests for Change, and verifying
the completeness and correctness of Configuration Items. |
| Configuration
Management tool |
A
software product providing automatic support for Change,
Configuration or version control. |
| Configuration
Management Database (CMDB) |
A
database that contains all relevant details of each CI and
details of the important relationships between CIs. |
| Configuration
Management plan |
Document
setting out the organisation and procedures for the
Configuration Management of a specific product, project,
system, support group or service. |
| Configuration
structure |
A
hierarchy of all the CIs that comprise a configuration. |
| Contingency
Planning |
Planning
to address unwanted occurrences that may happen at a later
time. Traditionally, the term has been used to refer to
planning for the recovery of IT systems rather than entire
business processes. |
| Cost |
The
amount of expenditure (actual or notional) incurred on, or
attributable to, a specific activity or business unit. |
| Cost
effectiveness |
Ensuring
that there is a proper balance between the quality of
service on the one side and expenditure on the other. Any
investment that increases the costs of providing IT
services should always result in enhancement to service
quality or quantity.
[ top ] |
| Cost
Management |
All
the procedures, tasks and deliverables that are needed to fulfill
an organization's costing and charging
requirements. |
| Cost
unit |
In
the context of CSBC the cost unit is a functional cost
unit which establishes standard cost per workload element
of activity, based on calculated activity ratios converted
to cost ratios. |
| Costing |
The
process of identifying the costs of the business and of
breaking them down and relating them to the various
activities of the organisation. |
| Countermeasure |
A
check or restraint on the service designed to enhance
security by reducing the risk of an attack (by reducing
either the threat or the vulnerability), reducing the
Impact of an attach, detecting the occurrence of an attack
and/or assisting in the recovery from an attack. |
| Crisis
management |
The
processes by which an organisation manages the wider
impact of a disaster, such as adverse media coverage. |
| Customer |
Recipient
of a service; usually the Customer management has
responsibility for the cost of the service, either
directly through charging or indirectly in terms of
demonstrable business need. |
| Data
transfer time |
The
length of time taken for a block or sector of data to be
read from or written to an I/O device, such as a disk or
tape. |
|
Definitive
Software Library (DSL) |
The
library in which the definitive authorized versions of all
software CIs are stored and protected. It is a physical
library or storage repository where master copies of
software versions are placed. This one logical storage
area may in reality consist of one or more physical
software libraries or file stores. They should be separate
from development and test file store areas. The DSL may
also include a physical store to hold master copies of
bought-in software, e.g. a fireproof safe. Only authorized
software should be accepted into the DSL, strictly
controlled by Change and Release Management.
The DSL exists not directly because of the needs of the
Configuration Management process, but as a common base for
the Release Management and Configuration Management
processes.
[ top ] |
| Delta
Release |
A
Delta, or partial, Release is one that includes only those
Cis within the Release unit that have actually changed or
are new since the last full or Delta Release. For example,
if the Release unit is the program, a Delta Release
contains only those modules that have changed, or are new,
since the last full release of the program or the last
Delta Release of certain modules. See also 'Full Release'. |
| Dependency |
The
reliance, either direct or indirect, of one process or
activity upon another. |
| Depreciation |
The
loss in value of an asset due to its use and/or the
passage of time. The annual depreciation charge in
accounts represents the amount of capital assets used up
in the accounting period. It is charged in the cost
accounts to ensure that the cost of capital equipment is
reflected in the unit costs of the services provided using
the equipment. There are various methods of calculating
depreciation for the period, but the Treasury usually
recommends the use of current cost asset valuation as the
basis for the depreciation charge. |
| Differential
charging |
Charging
business customers different rates for the same work,
typically to dampen demand or to generate revenue for
spare capacity. This can also be used to encourage
off-peak or night time running. |
| Direct
Cost (see also Indirect Cost) |
A
cost that is incurred for, and can be traced in full to a
product, service, cost center or department. This is an
allocated cost. Direct costs are direct materials, direct
wages and direct expenses. |
| Disaster
recovery planning |
A
series of processes that focus only upon the recovery
processes, principally in response to physical disasters,
that are contained within BCM.
[ top ] |
| Discounted
cash flow |
An
evaluation of the future net cash flows generated by a
capital project by discounting them to their present-day
value. The two methods most commonly used are:
- Yield
method, for which the calculation determines the
internal rate of return (IRR) in the form of a
percentage ?
- Net
present value (NPV) method, in which the discount rate
is chosen and the answer is a sum of money.
|
| Discounting |
The
offering to business customers of reduced rates for the
use of off-peak resources (see also Surcharging). |
| Disk
cache controller |
Memory
that is used to store blocks of data that have been read
from the disk devices connected to them. If a subsequent
I/O requires a record that is still resident in the cache
memory, it will be picked up from there, thus saving
another physical I/O. |
| Downtime |
Total
period that a service or component is not operational,
within an agreed service times. |
| Duplex
(full and half) |
Full
duplex line/channel allows simultaneous transmission in
both directions. Half duplex line/channel is capable of
transmitting in both directions, but only in one direction
at a time. |
| Echoing |
A
reflection of the transmitted signal from the receiving
end, a visual method of error detection in which the
signal from the originating device is looped back to that
device so that it can be displayed.
[ top ] |
| Elements
of cost |
The
constituent parts of costs according to the factors upon
which expenditure is incurred viz., materials, labor and
expenses. |
| End-User |
See
'User'. |
| Environment |
A
collections of hardware, software, network communications
and procedures that work together to provide a discrete
type of computer service. There may be one or more
environments on a physical platform e.g. test, production.
An environment has unique features and characteristics
that dictate how they are administered in similar, yet
diverse, manners. |
| Expert
User |
See
'Super User'. |
| External
Target |
One
of the measures, against which a delivered IT service is
compared, expressed in terms of the customer's business. |
| Financial
year |
An
accounting period covering 12 consecutive months. In the
public sector this financial year generally coincides with
the fiscal year which runs from 1 April to 31 March. |
| First
time fix rate |
Commonly
used metric, used to define incidents resolved at the
first point of contact between a customer and the service
provider, without delay or referral, generally by a front
line support group such as a help desk or service desk.
First time fixes are a sub-set of remote fixes. |
| Forward
Schedule of Changes |
A
schedule that contains details of all the Changes approved
for implementation and their proposed implementation
dates. It should be agreed with the Customers and the
business, Service Level Management, the Service Desk and
Availability Management. Once agreed, the Service Desk
should communicate to the User community at large any
planned additional downtime arising from implementing the
Changes, using the most effective methods available.
[ top ] |
| Full
cost |
The
total cost of all the resources used in supplying a
service i.e. the sum of the direct costs of producing the
output, a proportional share of overhead costs and any
selling and distribution expenses. Both cash costs and
notional (non-cash) costs should be included, including
the cost of capital. See also ‘Total Cost of
Ownership’ |
| Full
Release |
All
components of the Release unit that are built, tested,
distributed and implemented together. See also 'Delta
Release'. |
| Gateway |
Equipment
which is used to interface networks so that a terminal on
one network can communicate with services or a terminal on
another. |
| Gradual
Recovery |
Previously
called 'Cold stand-by', this is applicable to organizations
that do not need immediate restoration of
business processes and can function for a period of up to
72 hours, or longer, without a re-establishment of full IT
facilities. This may include the provision of empty
accommodation fully equipped with power, environmental
controls and local network cabling infrastructure,
telecommunications connections, and available in a
disaster situation for an organisation to install its own
computer equipment. |
| Hard
charging |
Descriptive
of a situation where, within an organisation, actual funds
are transferred from the customer to the IT organisation
in payment for the delivery of IT services. |
| Hard
fault |
The
situation in a virtual memory system when the required
page of code or data, which a program was using, has been
redeployed by the operating system for some other purpose.
This means that another piece of memory must be found to
accommodate the code or data, and will involve physical
reading/writing of pages to the page file.
[ top ] |
| Host |
A
host computer comprises the central hardware and software
resources of a computer complex, e.g. CPU, memory,
channels, disk and magnetic tape I/O subsystems plus
operating and applications software. The term is used to
denote all non-network items. |
| Hot
stand-by |
See
'Immediate Recovery'. |
| ICT |
The
convergence of Information Technology, Telecommunications
and Data Networking Technologies into a single technology. |
| Immediate
Recovery |
Previously
called 'Hot stand-by', provides for the immediate
restoration of services following any irrecoverable
incident. It is important to distinguish between the
previous definition of ‘hot stand-by’ and ‘immediate
recovery’. Hot stand-by typically referred to
availability of services within a short timescale such as
2 or 4 hours whereas immediate recovery implies the
instant availability of services. |
| Impact |
Measure
of the business criticality of an Incident. Often equal to
the extent to which an Incident leads to distortion of
agreed or expected service levels. |
| Impact
analysis |
The
identification of critical business processes, and the
potential damage or loss that may be caused to the
organisation resulting from a disruption to those
processes.
Business impact analysis identifies:
- The
form the loss or damage will take
- How
that degree of damage or loss is likely to escalate
with time following an incident the minimum staffing,
facilities and services needed to enable business
processes to continue to operate at a minimum
acceptable level ?
- The
time within which they should be recovered.
- The
time within which full recovery of the business
processes is to be achieved is also identified.
[ top ] |
| Impact
code |
Simple
code assigned to incidents and problems, reflecting the
degree of impact upon the customer’s business processes.
It is the major means of assigning priority for dealing
with incidents. |
| Impact
scenario |
Description
of the type of impact on the business that could follow a
business disruption. Usually related to a business process
and will always refer to a period of time, e.g. customer
services will be unable to operate for two days. |
| Incident |
Any
event that is not part of the standard operation of a
service and that causes, or may cause, an interruption to,
or a reduction in, the quality of that service. |
| Incident
Control |
The
process of identifying, recording, classifying and
progressing incidents until affected services return to
normal operation. |
| Indirect
Cost (see also Direct Cost) |
A
cost incurred in the course of making a product providing
a service or running a cost center or department, but
which cannot be traced directly and in full to the
product, service or department, because it has been
incurred for a number of cost centers or cost units. These
costs are apportioned to cost centers/cost units. Indirect
costs are also referred to as overheads. |
| Informed
Customer |
An
individual, team or group with functional responsibility
within an organisation for ensuring that spend on IS/IT is
directed to best effect, i.e. that the business is
receiving value for money and continues to achieve the
most beneficial outcome. In order to fulfill its role the
'Informed' Customer function must gain clarity of vision
in relation to the business plans and assure that suitable
strategies are devised and maintained for achieving
business goals.
The 'Informed' Customer function ensures that the needs of
the business are effectively translated into a business
requirements specification, that IT investment is both
efficiently and economically directed, and that progress
towards effective business solutions is monitored. The
'Informed' Customer should play an active role in the
procurement process, e.g. in relation to business case
development, and also in ensuring that the services and
solutions obtained are used effectively within the
organisation to achieve maximum business benefits. The
term is often used in relation to the outsourcing of
IT/IS. Sometimes also called ‘Intelligent Customer’.
[ top ] |
| Interface |
Physical
or functional interaction at the boundary between
Configuration Items. |
| Intermediate
Recovery |
Previously
called 'Warm stand-by', typically involves the
re-establishment of the critical systems and services
within a 24 to 72 hour period, and is used by organizations
that need to recover IT facilities within a
predetermined time to prevent impacts to the business
process. |
| Internal
target |
One
of the measures against which supporting processes for the
IT service are compared. Usually expressed in technical
terms relating directly to the underpinning service being
measured. |
| Invocation
(of business recovery plans) |
Putting
business recovery plans into operation after a business
disruption. |
| Invocation
(of stand-by arrangements) |
Putting
stand-by arrangements into operation as part of business
recovery activities. |
| Invocation
and recovery phase |
The
second phase of a business recovery plan. |
| ISO9001 |
The
internationally accepted set of standards concerning
quality management systems. |
| IT
Accounting |
The
set of processes that enable the IT organisation to
account fully for the way money is spent (particularly the
ability to identify costs by Customer, by service and by
activity). |
| IT
Infrastructure |
The
sum of an organization's IT related hardware, software,
data telecommunication facilities, procedures and
documentation. |
| IT
service |
A
described set of facilities, IT and non-IT, supported by
the IT service provider that fulfils one or more needs of
the customer and that is perceived by the customer as a
coherent whole. |
| IT
service provider |
The
role of IT service provider is performed by any organizational
units, whether internal or external, that
deliver and support IT services to a customer. |
| ITIL |
The
OGC IT Infrastructure Library - a set of guides on the
management and provision of operational IT services.
[ top ] |
| Key
Performance Indicator |
The
measurable quantities against which specific performance
criteria can be set when drawing up the SLA. |
Known
Error
|
An
Incident or Problem for which the root cause is known and
for which a temporary Work-around or a permanent
alternative has been identified. If a business case
exists, an RFC will be raised, but, in any event, it
remains a known error unless it is permanently fixed by a
Change. |
| Latency |
The
elapsed time from the moment when a seek was completed on
a disk device to the point when the required data is
positioned under the read/write heads. It is normally
defined by manufacturers as being half the disk rotation
time. |
| Life-cycle |
A
series of states connected by allowable transitions. The
life cycle represents an approval process for
Configuration Items, Problem Reports and Change documents. |
| Logical
I/O |
A
read or write request by a program. That request may, or
may not, necessitate a physical I/O. For example, on a
read request the required record may already be in a
memory buffer and therefore a physical I/O is not
necessary. |
| Marginal
Cost |
The
cost of providing the service now, based upon the
investment already made. |
| Maturity
level/Milestone |
The
degree to which BCM activities and processes have become
standard business practice within an organisation. |
| Metric |
Measurable
element of a service process or function. |
| Operational
Costs |
Those
costs resulting from the day-to-day running of the IT
Services section, e.g. staff costs, hardware maintenance
and electricity, and relating to repeating payments whose
effects can be measured within a short timeframe, usually
less than the 12-month financial year. |
| Operational
Level Agreement (OLA) |
An
internal agreement covering the delivery of services which
support the IT organisation in their delivery of services.
[ top ] |
| Opportunity
cost (or true cost) |
The
value of a benefit sacrificed in favor of an alternative
course of action. That is the cost of using resources in a
particular operation expressed in terms of foregoing the
benefit that could be derived from the best alternative
use of those resources. |
| Outsourcing |
The
process by which functions performed by the organisation
are contracted out for operation, on the organization's behalf, by third parties. |
| Overheads |
The
total of indirect materials, wages and expenses. |
| Package
assembly/disassembly device (PAD) |
A
device that permits terminals, which do not have an
interface suitable for direct connection to a packet
switched network, to access such a network. A PAD converts
data to/from packets and handles call set-up and
addressing. |
| Page
fault |
A
program interruption that occurs when a page that is
marked ‘not in real memory’ is referred to by an
active page. |
| Paging |
The
I/O necessary to read and write to and from the paging
disks: real (not virtual) memory is needed to process
data. With insufficient real memory, the operating system
writes old pages to disk, and reads new pages from disk,
so that the required data and instructions are in real
memory. |
PD0005
|
Alternative
title for the BSI publication A Code of Practice for IT
Service Management. |
| Percentage
utilisation |
The
amount of time that a hardware device is busy over a given
period of time. For example, if the CPU is busy for 1800
seconds in a one hour period, its utilization is said to
be 50%. |
| Performance
Criteria |
The
expected levels of achievement which are set within the
SLA against specific Key Performance Indicators.
[ top ] |
| Phantom
line error |
A
communications error reported by a computer system that is
not detected by network monitoring equipment. It is often
caused by changes to the circuits and network equipment
(e.g. re-routing circuits at the physical level on a
backbone network) while data communications is in
progress. |
| Physical
I/O |
A
read or write request from a program has necessitated a
physical read or write operation on an I/O device. |
| Prime
cost |
The
total cost of direct materials, direct labor and direct
expenses. The term prime cost is commonly restricted to
direct production costs only and so does not customarily
include direct costs of marketing or research and
development. |
| PRINCE2 |
The
standard UK government method for project management. |
| Priority |
Sequence
in which an Incident or Problem needs to be resolved,
based on impact and urgency. |
| Problem |
Unknown
underlying cause of one or more Incidents. |
| Problem
Management |
Process
that minimizes the effect on customer(s) of defects in
services and within the infrastructure, human errors and
external events. |
| Process |
A
connected series of actions, activities, Changes etc.
performed by agents with the intent of satisfying a
purpose or achieving a goal. |
| Process
Control |
The
process of planning and regulating, with the objective of
performing a process in an effective and efficient way. |
| Programme |
A
collection of activities and projects that collectively
implement a new corporate requirement or function. |
| Queuing
time |
Queuing
time is incurred when the device, which a program wishes
to use, is already busy. The program therefore has to wait
in a queue to obtain service from that device.
[ top ] |
| RAID |
Redundant
Array of Inexpensive Disks - a mechanism for providing
data resilience for computer systems using mirrored arrays
of magnetic disks. Different levels of RAID can be applied
to provide for greater resilience. |
| Reference
data |
Information
that supports the plans and action lists, such as names
and addresses or inventories, which is indexed within the
plan. |
| Release |
A
collection of new and/or changed CIs which are tested and
introduced into the live environment together. |
| Remote
Fixes |
Incidents
or problems resolved without a member of the support staff
visiting the physical location of the problems. Note:
Fixing incidents or problems remotely minimizes the delay
before the service is back to normal and are therefore
usually cost effective. |
| Request
for Change (RFC) |
Form,
or screen, used to record details of a request for a
Change to any CI within an infrastructure or to procedures
and items associated with the infrastructure. |
| Resolution |
Action
that will resolve an Incident. This may be a Work-around. |
| Resource
cost |
The
amount of machine resource that a given task consumes.
This resource is usually expressed in seconds for the CPU
or the number of I/Os for a disk or tape device. |
| Resource
profile |
The
total resource costs that are consumed by an individual
online transaction, batch job or program. It is usually
expressed in terms of CPU seconds, number of I/Os and
memory usage. |
| Resources |
The
IT Services section needs to provide the customers with
the required services. The resources are typically
computer and related equipment, software, facilities or organizational
(people).
[ top ] |
| Return
to normal phase |
The
phase within a business recovery plan which re-establishes
normal operations. |
| Risk |
A
measure of the exposure to which an organisation may be
subjected. This is a combination of the likelihood of a
business disruption occurring and the possible loss that
may result from such business disruption. |
| Risk
Analysis |
The
identification and assessment of the level (measure) of
the risks calculated from the assessed values of assets
and the assessed levels of threats to, and vulnerabilities
of, those assets. |
| Risk
Management |
The
identification, selection and adoption of countermeasures
justified by the identified risks to assets in terms of
their potential impact upon services if failure occurs,
and the reduction of those risks to an acceptable level. |
| Risk
reduction measure |
Measures
taken to reduce the likelihood or consequences of a
business disruption occurring (as opposed to planning to
recover after a disruption). |
| Role |
A
set of responsibilities, activities and authorizations. |
| Roll
in roll out (RIRO) |
Used
on some systems to describe swapping. |
| Rotational
Position Sensing |
A
facility which is employed on most mainframes and some
minicomputers. When a seek has been initiated the system
can free the path from a disk drive to a controller for
use by another disk drive, while it is waiting for the
required data to come under the read/write heads
(latency). This facility usually improves the overall
performance of the I/O subsystem. |
| Security
Management |
The
process of managing a defined level of security on
information and services.
[ top ] |
| Security
Manager |
The
Security Manager is the role that is responsible for the
Security Management process in the service provider
organisation. The person is responsible for fulfilling the
security demands as specified in the SLA, either directly
or through delegation by the Service Level Manager. The
Security Officer and the Security Manager work closely
together. |
| Security
Officer |
The
Security Officer is responsible for assessing the business
risks and setting the security policy. As such, this role
is the counterpart of the Security Manager and resides in
the customer's business organisation. The Security Officer
and the Security Manager work closely together. |
| Seek
time |
Occurs
when the disk read/write heads are not positioned on the
required track. It describes the elapsed time taken to
move heads to the right track. |
| Segregation
of duties |
Separation
of the management or execution of certain duties or of
areas of responsibility is required in order to prevent
and reduce opportunities for unauthorized modification or
misuse of data or service. |
| Self-insurance |
A
decision to bear the losses that could result from a
disruption to the business as opposed to taking insurance
cover on the risk. |
| Service |
One
or more IT systems which enable a business process. |
| Service
achievement |
The
actual service levels delivered by the IT organisation to
a customer within a defined life-span. |
| Service
Catalogue |
Written
statement of IT services, default levels and options. |
| Service
Desk |
The
single point of contact within the IT organisation for
users of IT services. |
| Service
Improvement Programme (SIP) |
A
formal project undertaken within an organisation to
identify and introduce measurable improvements within a
specified work area or work process.
[ top ] |
| Service
Level |
The
expression of an aspect of a service in definitive and
quantifiable terms. |
| Service
Level Agreement (SLA) |
A
written agreement between a service provider and
Customer(s) that documents agreed service levels for a
service. |
| Service
Level Management (SLM) |
The
process of defining, agreeing, documenting and managing
the levels of customer IT service, that are required and
cost justified. |
| Service
Management |
Management
of Services to meet the Customer’s requirements. |
| Service
provider |
Third-party
organisation supplying services or products to customers. |
| Service
quality plan |
The
written plan and specification of internal targets
designed to guarantee the agreed service levels. |
| Service
Request |
Every
Incident not being a failure in the IT Infrastructure. |
| Services |
The
deliverables of the IT Services organisation as perceived
by the Customers; the services do not consist merely of
making computer resources available for customers to use. |
| Severity
Code |
Simple
code assigned to problems and known errors, indicating the
seriousness of their effect on the quality of service. It
is the major means of assigning priority for resolution. |
| Simulation
modelling |
Using
a program to simulate computer processing by describing in
detail the path of a job or transaction. It can give
extremely accurate results. Unfortunately, it demands a
great deal of time and effort from the modeler. It is
most beneficial in extremely large or time-critical
systems where the margin for error is very small. |
| Soft
fault |
The
situation in a virtual memory system when the operating
system has detected that a page of code or data was due to
be reused, i.e. it is on a list of ‘free’ pages, but
it is still actually in memory. It is now rescued and put
back into service.
[ top ] |
| Software
Configuration Item (SCI) |
As
'Configuration Item', excluding hardware and services. |
| Software
Environment |
Software
used to support the application, such as operating system,
database management system, development tools, compilers,
and application software. |
| Software
Library |
A
controlled collection of SCIs designated to keep those
with like status and type together and segregated from
unlike, to aid in development, operation and maintenance. |
| Software
work unit |
Software
work is a generic term devised to represent a common base
on which all calculations for workload usage and IT
resource capacity are then based. A unit of software work
for I/O type equipment equals the number of bytes
transferred; and for central processors it is based on the
product of power and CPU-time. |
| Solid
state devices |
Memory
devices that are made to appear as if they are disk
devices. The advantages of such devices are that the
service times are much faster than real disks since there
is no seek time or latency. The main disadvantage is that
they are much more expensive. |
| Specsheet |
Specifies
in detail what the customer wants (external) and what
consequences this has for the service provider (internal)
such as required resources and skills. |
| Standard
cost |
A
pre-determined calculation of how much costs should be
under specified working conditions. It is built up from an
assessment of the value of cost elements and correlates
technical specifications and the quantification of
materials, labour and other costs to the prices and/or
wages expected to apply during the period in which the
standard cost is intended to be used. Its main purposes
are to provide bases for control through variance
accounting, for the valuation of work in progress and for
fixing selling prices.
[ top ] |
| Standard
costing |
A
technique which uses standards for costs and revenues for
the purposes of control through variance analysis. |
| Stand-by
arrangements |
Arrangements
to have available assets which have been identified as
replacements should primary assets be unavailable
following a business disruption. Typically, these include
accommodation, IT systems and networks, telecommunications
and sometimes people. |
| Storage
occupancy |
A
defined measurement unit that is used for storage type
equipment to measure usage. The unit value equals the
number of bytes stored. |
| Super
User |
In
some organisations it is common to use 'expert' Users
(commonly known as Super, or Expert, Users) to deal with
first-line support problems and queries. This is typically
in specific application areas, or geographical locations,
where there is not the requirement for full-time support
staff. This valuable resource needs, however, to be
carefully coordinated and utilized. |
| Surcharging |
Surcharging
is charging business users a premium rate for using
resources at peak times. |
| Swapping |
The
reaction of the operating system to insufficient real
memory: swapping occurs when too many tasks are perceived
to be competing for limited resources. It is the physical
movement of an entire task (e.g. all real memory pages of
an address space may be moved at one time from main
storage to auxiliary storage). |
| System |
An
integrated composite that consists of one or more of the
processes, hardware, software, facilities and people, that
provides a capability to satisfy a stated need or
objective. |
| Terminal
emulation |
Software
running on an intelligent device, typically a PC or
workstation, which allows that device to function as an
interactive terminal connected to a host system. Examples
of such emulation software includes IBM 3270 BSC or SNA,
ICL C03, or Digital VT100.
[ top ] |
| Terminal
I/O |
A
read from, or a write to, an online device such as a VDU
or remote printer. |
| Third-party
supplier |
An
enterprise or group, external to the Customer’s
enterprise, which provides services and/or products to
that Customer’s enterprise. |
| Thrashing |
A
condition in a virtual storage system where an excessive
proportion of CPU time is spent moving data between main
and auxiliary storage. |
| Threat |
An
indication of an unwanted incident that could impinge on
the system in some way. Threats may be deliberate (e.g. willful
damage) or accidental (e.g. operator error). |
| Total
Cost Of Ownership (TCO) |
Calculated
including depreciation, maintenance, staff costs,
accommodation, and planned renewal. |
| Tree
structures |
In
data structures, a series of connected nodes without
cycles. One node is termed the root and is the starting
point of all paths, other nodes termed leaves terminate
the paths. |
| Unabsorbed
overhead |
Any
Indirect Cost that cannot be apportioned to a specific
Customer |
| Underpinning
contract |
A
contract with an external supplier covering delivery of
services that support the IT organisation in their
delivery of services. |
| Unit
costs |
Costs
distributed over individual component usage. For example,
it can be assumed that, if a box of paper with 1000 sheets
costs £10, then each sheet costs 1p. Similarly if a CPU
costs £lm a year and it is used to process 1,000 jobs
that year, each job costs on average £1,000. |
Urgency
|
Measure
of the business criticality of an Incident or Problem
based on the impact and on the business needs of the
Customer. |
| User |
The
person who uses the services on a day-to-day basis.
[ top ] |
| Utility
cost centre (UCC) |
A
cost centre for the provision of support services to other
cost centres. |
| Variance
analysis |
A
variance is the difference between planned, budgeted or
standard cost and actual cost (or revenues). Variance
analysis is an analysis of the factors that have caused
the difference between the pre-determined standards and
the actual results. Variances can be developed
specifically related to the operations carried out in
addition to those mentioned above. |
Version
|
An
identified instance of a Configuration Item within a
product breakdown structure or configuration structure for
the purpose of tracking and auditing change history. Also
used for software Configuration Items to define a specific
identification released in development for drafting,
review or modification, test or production. |
| Version
Identifier |
A
version number; version date; or version date and time
stamp. |
| Virtual
memory system |
A
system that enhances the size of hard memory by adding an
auxiliary storage layer residing on the hard disk. |
| Virtual
storage interrupt (VSI) |
An
ICL VME term for a page fault. |
| Vulnerability |
A
weakness of the system and its assets, which could be
exploited by threats. |
| Warm
stand-by |
See
'Intermediate Recovery'. |
| Waterline |
The
lowest level of detail relevant to the customer. |
Work-around
|
Method
of avoiding an Incident or Problem, either from a
temporary fix or from a technique that means the Customer
is not reliant on a particular aspect of a service that is
known to have a problem.
[ top ] |
| Workloads |
In
the context of Capacity Management Modeling, a set of
forecasts which detail the estimated resource usage over
an agreed planning horizon. Workloads generally represent
discrete business applications and can be further
sub-divided into types of work (interactive, timesharing,
batch). |
| WORM
(Device) |
Optical
read only disks, standing for Write Once Read Many.
|
