Process oriented Approach to Develop Provider accepted Management Tools

More and more operators of IT resources evolve towards service providers offering IT services. In this role a service provider needs new concepts and new service management tools providing IT services. In this paper a process oriented approach to derive demands on IT service management tools is presented. The starting point is given by the processes that have to be carried out running a networked system. The better a management tool supports these processes the more useful it is from the viewpoint of the provider and hence, the more accepted the tool is by the IT service provider. The process model describing the IT operation of a distributed networked system stems from an industrial project which goal was to introduce a process oriented quality management system into a complex IT environment. The method developing management tools presented in this paper has been successfully applied to various fields of IT management.