Current debate at work:
There is a cart that hold a bunch of servers that they want to move over to create more space.
In order to do this they need to shutdown the servers, unplug them, move the cart over, (a few feet), and then plug them back in and restart them.
Does this warrant an RFC or is this considered just normal operations? This would be done hopefully off hours as well.
Thoughts?
I love this type of question because it shows how interrelated all the ITIL processes are. The answer to this boils down to “What is the definition of an ITIL Change?”
The answer I stick to is: A Change is change in status or attribute of a Configuration Item.
Many organizations will answer that they don’t have a CMDB so they can’t easily apply this criteria. I disagree. Would you consider “a bunch of servers” within the scope of a relatively mature CMDB? I think that we can all answer yes to that question. So the item being affected would be within scope. Will the Change affect its Status or an Attribute?
I don’t know if you would track the location of the servers as an attribute in a CMDB. I know many data centers who keep track of their servers’ raised floor coordinates in their inventory, but I don’t think I would want to track that as an attribute in a CMDB. Mostly because it does little to support any of the other ITIL processes.
But taking the server from a Production state to an Off-line state would definitely be a change in Status.
So yes, according to my definition of what an ITIL Change is, this should be recorded in Change Management. Could it be a Standard Change? Since it is really just a change from Production to Off-line, and then back to Production, yes.
Leave a Reply