IT Service Management, Operations and Support
What the exam tests
This domain tests service management practices, incident and problem management, change and release control, service levels and operational resilience. Expect ITIL 4 terminology and service desk scenarios.
Core rules and concepts
- ITIL 4 describes a service value system and practices rather than rigid processes. Value co-creates with users.
- Incident management restores service quickly. Problem management finds root causes and permanent fixes. A workaround is not a root-cause fix.
- Change control assesses risk, authorises change and reviews it. Release management makes changes available; deployment moves them into production.
- Service levels are documented in SLAs with customers; OLAs are internal agreements; underpinning contracts support suppliers.
- Configuration management records configuration items and relationships in a CMDB. Availability, capacity, continuity and continual improvement protect service quality.
Worked example
Payroll fails every month-end. The incident team restores service from backup and communicates. Problem management finds the root cause: disk capacity is exhausted by month-end batch jobs. A change adds capacity and monitoring, is tested and deployed. Reasoning: closing at the workaround would allow recurrence. The exam rewards separating incident restoration from problem root-cause investigation.
Traps that cost marks
Do not confuse incident with problem, change with release, or SLA with OLA. A workaround is not root-cause analysis. A CMDB is not just an asset list; it records relationships. Disaster recovery is narrower than business continuity.
Key points
- Incidents restore service; problems remove root causes.
- Change control authorises risk-assessed changes.
- Release makes change available; deployment puts it live.
- SLAs are customer agreements; OLAs are internal.
- CMDB relationships support impact analysis and continuity.