ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environments

HPE Lifecycle Event Services

Virtualization is not a new concept in the IT world. Most IT managers, led by the pressure to provide agile and cost-effective IT services, have introduced virtualization technologies in their data centers.


Yet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s experience across a multitude of IT environments has shown that many organizations are unaware of the best practices required to get the highest return from these virtualization technologies.


As a result, many IT organizations have to figure out the best practices on their own through a painful and time-consuming trial-and-error process. It is not uncommon in such environments to see a smartly designed and implemented virtualization solution that is no longer capable of providing quality IT services due to a lack of proper operational practices. Deteriorating quality may materialize in the form of performance issues, lower availability, or growing management overhead or ownership costs. Regardless of the symptoms, the solutions eventually become complex and unwieldy.


HPE recognizes that every IT organization needs to deliver the service levels required by the business while living within certain constraints. So we can help you to better prepare for implementation and operation of virtualized IT services by identifying your areas of operational risk and your specific improvement priorities.


The ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environments is a service that provides you with meaningful answers to the following questions:

  • How well is my IT organization prepared to run virtualized environments?
  • Where do the risks to the IT organization as a service provider come from?
  • What are the major gaps? What are my highest priorities? Where and how should I start?

The assessment criteria have been drawn from our extensive experience in the design and support of enterprise-level business solution, and from industry and vendor best practices. These criteria focus on examining the people, processes, and technologies involved in end-to-end service delivery in virtualized environments. To facilitate the assessment process, we utilize a virtualization readiness model that encompasses multiple components:

  • IT Planning & Design
  • IT Control & Transition
  • Technology & Operation
  • IT Continual Improvement & Automation

The ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environments service follows a well-proven four-phase process for capturing, analyzing, and reporting data:


  1. Planning and preparation: This phase starts with the initial customer contact. Our business-critical service consultants will explain the process and deliverables to you. With your help, appropriate interviewees are identified and overall logistics agreed upon for the onsite portion of the assessment. Where appropriate, a pre-delivery self-assessment will also be provided in advance of the onsite activities.
  2. Onsite interviews and data gathering: Our Hewlett Packard Enterprise assessment team will visit your site to perform a number of interviews or workshops with your key staff and to undertake data-gathering activities.
  3. Analysis: Our Hewlett Packard Enterprise assessment team will analyze the information collected to create a presentation of key findings, highlighting the identified strengths and weaknesses as well as outlining potential risks to the quality and reliability of service delivery in virtualized environments.
  4. Presentation: A management presentation is arranged at your site to share the findings and priority improvements and recommendations. At the completion of the engagement, you will receive a copy of the presentation.

  • Service benefits

    The ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environments is designed to:

    • Help you to align your IT environment with your business needs by leveraging HPE’s ITSM and business service automation implementation experience.
    • Identify and prioritize areas where your operational practices and tools can be strengthened to improve service quality, simplify management of virtualized environments, and reduce operation costs.
    • Assist you in improving your understanding of your IT organization strengths, weaknesses, and risks of failing to deliver reliable services in virtualized environments.
    • Provide you with a reference point for subsequent service improvement initiatives.

  • Service feature highlights

    • HPE ITSM and virtualization experts conduct an onsite interview with your IT staff, focusing on the management processes, controls, and tools used in managing their virtualized environment.
    • The interview results are analyzed and compared to a set of HPE best practices, procedures, and benchmark data for virtual environments.
    • Results are presented to you in a follow-up session where you review a gap analysis and suggested improvements and also discuss best practices and any solutions that may improve your virtualization experience.

  • Service limitations

    • Any services not clearly specified in this document or in an associated Statement of Work are excluded from this service.
    • The ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environments does not include any remedial activity, configuration changes, specialized system configuration analyses, or a complete patch analysis. Please consider optional recommended services (see list below in “Ordering information” section) or the HPE Custom ITSM Assessment Service to perform any configuration changes or in-depth technical analysis, if agreed upon by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Customer in advance.

  • Customer responsibilities

    The Customer will:

    • Allow Hewlett Packard Enterprise full and unrestricted access to all locations where the service is to be performed
    • Contact a Hewlett Packard Enterprise service specialist within 90 days of date of purchase to schedule the delivery of the service
    • Provide all information necessary for Hewlett Packard Enterprise to deliver timely and professional remote support and to enable HPE to determine the level of support eligibility
    • Assign a designated person from the Customer's staff who, on behalf of the Customer, will grant all approvals, provide information, and otherwise be available to assist Hewlett Packard Enterprise in facilitating the delivery of this service
    • Provide a suitable work area for delivery of the service, including access to an outside telephone line, power, and any network connections required

  • Ordering information

    The ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environment is available through the following SKUs:


    Per Event Service: HK412AE

    Flexible HPE Support Service: HK412A1

    Fixed HPE Support Service: UJ721E


    To ensure the best Customer experience, Hewlett Packard Enterprise offers ITSM Assessment for Virtualized Environments in combination with other technical analysis services to provide inputs for enhancement of availability and operability as well as performance optimization.


    Reliability assurance services for specific technologies and products:

    • Blades technology quick assessment
    • HP-UX System Health Check
    • Cluster consistency service
    • System resilience assessment

    VMware-specific services:

    • VMware Capacity Planner Assessment Service
    • Health Check Analysis for VMware

    Performance and capacity assessment:

    • End-to-end performance analysis for SAN/server/storage

    Power and Cooling services:

    • Energy efficiency analysis
    • Thermal quick assessment
    • Backup and recovery assessment
    • Security quick assessment

© Copyright 2010, 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

This data sheet is governed by the Hewlett Packard Enterprise current standard sales terms, which include the supplemental data sheet, or, if applicable, the Customer’s purchase agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

4aa1-0636enw, September 2016, Rev. 1

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