Declarative Specification and Alignment Verification of Services in ITIL

Abstract

IT organizations that wish to implement the best practices recommended by the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) need to specify the level of service provided to their customers. The implemented service needs to comply with this specification. We propose a method for describing declarative specifications of services, and of their planned constructions. These specifications can then be used to verify the alignment between the specification and the construction. This method is based on first-order logic and on refinement theory for alignment verification. The alignment verification is automated using the Alloy specification language and the Alloy Analyzer tool. The method is illustrated with the example of a utility emergency service inspired from a real project.