Formalisms for IT Management Process Representation

Abstract

With recent years accelerated convergence to process oriented service management frameworks, IT management is adopting business methods. As organisations model and document their management processes, they apply suggestions and best practices found in document collections like the eTOM or the ITIL. Formal representation of the emerging management process definitions can be accomplished by means of process or workflow definition formalisms. However, many IT management processes may differ from other business processes in that they are executed by technical personnel. More important, an IT infrastructure as the target of management processes offers compelling opportunities for automation at an operational level. To help leverage these opportunities, formalisms for process representation need to express IT management process details at a technical level. This paper analyses formalisms designed for business process representation, assesses their suitability to express IT management process definitions, and categorises the examined formalisms according to IT management requirements.