ITIL Service Desk Overview

The primary function of a Service Desk in ITIL is acting as a single point of contact for service-related issues.
A key objective of the Service Desk is providing first-line investigation and diagnosis for incidents.
SPOC in the context of the Service Desk stands for Single Point of Contact.
Logging all relevant incidents and service requests are activities of the Service Desk.
A centralized Service Desk provides support based on the 'Follow the Sun' model.
A Helpdesk is a team focused on recording and resolving incidents quickly.

A centralized Service Desk, operating on a global level, is often preferable to Local or Virtual Service Desks, particularly for 'Follow-the-Sun' operations and global organizations.
A notable benefit of a centralized Service Desk is that it provides standardized service management processes across an entire organization.

A reactive approach in IT service management responds to incidents and problems as they arise.
A proactive approach in IT service management proactively identifies and addresses potential issues before they happen.
Proactive ITIL practices include using monitoring tools to detect performance anomalies.

The primary purpose of Event Management in ITIL is to monitor all events occurring in the IT infrastructure and detect exceptions.
An event in ITIL is any detectable or discernible occurrence that's significant for IT management.
Three categories of events in Event Management are Informational, Warning, and Exception.

The definition of an incident in ITIL is an unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in service quality.
The primary goal of Incident Management is to restore normal service operations as quickly as possible.
"Normal Service Operation," per Incident Management, means service operations adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
A "major incident" is an incident with high business impact requiring a separate procedure.
A typical metric commonly used in incident management is the total number of logged incidents.
A Service Desk's role in Incident Management includes first-line incident investigation and diagnosis.

A service request in ITIL is a request for information, advice, or access to an IT service.
The Request Fulfillment process handles user requests for standard, low-risk changes and information.
A typical change handled by the Request Fulfillment process is a standard change.
Examples of service requests include changing a password.
The key metric used in Request Fulfillment is the number of completed requests within SLA.

The primary purpose of Access Management in ITIL is to grant authorized users access to IT services while preventing unauthorized access.
Access Management involves policies implemented by the Information Security Management process.
A trigger for Access Management may include a user requesting additional software access.
The relationship between the Service Desk and Access Management is that the Service Desk initiates, and Access Management processes, access requests.

Technical Management is responsible for investigating and diagnosing problems.
Teams typically under Technical Management include Networking, database, and storage teams.
A critical success factor of Technical Management is strong collaboration with IT operations and application management.
Technical Management's primary focus is IT infrastructure design, implementation, and management.
How Technical Management supports the service lifecycle is by ensuring that IT infrastructure meets current and future needs.

The primary focus of IT Operations Management is to perform daily operational activities to manage IT services.
Key responsibilities of IT Operations Management include monitoring and controlling IT infrastructure, developing IT policies, and providing first-line user support.
Two key functions in IT Operations Management are Incident Management and Problem Management
A key output of IT Operations Management is maintaining stable IT services that meet agreed SLAs.

Application Management's primary role is to design, test, and improve IT applications while ensuring their performance during service operation.
Application Management supports all phases of the IT service lifecycle.
A critical success factor for Application Management is resolving all application related incidents within SLA.
The relationship between Application Management and Technical Management is that they are responsible for different aspects, that is, application maintenance and infrastructure respectively.
Tools associated with Application Management include Performance Monitoring Tools.