Capacity Management in ITSM Perspective

Capacity Management is a process used to manage the capacity of an IT service to ensure that it meets current and future business requirements in a cost-effective and efficient manner. As the usage profile of an IT service changes over time and the service itself evolves, the amount of physical computing processing power, data storage requirements, staffing levels needed to deliver and support the service also changes. If it is possible to understand the demands being made currently, and how they are likely to change over time, then the planning for growth or shrinkage becomes easier and less reactive i.e. painful. If there are peaks in, for example, the processing power consumed by the service at a particular time of the day, capacity management processes would propose analysing what is happening at that time and to request changes in job scheduling etc to maximise the utilisation of the existing infrastructure. [Effective ITSM, Rob Addy]