問35
頻出度★★★
業務で使用する PC においてプログラムに不具合があり, PC が操作不能になる現象がサービスデスクに報告された。IT サービスマネジメントにおけるインシデント管理で実施する作業として, 適切なものはどれか。
平成23年度 特別試験 ITパスポート試験 問35
マネジメント系サービスマネジメント › サービスマネジメントシステム
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 35
- ア
正解 The correct answer is ア, “Provide instructions on the procedure to restart the PC to make it operable again.” In IT service management, incident management is the activity whose goal is to restore service as quickly as possible when a service interruption or a drop in service quality (an incident) occurs, so that the impact on the agreed service level is kept to a minimum. The important point here is that incident management aims at getting the work going again, not at finding the cause. In this question a program defect has made a PC inoperable, and the user has contacted the service desk. At this moment what troubles the user most is that the PC used for their work is unusable, not what the cause of the defect is. So the service desk, based on known handling methods or records of past incidents, tells the user the procedure for a temporary workaround, namely restarting the PC, and first brings the PC back to an operable state. This is a typical incident management action. A permanent fix that removes the defect itself is handled separately, based on the incident record, in a follow-up activity such as problem management. In other words, incident management plays the role of keeping the business running through first aid, and hands the fundamental cure over to another management process.
Incorrectイ
“Make a plan to distribute the corrected program to the PC” is work that belongs to release management (release and deployment management), so it is wrong. Planning and coordinating when the corrected program will be distributed, to which range of PCs, by what procedure, and how to roll it back if trouble occurs, is the role of release management, carried out after approval by change management. Besides, a distribution plan assumes that the corrected version is already finished, so it does not help the user in front of us, whose PC is inoperable right now, resume work immediately. It is not an incident management action, whose purpose is rapid restoration.
Incorrectウ
“Test the corrected program” is also wrong. Testing to confirm that the corrected program really removes the defect and does not adversely affect other functions (a degradation) is a quality-check activity carried out after the correction is finished, in preparation for release; it belongs to verifying the permanent fix handed over from problem management, or is part of release management. Until the testing is over the user still cannot use the PC, so its direction differs from the aim of incident management, which is the early restoration of service.
Incorrectエ
“Fix the defect in the program” is work that removes the root cause, and it is the role of problem management (and of software maintenance), so it is wrong. Problem management is the activity of analyzing the records of incidents that have occurred, identifying the root cause, establishing a permanent solution, and preventing recurrence. Because investigating the cause and making the correction take time, incident management first offers a workaround so that the user is not kept waiting, and restores the business. The key to seeing through this choice is not to confuse the division of roles between incident management and problem management.
ここがポイント
- The purpose of incident management is to restore service as quickly as possible in response to a service interruption or a drop in quality, so that the impact on the agreed service level is minimized. Even if the root cause is unknown, if a workaround such as a restart or lending a replacement machine gets the work going again, incident management has fulfilled its purpose.
- The point of this question is whether you can distinguish the division of roles among incident management (first aid and early restoration), problem management (identifying the root cause, permanent countermeasures, and preventing recurrence), and change management and release management (approving and distributing the corrected version). Acting as the contact point for users (a single point of contact) to receive incidents, record them, and inform users of workarounds is the job of the service desk.
用語