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What Are IT Services? Types and IT Service Management (ITSM)

We cover the types of IT services, in-house, outsourced and managed delivery, ITSM processes, how a service is measured and how it differs from consulting.

Oğuzhan Gerçek··9 min read
What Are IT Services? Types and IT Service Management (ITSM)

Short answer: IT services are the work that keeps an organization's information technology (IT) infrastructure, applications and users running and secure: server and network operations, the help desk, cloud, backup, security and consulting, for example. An organization's own IT department can deliver them, or part of the work can go to an outsourcing partner or a managed service provider (MSP). IT service management (ITSM) organizes how these services are planned, delivered and improved; the service catalog, the SLA, and incident, problem and change management are its core building blocks. Consulting designs the system; an operations service runs it every day.

What is IT, and what is an IT service?

IT stands for information technology. In Turkish the abbreviation is BT (bilgi teknolojileri), and public documents use it in this sense, among them the Public IT Audit Guide (Kamu Bilgi Teknolojileri Denetimi Rehberi) published in January 2014 by Türkiye's Internal Audit Coordination Board (İDKK).

NIST's glossary carries a definition that NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 takes from U.S. federal law (40 U.S.C. 11101): IT is any services, equipment or interconnected systems used in the automatic acquisition, storage, processing and transmission of data or information, among other activities. Alongside hardware and software, the definition explicitly lists services such as cloud computing and help-desk services (our glossary entry).

As an article on PeopleCert's ITIL site recalls, ITIL 4 defines a service as "a means of enabling value co-creation." According to the catalog page for ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018, "service" in the standard refers to the services in the scope of the service management system, and the requirements cover the planning, design, transition, delivery and improvement of those services. In short, an IT service is not the technology itself but the work that brings it to users as an outcome; email that simply works is an example.

Types of IT services

IT services can be grouped under seven headings:

  • Infrastructure and data center: Operating servers, storage, virtualization and the data center (data center article, infrastructure management).
  • End user support and help desk: The first point of contact for device, account and application problems (service desk, end user support).
  • Network and security: The local network, internet access, firewalls, remote access and identity management (network security article).
  • Cloud: Setting up and running cloud resources and tracking their cost (our cloud computing and VPC articles).
  • Backup and disaster recovery: Taking backups, testing restores and bringing workloads back up elsewhere after a disaster (our BaaS and DRaaS articles).
  • Applications and databases: Running business applications and databases and upgrading their versions (DBaaS article).
  • Consulting: Assessing the current state, and drawing up architecture and roadmaps (digital transformation article).

What do an IT department and an IT manager do?

The IT department is the unit that delivers these services in-house or manages how they are sourced from outside.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), IT managers plan, coordinate and direct computer-related activities in an organization; analyzing IT needs, determining personnel needs and monitoring vendors are also part of the job. Systems administrators install, configure and maintain networks and systems, which is what "IT systems administration" means. Computer user support specialists, also called help-desk technicians, give users technical help.

İDKK's guide draws one more line: IT governance sets the organization's direction and monitors conformance and performance against it, while IT management plans, builds and runs the activities that follow the direction that has been set.

How are IT services delivered: in-house, outsourced or managed?

There are four basic models:

  • In-house team: The organization's own IT department does the work. Knowledge stays in the organization, but 24/7 on-call coverage and every specialty need their own staff.
  • Outsourcing: A project or specialists are brought in from outside, while the organization keeps managing the work.
  • Managed service: The operation of a defined scope is handed to a provider against a measured service level (managed services article, MSP).
  • Hybrid: Architecture decisions stay with the internal team, while on-call duty and routine operations move to the provider.

A May 2022 joint advisory from agencies including CISA and the UK's NCSC defines MSPs as entities that deliver, operate or manage ICT services and functions for their customers via a contractual arrangement, such as a service level agreement. It also asks that contracts transparently identify who owns which ICT security roles and responsibilities. We list the ITSM definitions that belong in the contract in our ITIL article, and the questions to put to a provider in 10 questions to ask when choosing a managed service provider.

What is IT service management (ITSM)?

In IBM's definition, ITSM is the practice of planning, implementing, managing and optimizing the end-to-end delivery of IT services to meet user needs and business goals. IBM calls ITIL the most widely adopted framework for implementing and documenting ITSM, and ISO/IEC 20000, created in 2005, the first international standard for service management. We explain how the two differ, and where to start with ITSM, in our ITIL article. Two documents put a service in writing:

  • Service catalog: According to IBM, a directory that lists the IT services available to users across the organization; it is accessed through a portal or menu and can be integrated with service request management.
  • SLA: A contract between a provider and a customer that defines the level of service to be delivered and the consequences of falling short of it (SLA).

ITSM processes: incident, problem, change and service request

ITIL 4 calls these areas practices. Four concepts carry day-to-day operations:

  • Incident: According to IBM, an unplanned outage or interruption in service. According to PeopleCert, the role of incident management is restoring normal service operations swiftly after a disruption.
  • Problem: The root cause behind incidents. Problem management identifies and manages those causes to prevent recurrence, and it also manages workarounds and known errors.
  • Change: In ITIL 4 the practice is called change enablement; its aim is to maximize the number of successful changes by assessing risks, authorizing changes and managing the change schedule.
  • Service request: A request rather than a fault; IBM's examples are requests for new assets, permissions or licenses.

An example: if email will not open one morning, that is an incident; the service desk logs a ticket and the team restores the service. If the outage comes back every week, a problem record is opened. If the cause turns out to be an expired certificate, the renewal is planned and approved as a change. We cover who gets called during an outage in our incident escalation matrix article.

How is an IT service measured?

PeopleCert's ITIL 4 service level management module covers how to set clear, business-based targets for service utility, warranty and experience. In practice, three measures are used:

  1. SLA targets: Commitments such as response and resolution times are regularly compared with actual performance.
  2. Availability: In AWS's definition, the percentage of time that a workload is available for use (uptime article).
  3. User satisfaction: PeopleCert lists user satisfaction among the aims of the service desk practice, and IBM says ITSM focuses on user and customer satisfaction.

A service can meet every SLA target and still leave users unhappy, which is why the three are read together.

How IT consulting differs from IT operations services

The UN's ISIC Rev. 4 classification puts the two in a single class (6202) but describes them separately. Computer consultancy is the planning and designing of computer systems that integrate computer hardware, software and communication technologies. Computer facilities management is the on-site management and operation of clients' computer systems or data processing facilities. The difference shows in the contract as well:

  • Consulting: Answers a question; its output is a report, a design or a roadmap, and the work ends at delivery (IT assessment).
  • Operations: Ongoing; its output is a working system, and its success is measured against the SLA.

The two feed each other: the design moves into operations, and the records that operations keep become input for the next assessment.

Frequently asked questions

What does IT stand for? IT stands for information technology; the Turkish abbreviation is BT (bilgi teknolojileri). It covers the hardware, software and services that collect, store, process and transmit data.

What is an IT company? A company that provides software, IT consulting or IT operations services to other organizations. The UN's ISIC classification groups these activities in its "computer programming, consultancy and related activities" division.

What is an IT help desk? It is the support point where users report IT problems. The service desk in ITSM is broader: it handles incidents, problems and service requests.

What are the ITSM processes? The core processes are incident, problem, change and service request management. Service level, service catalog, asset, configuration and knowledge management round them out.

What is the difference between IT services and IT consulting? Consulting plans, designs or assesses a system, and the work ends at delivery. An operations service runs the system continuously and is measured against SLA targets.

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