Decomposition of IT service processes and alternative service identification using ontologies

Abstract

Providers of IT services are under constant pressure to reduce cost and improve the quality of the services they provide. The ability to decompose such IT services (defined by themselves or third party suppliers) into elemental service processes characterized by core function can benefit the providers by allowing them to identify alternative service processes of potentially lower cost and/or improved quality. This paper proposes an ontology-based hierarchical service decomposition and identification approach to support service providers in managing their operational service processes by the characterization and exploitation of such elemental service processes. We further demonstrate the feasibility and sample outcomes of the proposed approach an example. ©2008 IEEE.