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Problem Management - Problem Investigation and Diagnosis

An investigation should be conducted to try to diagnose the root cause of the problem - the speed and nature of this investigation will vary depending upon the impact, severity and urgency of the problem - but the appropriate level of resources and expertise should be applied to finding a resolution commensurate with the priority code allocated and the service target in place for that priority level.

There are a number of useful problem solving techniques that can be used to help diagnose and resolve problems - and these should be used as appropriate. Such techniques are described in more detail later in this section.

The CMS must be used to help determine the level of impact and to assist in pinpointing and diagnosing the exact point of failure. The Know Error Database (KEDB) should also be accessed and problem-matching techniques (such as key word searches) should be used to see if the problem has occurred before and, if so, to find the resolution.

It is often valuable to try to recreate the failure, so as to understand what has gone wrong, and then to try various ways of finding the most appropriate and cost-effective resolution to the problem. To do this effectively without causing further disruption to the users, a test system will be necessary that mirrors the production environment.

There are many problem analysis, diagnosis and solving techniques available and much research has been done in this area. Some of the most useful and frequently used techniques include:

  Network failures    
Causes Percentage of total Computation Cumulative %
Network Controller 35 0+35% 35
File corruption 26 35%+26% 61
Addressing conflicts 19 61%+19% 80
Server OS 6 80%+6% 86
Scripting error 5 86%+5% 91
Untested change 3 91%+3% 94
Operator error 2 94%+2% 96
Backup failure 2 96%+2% 98
Intrusion attempts 1 98%+1% 99
Disk failure 1 99%+1% 100

From this chart it is clear to see that there are three primary causes for network failure in the organization. These should therefore be targeted first.


Other ITIL Processes

Operational Layer:

Tactical Layer: