From IT Service to Digital Product

In the IT4IT Reference Architecture, Version 2.1, the Service Model Backbone represents the full lifecycle of an IT service, which had previously included services from both a labor and a digital perspective. The Digital Product, however, changes this focus to address technology or code as the main actor in the delivery of an outcome of a service, removing those services performed by human labor.

original IT service model
Figure 1. Original IT Service Model

Original IT Service Model describes service relationships and interactions from the IT4IT Reference Architecture, Version 2.1. This conceptual view has evolved in this document with a redefinition of the service to a Digital Product concept, exclusively addressing digital type services. In Digital Product Interaction, the IT service model has been refactored by:

  • Replacing “IT Service” with “Digital Product” as the main entity managed across the IT Value Network

  • Narrowly defining Service System to focus on technical and data components that deliver outcomes

  • Changing “Service System” to simply “System”

digital product
Figure 2. Digital Product Interaction

Digital Product Interaction provides a view for how the Digital Product’s software and supporting technical components interact with consumers, following practices described in the IT4IT Value Streams and functional components:

  • The Service Interaction is a process or event, and depicted in the Consume value stream

  • The System is a set of configured software, compute, devices, technology, information, and subscriptions to dependent Digital Product systems, as depicted in the Actual Product Instance

  • The Service Offer is a description of the service consumable, based on product rules and in some cases may be dynamically created as described in the Offer functional component

Digital Product Interaction can be used as a template for the instantiation of a Digital Product Instance, in which a specific Service Offer becomes the basis for a Contract, and a specific subset of system resources is allocated per the Offer and supported in the Operate value stream for the term of the Service Contract.