SAN FRANCISCO, October 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Significant momentum results in important new standard to "manage the business of IT" 

The Open Group, the vendor neutral IT consortium, has announced the launch of its new IT4IT™  Reference Architecture Standard at its conference in Edinburgh.  

Just a year since the launch of the IT4IT Forum, this new standard will provide a vendor-neutral, technology agnostic and industry agnostic reference architecture for managing the business of IT. It will provide prescriptive guidance on how to design, procure and implement the functionality needed to run IT.

The operating model defined by the IT4IT Standard serves the digital enterprise with support for real-world use-cases (e.g., Cloud-sourcing, Agile, DevOps, and service brokering) as well as embracing and complementing existing process frameworks and methodologies (e.g., ITIL®, CoBIT®, SAFe®, and TOGAF®).

The launch of the standard will be followed in early 2016 by the release of a Foundation Level training course and exam. Higher-level training and certification programs for IT4IT will also become available during the course of next year.

There will also be a number of publications available over the next few months including the IT4IT Reference Architecture Pocket Guide and the IT4IT Reference Architecture Management Guide.

"The launch of the first standard from the IT4IT Forum demonstrates the demand for practical guidance on how to manage the business of IT during a period of intense change. Since the launch of the Forum a year ago, we have seen 68 member organizations become directly involved alongside numerous individual contributors. With the training and certifications programs set to be launched in 2016, it's an exciting time for the Forum."

Allen Brown, President and CEO, The Open Group 

"Corporate IT departments are facing an unprecedented level of change.  To remain competitive, IT is constantly under pressure to deliver more value at a faster pace and lower cost, while ensuring cyber-security, adopting new market technologies and managing the rapidly changing supplier landscape.

For this reason Shell is invested in the Open Group IT4IT Forum with the aim to share expertise and jointly design a comprehensive and integrated model for managing the business of IT.  Adopting the resulting IT4IT Reference Architecture Standard will now deliver value to Shell IT operations in areas such as improved inter-operability in a multi-vendor environment with greater control through insights into the cost, value, risk and performance throughout the IT lifecycle." 

Scott Wahl, CIO Shell Global Functions and IT4IT Decision Executive 

"In our industry, control of the end-to-end IT Value Chain is mandatory.  That particularly includes effective and dynamic management of a multi-sourced landscape, which can only become a cost- efficient and high quality reality with the right level of standardization.  We're committed to the IT4IT initiative, as we strongly believe in a community driven open standard as the basis for sustainable competitiveness.  We've done it in other areas and know that it works."

Ton van der Linden, CIO, Achmea 

"Cloud services and multi-provider outsourcing are adding new degrees of complexity to IT service management.  The IT4IT Forum will use its real life cross-industry expertise to define a new operating model for IT - and will drive tool vendors to deliver toolsets optimized to support this new IT4IT industry open standard."

Dirk Heiss, Global Infrastructure Services Officer, Munich RE 

"An IT4IT industry standard to truly enable the business of IT is long overdue. The industry is ever changing and IT needs to evolve to meet the needs of the business while effectively managing the IT services provided both internally and externally.  By driving an industry standard at the reference architecture level, we will truly achieve interoperability among our software vendors providing the strongest IT environment available, thus allowing us to focus our energies on differentiating the business services instead of focusing on how best to manage IT."

Rick Ancona, CTO, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP 

Notes to editors 

For more detail on The Open Group's various membership programs please click here

About The Open Group 

The Open Group is an international vendor--‐and technology--‐neutral consortium upon which organizations rely to lead the development of IT standards and certifications, and to provide them with access to key industry peers, suppliers and best practices.  The Open Group provides guidance and an open environment in order to ensure interoperability and vendor neutrality.  Further information on The Open Group can be found at http://www.opengroup.org.

SOURCE The Open Group