Luke Varner IT-6413, Service Delivery Fall 2013 Final Project U.S. Technology Corporation: ITIL Implementation Plan. Introduction

Transcription

1 Luke Varner IT-6413, Service Delivery Fall 2013 Final Project U.S. Technology Corporation: ITIL Implementation Plan Introduction The selected team s implementation plan of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is focused on the business case of the U.S. Technology Company. The company consists of 500 employees and offers offsite data center management as well as cloud services. U.S. Technology Company currently provides services to 150 customers across the country. The organization's CIO is striving for a customized ITIL plan that will reduce cost, improve IT services, increase productivity, and respond quickly to change (Kneller, pg. 4). Using the organizational chart (Figure 1) provided in the appendix, explanations and justifications for the ITIL implementation team are detailed as well as the application of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Each team will consist of four to five individuals selected based on their ability to contribute to the management area and the organization. Implementation Management Team Composition Based on the organizational chart (Figure 1) of the U.S. Technology Corporation, the individual management team members come from one of three different areas. These three areas are based off of the cloud services offered by the organization in the form of Software as Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). The three areas are defined by the directors in charge: Director of Applications (SaaS), Director of Services (PaaS), and the Director of Operations (IaaS). Team members were chosen based on their expertise in their area, location in the escalation matrix, and value to the service management area. Based on the business case of the company, the critical service management areas identified include: Service Management, Capacity Management, and Availability Management. This is due to the fact that the U.S. Technology Corporation is a services-oriented organization focused on providing cloud services and hosting capabilities. Customers of cloud providers look for the ability to have constant access to their information at any time, wherever they are in the world. Incident Management o Help Desk Director o Systems Administrator o Help Desk Employee (tenured status) o Knowledge Management Consultant o Database Administrator The Incident Management team will consist of the Help Desk Director who oversees the operation, supervision, and management of the help desk. Working with the tenured Help Desk Employee, the Help Desk Director will enable the team to quickly identify incidents, prioritize them, and understand when escalation to a problem is needed. Because this is the initial point of contact for issues in the organization, it is useful to have a Knowledge Management Consultant on the team in

2 order to create documentation for how and why Help Desk employees solve and escalate problems. This should enable the Help Desk Director to train employees how to handle new problems through a series of decision making processes. Taking the lessons learned from Cusick and Ma (2010), the team should be sure to focus on creating a vision for incident response starting with the basic core requirements of how the organization operates. Cusick and Ma further suggest anticipating resistance to change, emphasizing communication, institutionalizing the process, and clarifying the benefits of the changes to the organization (p. 147). Because of the large number of data centers and cloud hosting services provided by U.S. Technology Company, a Database Administrator and a Systems Administrator are included on this team. The Database Administrator and Systems Administrator can illustrate the most critical components and issues they deal with as well as relay information about service levels to maintain and common fixes. Using this information, the Help Desk Director can work with the Knowledge Management Consultant to create best practices for creating an information base Help Desk employees can use practically. Problem Management o Director of Operations o Senior Database Administrator o Senior Systems Administrator o Senior Network Administrator Receiving the escalated incidents, the Problem Management team will be led by the Director of Operations who should be able to identify recurring incidents and significant issues not solved by the first two escalation tiers in the organization. The Director of Operations will work with the Senior Systems, Database, and Network Administrators to identify the roots causes of problems within their respective expertise. The biggest problems related to U.S. Technology concern the uptime and availability of their product to their customers which is why each of the senior administrators are included on this team. They can combine their knowledge of tier 2 incidents with the Director of Operations to identify trends, correct problems, and take measures to prevent them in the future. Creating this knowledge should allow the team to direct clear and consistent escalation procedures from tier 1 on up. Change Management o Director of Operations o Director of Applications o Business Analyst o Risk and Audit Analyst o Knowledge Management Consultant Carrying over from the Problem Management Team, the Director of Operations will be able to describe consist problems being dealt with in the organization to the Change Management Team and work to create solutions without negatively affecting the organization. Because of the significant impact organizational changes can have on an organization, the Director of Applications as well as a Business

3 Analyst and Risk and Audit Analyst should be included on the team. The Operations director can propose the suggested changes that the Business Analyst will assess in terms of feasibility and integration. The Risk and Audit Analyst can determine the financial impact on the assets of the company and relay this analysis to the Director of Applications who can make a determination of how the change will reflect the future direction of applications and how they translate to services. If the suggested change is approved the team can refer to the Knowledge Management Consultant as to how to create the documentation and steps to implement the change across the organization. This would include the Director of Applications referring with the Release Management Team and involving the Integration Director as well as QA and Testing Analysts. Configuration Management o Systems Administrator o Database Administrator o Knowledge Management Consultant o Help Desk Employee (tenured) Taking cues from what has been decided by the Change Management Team, the Configuration Management Team will use the information relayed by the Operations Director to update the Configuration Management Database (TeamQuest, 2013). Because the configuration changes mostly involve hardware, a Systems Administrator and Database Administrator will be in charge of accurately identifying configuration items. A Help Desk Employee should also be included on the team to relay the existing configuration set up at help desk service centers. The Knowledge Management Consultant will assist other team members with creating a repository of information about IT component configurations and the relationships between devices. Release Management o Director of Applications o Integration Director o Project Manager o Network Engineer o QA and Testing Consultant The Release Management Team should be headed by the Director of Applications. As identified by Lahtela and Jӓntti (2011), release management issues are common and include: Having no specified process, limited testing, insufficient change management, and customer confusion about the release (p ). The Director of Applications will work with the Integration Director and Project Manager on the team to ensure that service agreement levels are being met with the potential deployment and that the project is falling within acceptable financial boundaries. The Integration Director will deliberate with a Network Engineer to ensure that the bandwidth and resources to support the application are in place. Depending on the necessity of the product release, the QA and Testing Consultant will perform iterative tests on the deployment and use of the product in as many different capacities as possible to determine functionality and security. The Project Manager will work with the Integration Director carrying out the chosen SDLC methods for implementation and maintenance of the product release.

4 Service Management o Director of Services o Application Architect o Project Manager o Risk and Audit Analyst o Help Desk Director Because the U.S. Technology Corporation is a heavily services-oriented organization, the ITIL Service Management Team is vital in the success of the company. Short lapses and outages in data availability could result in loss of customers and violation of SLAs. For these reasons, the Service Management Team will be led by the Director of Services who works closely with the Application Architect and Project Manager to ensure that the best product is being delivered from the start. The Project Manager can convey the wants and needs of the customer in terms of SLAs and the Application Architect can establish the best methods, practices, and procedures for creating a system that will satisfy those needs. In order for the team to have numbers and indicators to work with, a Risk and Audit Analyst is assigned to the team. This analyst can provide figures in terms of revenue lost and/or gained due to exceptional or poor performance in the delivery of services. With this information, the Director of Services can establish best service practice guidelines that can be communicated to the Help Desk Director. The Help Desk Director can then relay these guidelines to help desk employees to establish the best possible tier 1 handling of issues. This should enable the help desk to handle a larger percentage of organizational issues as well, allowing for the higher tiers to focus their talents on more difficult challenges. Capacity Management o Storage Engineer o Database Administrator o Senior Network Administrator o Software Engineer o Senior Systems Administrator Another vital component of a data hosting and cloud services company, the Capacity Management Team is a crucial point of analysis when implementing ITIL practices. Because the services offered by U.S. Technology Company surround the storage and the accessibility of data, a Storage Engineer will head up the team. To evaluate the necessary service capacity based on the SLA with the customer, based on the study by Orta, Ruiz, and Toro (2009), the Storage Engineer should focus on the following goals: To evaluate whether the actual service performance with its corresponding contracted capacity matches the agreed one in the SLA, to determine the lowest service capacity that guarantees the fulfillment of the SLA performance parameters established, and to evaluate the penalties service providers would have to assume for not meeting the agreed response time terms (p. 116). Working with a Database Administrator, the Senior Network Administrator, and Senior Systems Administrator, the Storage Engineer will be able to develop a plan for allocating resources for application size, necessary redundancy, data storage requirements, and understand time frames for the

5 aggregation of data. The inclusion of the Software Engineer on the team will allow the team to establish best practices in application creation surrounding resource efficiency and size. Because a major asset of the company is data and the manner in which it is kept and maintained, the Capacity Management Team will work closely with the Asset and Configuration Management Teams; This can provide the capacity management team with crucial information to both understand past outages and prevent future outages (ServiceNow). Availability Management o Director of Services o Network Engineer o Risk and Audit Analyst o Business Analyst o Director of Web Presence The backbone of many cloud organizations service agreements, the Availability Management Team is responsible for ensuring the maximum uptime of their services and creating time for maintenance without disrupting a customer s vital business functions. In all likelihood, many of the U.S. Technology Corporation service agreements include the idea of continuous availability (Orand, pg. 139). This idea helps individuals establish the importance of including data and system resource redundancy in order to make changes while keeping services intact. In order to establish the best practices to accomplish these goals, the Director of Services will head up the Availability Management Team and will work closely with a Network Engineer to gain statistics and peak resource usage information. The Risk and Audit Analyst can calculate the financial statistics to ensure an acceptable amount of redundancy and availability based on the guidelines described by the Business Analyst. The Director of Web Presence will use the information provided by the other team members to create web applications and platforms that respond well to large amounts of traffic and display the functions and services of the U.S. Technology Corporation in an effective manner. Infrastructure Management o Database Administrator o Network Engineer o Systems Analyst o Storage Engineer The key members of the Infrastructure Management Team include a Database Administrator and a Systems Analyst. Using their combined knowledge they can plan and create practices for the life of system hardware in terms of how long it is used and when to have it replaced. A Network Engineer can perform the same tasks as it relates to networking components. The Storage Engineer will be included on this team to ensure the best products and strategies are being utilized to ensure efficient data usage and service delivery. This team should work in coordination with the Availability Management and Capacity Management Teams as the functions and capabilities of the technology infrastructure may change based on the needs of the business.

6 Security Management o Information Security Director o Security Analyst o Knowledge Management Consultant o User Interface Engineer o Content Manager The Information Security Director will lead the Security Management Team and will work with a Security Analyst to ensure proper regulations and requirements are established according to the needs of the organization and customers. This includes testing as well as creating policies and guidelines that will be documented by the Knowledge Management Consultant. According to Sheikhpour and Modiri (2012), combining ITIL practices with ISO/IEC security best practices identifies the requirements to build security into all aspects of the service in order to effectively manage risks in the infrastructure (p. 2176). The Security Analyst must further ensure that the security of the cloud services and customer data is within the guidelines established by the SLA. The Content Manager and User Interface Engineer will be responsible for the best practices for delivery and availability of security and acceptable use policies to all tiers of the organization as well as the customers. All of these security measures should be enabled by the team with as little impact and obstruction to the organization s business processes and assets. Therefore the Security Management Team should work closely with the Asset Management Team and keep an eye on the nature of issues identified by the Problem and Incident Management teams. Enterprise Management o ERP Manager o Security Analyst o Systems Analyst o Content Manager o Programmer Handling the Enterprise Management aspects of the organization will be the ERP Manager. The ERP manager will work with different team members as well as the non-it members of the organization to ensure all business processes are being supported by the ERP system effectively. Furthermore, the ERP Manager will refer to the Security Analyst to establish guidelines and expectations for authentication. A Systems Analyst should be involved to convey the needs of the ERP system as it applies the organization. The Systems Analyst can also help in establishing guidelines for deployment and changes to the ERP system. A Content Manager should be able to convey the best type of information to display and the manner of distribution through the ERP system. Depending on the flexibility and accessibility of the ERP system source code, a Programmer should be included on the Enterprise Management Team to suggest changes and improvements to the system. Asset Management

7 o Director of Services o Business Analyst o Help Desk Employee (tenured) o Senior Database Administrator o Information Security Director The Asset Management Team works in close contact with the Configuration Management Team to keep track of the assets and their configuration. The Director of Services will lead the team at the top escalation tier and will consult with a Business Analyst to establish guidelines for determining the hard and soft assets of the organization. Hard assets are likely to include the many components of the data center which the Senior Database Administrator can identify. The Senior Database Administrator can then delegate tasks for inventorying physical components. The same processes can be adapted and developed at the low escalation tiers for the individual help desks as determined by the Help Desk Employee on the team. The Information Security Director can establish processes and hierarchy for securing assets based on their perceived value as determined by the Director of Services and Business Analyst. Desktop Management o Help Desk Director o Security Analyst o Network Engineer o Systems Administrator The Desktop Management Team s main concern surrounds access to and activity on the organization s desktops. The bulk of the desktops are used at the help desk tier. For this reason, one of the lead consultants on the Desktop Management Team is the Help Desk Director. The Help Desk Director will work with a Security Analyst to develop the best practices and policies for acceptable use and restrictions on company devices. A Network Engineer and Systems Administrator will also consult with the Security Analyst to determine acceptable BYOD access and traffic being distributed across the company network. The focus of BYOD and VPN access is largely associated with the corporate office employees who require more flexibility with access to company resources. Summary and Conclusions The implementation of this team structure based on the ITIL framework is adapted to the specific business case of the U.S. Technology Corporation. The teams are built around a company heavily invested in providing data center hosting and cloud services. In order to ensure the proper refinement of best practices, the organization should look at the Capability Maturity Model in determining the process level of each of the service management areas. The U.S. Technology Corporation CIO should make a concerted effort to implement the ITIL processes that are more critical to their organization (i.e. Service, Capacity, and Availability) instead of trying to implement all of the process areas at once. As the process areas start to mature, based on the five levels of the CMM, it is advisable to begin creating other ITIL service management teams. However, as identified by Pereira and Silva, it is crucial to understand when ITIL implementation is not at the level that organizations believe

8 (pg. 268). Organization leaders should be honest and straight forward about the maturity level of their ITIL processes because not doing so will ultimately hurt the organization.

9 References Cusick, J. & Ma, G. (2010). Creating an ITIL inspired incident management approach: roots, response, and results. Proceedings of the Network Operations and Management Symposium Workshops, doi: /nomsw Kneller, M. (2010, September). Executive briefing: The benefits of ITIL [PDF]. Retrieved from Lahtela, A. & Jantti, M. (2011). Challenges and problems in release management process: a case study. Proceedings of the International Software Engineering and Service Science Conference, doi: /icsess Orand, B. (2013). Foundations of it service management with ITIL (2nd ed.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Orta, E., Ruiz, M., & Toro, M. (2009). A system dynamics approach to web service capacity management. Seventh IEEE European Conference on Web Services, doi: /ecows Pereira, R. & da Silva, M. (2011). A maturity model for implementing ITIL V3 in practice. Enterprise, Proceedings of the 15th IEEE International Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops (EDOCW), doi: /edocw ServiceNow. (n.d.). ITIL capacity management. Retrieved from Sheikhpor, R., & Modiri, N. (2012). A best practice approach for integration of ITIL and ISO/IEC services for information security management. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 5(2), issn: TeamQuest. (2013). ITIL configuration management. Retrieved from

10 Figure 1 U.S. Technology Corporation