The best-practice guide to managing IT infrastructuresnow fully updated! IT Systems Management is an up-to-the-minute guide to maintaining stable, responsive IT production environments. Top IT systems management expert Rich Schiesser illuminates both the theoretical and practical aspects of systems management, using methods and examples drawn from decades of experience leading and consulting with the worlds most complex enterprise IT organizations. This thoroughly updated edition covers every systems management discipline and all elements of success: people, process, and technology. Schiesser shows how to apply best-practice system management throughout all IT infrastructure environments, from mainframe data centers to web-enabled systems, client/server and mid-range platforms to wireless and VoIP networks. Schiesser systematically addresses todays most crucial issues, as well as emerging trends that will transform IT systems management. Youll find an entirely new chapter on using IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) effectively, plus new coverage ranging from managing outsourced functions to efficiently delivering ultra-speed Internet connections. This edition includes more real-life examples throughout, and new interactive problems designed to give IT professionals even deeper insight. Coverage includes: Implementing bullet-proof processes in areas ranging from change management to production acceptance, capacity planning to storage Optimizing the people components of IT service delivery, from customer service to executive support Using technology to manage systems more efficiently and effectively Systematically managing performance, availability, and business continuity Reducing the cost and complexity of IT facilities management Taking a more strategic approach to security Rich Schiesser founded and owns RWS Enterprises, Inc., a consultancy that specializes in designing and implementing world-class IT infrastructures. His client list has included The Weather Channel, Amazon.com, and DIRECTV. He has led major IT infrastructure organizations at Hughes Aircraft, the City of Los Angeles, and Twentieth Century Fox. For nearly ten years, he managed the primary data center at Northrop Grumman, one of the worlds most advanced computer facilities. A former University of Phoenix faculty member, he has taught IT management at UCLA and California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). informit.com/ph
This chapter has discussed some techniques to use in capturing and maintaining executive support for the implementation of systems management disciplines. These included building and presenting business cases, educating executives on necessary technical issues without alienating them, and developing and using meaningful, business-oriented metrics-one of the most effective weapons in your arsenal for budget battles.
This chapter covered the second important people issue of organizing an infrastructure for optimal systems management. We began with a look at how an IT environment evolves and matures from a basic reporting structure into a more expansive, sophisticated organization. We next identified three key factors by which infrastructures can be organized: departmental responsibilities, planning orientation, and systems management processes. We then discussed alternative locations of four departments that greatly influence the effectiveness of an infrastructure. These departments are the help desk, database administration, network operations and systems management. Finally, we listed the key attributes of process owners for each of the 12 systems management disciplines.
This chapter presented effective ways to staff your infrastructure organization, presenting techniques to assess a variety of groups of onboard personnel who may be qualified to work in systems management. For those instances where outside hiring is required, we discussed effective ways to attract candidates from other organizations, including the use of recruiters. We then looked at the selection process itself, along with several suggestions for how to retain key personnel. Finally, the chapter concluded with a treatment of the benefits and drawbacks of using consultants and contractors.
This chapter showed the importance of providing good customer service and the value of partnering with key suppliers. It presented how to identify key customers and the key services they use. I discussed how to negotiate realistic service levels and looked at two universal truths about customer service and expectations. Next I showed how to develop a customer supplier matrix. Finally, I provided a brief discussion about the four cardinal sins that undermine good customer service
This chapter described the significance and the relationships of ethics, legislation, and outsourcing in managing today's complex IT environments. The chapter offered definitions of personal and business ethics and described how the lack of them led to the undoing of several executives and the corporations they ran. Further discussions showed how these breaches of corporate ethics led to the enactment of several pieces of far- reaching legislation. The second segment of this chapter explained some of these new laws and how they impact the accountability of corporate officers and of the reporting of their company's finances. This additional accountability and governance directly affects the IT organization, its managers, and the systems that produce the financial reports. The chapter concluded with the topic of outsourcing and how it is sometimes considered as a response to these new laws of accountability.
This chapter introduced the IT Infrastructure Library(TIL). It began with some of the developments that led up to ITIL and a discussion of IT service management. Next was presented a brief summary of how ITIL came into existence. We then described the six service delivery followed by its six service support processes. Then we processes of ITIL offered a comparison of the ITIL processes with those presented in Part Two. The chapter concluded with descriptions of the 10 common myths surrounding the implementation of the ITIL framework.
This chapter described the first of our 12 systems management processes availability. We began with a formal definition of the process and differentiated it from the related terms of uptime, downtime, slow response, and high availability. This led us to the benefits of a single process owner, for which we prioritized a list of desirable traits this individual should possess. We next discussed methods to measure and analyze availability and included an example from Federal Express to help illustrate these points The main portion of this chapter centered on approaches we can use to strive for high availability. We called these the seven Rs of high avail- redundancy, reputation, reliability, repairability, recoverability, responsiveness, and ness. Each was described at some length. We concluded this chapter with a detailed discussion on how to quickly assess the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of an infrastructure's availability process. We presented two assessment worksheets along with an explanation of how to perform such an assessment.
IT Systems Management, 2nd Edition
Acquiring Executive Support
Organizing for Systems Management
106,908 Documents loading chapter content ...
Staffing for Systems Management
Customer Service
Ethics, Legislation, and Outsourcing
Comparison to ITIL Processes
Availability
Performance and Tuning
Production Acceptance
Change Management
Problem Management
Storage Management
Network Management
Configuration Management
Capacity Planning
Strategic Security
Business Continuity
Facilities Management
Developing Robust Processes
Process Provides Incentives for Compliance and Penalties for Avoidance or Circumvention
Process Is Standardized Across all Appropriate Departments and Remote Sites
Process Is Streamlined as Much as Possible and Practical
Process Is Automated Wherever Practical, but Only after Streamlining
Process Integrates with all Other Appropriate Processes
