Computer Systems Maintenance Strategy: Brisbane City University - Case Study Example

Brisbane City University. Computer Systems Maintenance strategy. Table of contents Executive Summary …………………………………………………………………………..4 Maintenance Requirements…………………………………………………………………..5 Maintenance Philosophy …………………………………………………………….5 Servicing type status…………………………………………………………………………..6 Reviewing Available documentation………………………………………………..6 Review hardware and software……………………………………………………..6 Customers Identification…………………………………………………………………….7 Customer’s locations………………………………………………………………...7 Customer’s needs……………………………………………………………………8 Time frame for accessibility………………………………………………………..8 Critical hardware components……………………………………………………………..8 Critical software components ……………………………………………………..9 Maintenance service operations……………………………………………………9 Business needs report ……………………………………………………………………….9 Business risk …………………………………………………………………………………11 Risk management strategy……………………………………………………………...…..11 Preventive maintenance schedule………………………………………………….11 Maintenance strategy……………………………………………………………………......12 Reporting fault procedures ………………………………………………………………....13 Process for handling the fault……………………………………………………...13 Determining response times………………………………………………………..14 Escalation procedures……………………………………………………………...14 Help desk processes…………………………………………………………………………16 Organizations options…………………………………………………….………..16 Help desk tools ……………………………………………………………………..16 Service level agreement…………………………………………………………………….17 Monitoring help desk performance ………………………………………………………22 Change request procedures ……………………………………………………………….22 Change implementation plan…………………………………………………………..….22 Change management report……………………………………………………………….23 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………..24 References …………………………………………………………………………………..25 Executive Summary Brisbane City University a world class learning institution operating within Brisbane central business district employs over 600 staff has a student population numbering 2050. The institution has various departments such as finance, human resources, marketing, enrolments, students and staff library, I.T and an additional eight schools. The institution comprises of two major computer networks used mainly by the students and staff. The staff network consists of approximately 300 personal computers and their specifications are 300Mhz clock speed, 128 Mb of RAM, 10 GB Hard disk and they are all bundled with windows 98 series operating systems and office productivity suites. With today’s business needs this network is obsolete because devices are installed in an ad-hoc way making it very difficult to maintain. Within the students network there is a mix of desktops and laptops connected whereby the desktops range from Pentium PCs, Apple Macs, and Sun Ultra Sparc. The systems are integrated with software’s written in a mixture of Java and C++. This hardware today is three years old and there is no warranty covering it which means the institution has to find a way of keeping it running whereas the software installed are still late in the market and therefore require an outside vendor to assist in maintaining it. Both the staff and the students are provided internet services, an internet portal and firewall, all this courtesy of the I.T department. There are also UNIX systems that run the enrollment, finance, human resources, marketing, library within various departments and the main Database system that runs underneath applications is oracle 8. Most of these softwares are custom made and therefore require outside vendors to periodically maintain them. It is due to this background that the university council gave the institutions vice chancellor an ultimatum of putting the institution back into its growth path which involved major restructuring leading into several senior managers being shown the door whereby among the key departments that are affected is the I.T department. Maintenance Requirements The campus network has to be re-designed afresh by following the principles of modern design architecture, this is so as to prevent unnecessary network and system malfunctioning that arise when a single device fails. For instance, with the current network whenever the network server hard disk crashes, it usually paralyzes the entire network and in such a scenario there is the risk of; Poor reputation among partners, students and faculty members. Losing prospective students which means losing business. Systems information could be compromised internally by staff for their selfish gains because everything is performed manually. Some of the core business functions of the system will include student enrolments, college finances, human resources, marketing of the institution, access control and library services and this requires that the systems are serviced on a regular basis preferably every two weeks to minimize on the downtimes. Maintenance Philosophy The institutions systems will be maintained by an outside vendor whom will visit the institution periodically for proactive maintenance services in addition the vendor may be called from time to time on issues beyond the I.T department’s scope. Minor issues that can be handled internally will be resolved by in –house based IT technicians. Servicing type status ITEM SERVICING TYPE Personal computers and Laptops servicing Warranty then In-house maintenance after warranty period lapses. Servers Warranty then Outsourcing after warranty period lapses. Website development & Maintenance Outsourcing Software installation, maintenance and upgrade Outsourcing Network Installation, Upgrading and maintenance Outsourcing Reviewing Available documentation In order to make references the technicians will use the products instructions manual and will also make use of the internet resources. Review hardware and software The staff network consists of 300 personal computers with each having a 300 MHz, 128 Mb of ram and 10 GB of hard disk space. The systems both run windows 98 operating system and office 98 productivity suites. The systems are linked by twisted pair cables, network hubs and switches. The file server is an oracle 7. With today’s evolving business needs, it is better to go for the latest systems in the market that comes with exceptional level of security mechanisms and systems that could support mission critical business applications while at the same time offering the required scalability and reliability. I would therefore recommend desktops with at least a 3.0 GHz cored 2 Duo processor, 4 G.B of ram, 500 G.B of hard disk space, windows 7 operating systems due to its security features and professional edition office 2007-2010 productivity suite. I would recommend cat 6e networking cables with the latest Cisco switches and wireless access links. This is so as to have a reliable network infrastructure with minimal downtimes (Comp USA, 2010). Customers Identification Some of the customers who will be using the system include: Internal customers: Students, members of staff such as faculty and other non-teaching staff such as technical support, bursar, marketers, library staff, security officers among others. External customers: These are the prospective students, suppliers, partners, contractors Customer’s locations These customers are expected to be of diverse backgrounds with a number of them coming from different parts of the world. There will be the in-house customers who will be students trying to access the services offered by the system, the college staff including both the teaching and non-teaching staff. There will also be local customers, these will be the local suppliers supplying various consumables such as food items, and learning materials, technical support, and may also involve local prospective students. There will be national customers, these will be suppliers supplying rare items into the college such as laboratory chemicals, construction works and national prospective students. Then there will be international customers, these will include industry partners involved with work study placement programs with international organizations, current students whom have to submit their assignments online and international prospective students whom have to submit their applications online and at the same time pay their fees. Customer’s needs For instance, the students will need to pay their fees via the institutions system which could be online at a remote computer or onsite within the campus. The system should also enable the students submit their assignments to their professors online, the system should assist in granting access within the campus, this way the security of the entire campus is strictly going to be monitored. Partners offering work study placement may require to log in the students data base from time to time to select the best students for their internships and suppliers and contractors may also want to log in to the system to submit invoices, communicate via e-mail messaging and request for their payments to be processed and the students and institutions staff accessing the internet for both research work and personal use. Some of the skill sets that will be required by customers into using these applications are normal internet browsing skills, sending and receiving emails, minor data entry required in filling in application forms and requesting payments for invoices. Time frame for accessibility Most of the customers will access the system weekdays during working hours which is basically Monday to Friday from 8:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the evening, The other customers may be international prospective students submitting their online applications, and the work placement partnering organizations whom can access the system anytime depending on their respective time zone. Nevertheless much activity on the system will be during working days from 8-5 in the evening and there will only be an exception during the holidays when the system activities will be more or less the same as being witnessed during the weekends. Critical hardware components Each department within the institution will require its own independent server. For instance the finance department will need to have a server that is dedicated towards that particular department. There will be desktops and laptop clients and other wireless hand held devices such as PDAs, smart phones and tablet PCs that will assist in the day to day operations of the departments IT operations. The systems will have to be interlinked by secure wireless switches, the latest siemon cat 6e cables that come with the best quality, with wireless access points secured by passwords and other encryption techniques to ensure that only authorized users access the network. Also a firewall with intrusion detection mechanism is required in order to protect unauthorized users from accessing the network. Critical software components The institution needs operating systems preferable windows 7 due to its security features and reliability, it also requires office 2007 or 2010, adobe reader, antivirus solutions, oracle 11 g for database management. The institution also needs tailor made applications, these will include an accounting system specific to the institution, a supplier management system that is also customized towards its needs, an access control system and assignment management system for retrieving and submitting assignments. Maintenance service operations With modern technology in place in terms of both hardware and software, it requires day to day preventive maintenance of the system with a dedicated team of staff being given the responsibility of handling the systems on a regular basis and reporting major faults to the authorities. Business needs report In this particular report we are going to include all forms of maintenance from the unplugging of the power cables to the more advanced network troubleshooting. We are going to include both the software and hardware maintenance while also concentrating on the campus network. Some of the important business functions that need to be paid most attention to include the finances because this is the heart of the institution and all systems that directly or indirectly are connected with the finance department has to be carefully maintained with the most effective preventive maintenance mechanism being consistently deployed. We will also pay attention to admission and enrollments, because this is where student’s databases reside and it is from this same database that we will control the entire student population by looking at their performances, issuing certificates and transcripts, recommending scholarships. Other departments are marketing, also important because they tell the outside world what the institution does. There is also the procurement department that provides to the institution required products ranging from stationeries, to fuel, laboratory materials among others. Some of the required system maintenance skills include: Printers: here the technicians should be able to install and configure the printers, change toners and cartridges, clear the paper jams, replace worn out parts. Personal computers: Installing and configuring the operating system, installing application software’s, configure the machines on the network, repair both the operating system and application software’s, update the software’s, troubleshoot both hardware and software’s, replace faulty parts of the system. Computer network: There should be the ability to design, install and configure the network with the ability to troubleshoot the network together with its components. The staff responsible should thoroughly understand the working of components deployed within the network and they should possess the skills to troubleshoot them accordingly. Custom and specialized applications such as oracle database and enrolment system: These applications will require staff to undergo their minimum vendor certifications qualifications with a thorough understanding of how they work. Business risk With poor infrastructure in place there are quite a number of risks, these involve Operational risks: This is likely to occur as a result of aging and dilapidated facilities which could lead to delivering services below par. Strategic risks: there is a likelihood of reduced interest from prospective students since we will be operating below par. There will also be excessive employee turnover occurring as a result of high cost required in training employees and the downtime that arises from time to time as a result of limited training resources. There is also a likelihood of reduced interest from our learning partners. Financial risks: With reduced enrollment there is a likelihood of reducing income for the institution and there will also be more expenses for instance in paying the auditors because our systems are outdated and require some significant time to acquire data from it. Internal fraud: This can occur as a result of manual system whereby malicious activities become very difficult to detect. Risk management strategy The institution should deploy standby technicians round the clock and incase of outsourced services there should be a dedicated team that also operates round the clock in standby for the company. Preventive maintenance schedule All the institutions systems will be serviced during the weekends, all the servers will be shutdown during this period one by one per department so that the faulty hardware are diagnosed before the actually problem occurs. The software will have to be updated frequently probably automatically over the internet and technicians will manually check on them during the weekends if the updates were successful. A drilling exercise will be conducted every six months in order to ascertain if the disaster recovery plan in place is fully working. The cost of maintenance will be slightly high but not much compared to when there is no maintenance at all and whenever a disaster strikes. Most of these procedures will be conducted by the companies full time employed staff under the guidance of its external consultant and if the institution decided not to do nothing at all, then the eventual cost is going to be more expensive because whenever the systems are down and all the activities are paralyzed it becomes very expensive for the organization since they cannot even access the tuition fee balances for their students and any other financial database a situation whereby even the slightest amount of money cannot be retrieved from the schools account for any expense whatsoever. Maintenance strategy Our maintenance strategy will be designed in such a way that both the computers and network perform at optimal levels all the time. The service plans will be proactive and preventive and we will provide a computer system specialist who will be responsible for keeping the systems performing at optimal levels. With the proactive service approach systems problems will be prevented from arising and should they arise then the technicians will avail themselves on site the same day to make the systems running in order to minimize on downtimes (365 computers). Our service plans will include but not limited to: Technicians assigned to the business Priority service Both onsite and offsite service and support E-mail and phone support Data backup and security Monthly maintenance and updates Virus, Spyware scans and removals Guaranteed response times Periodic reports on our activities and system maintenance Consultations on new products in the market that can assist in taking the institution to the next level. With such a plan in place, it is also recommended that it should take at least 45 minutes per machine and in the case of our institution, it will take around 4 weekends considering the fact that the company will deploy a number of service technicians to the institution. Reporting fault procedures During the normal working hours 0800-1700 Mon –Fri, systems faults detecting within the institutions computer network will have to be reported to the institutions IT department via the help desk telephone hotline. Outside the normal working hours, faults detected may be left on voice messages and giving full details as possible and if an urgent problem goes unnoticed then a further call to a specific hotline should be made. Process for handling the fault During the normal working hours all fault calls will be handled by the help desk team and the person taking the information will request specific information from the caller in order to complete an online report form and issue a reference number. This information will be Reporters name, contacts Department Systems type Communications software being deployed IP address Severity of the fault and any other relevant details The report will be subsequently logged into the system and a copy will be e-mailed to the fault dispatching team who depending on the severity of the fault may; Request additional information from the reporter Perform network tests and other fault diagnosis procedures Fix the fault immediately and if unable the fault dispatcher will then forward the fault report to a more suitable member of the network division for further attention. When the fault is outside the normal working hours then the recipient of the voicemail will have to judge whether the report is sufficiently severe in order to warrant an urgent action whereby the standby technical staff will be notified immediately to fix the issues (Cambridge University). Determining response times In determining the response time we will begin by having the helpdesk available from 8-5p.m Monday to Friday with staff on calls. Whenever faults arise, problems that will be identified as business stopped will be responded to immediately, these include network failure, crashing of departmental servers and websites, key application failure such as oracle database and other customized applications that run finances. Problems that are classified as annoyances which include failure of office suite applications and other software such as browsers, slow speed from client computers. These will be responded within 24 hours since reporting the fault. Then there will be problems that are classified as nuisance, these include inability to use some specific features from applications and funny systems behavior such as blurring of the computer screen, sound problems, drive issues. These are non-mission critical problems and will be responded within a span of 48 hours since reporting the issues. Escalation procedures Whenever a technical issue has not been given the attention it requires then the problem can be escalated. Nevertheless it is important that all the requested information during the reporting should be availed with utmost honesty. The problem should have been raised for longer than prescribed and there has to be convincing information that no progress is actually being made in which the main reason for escalation should be based on the severity level such as (High Availability, 2010): Critical business impact: here the client has complete loss whereby no work can continue, a good example include the inability to access the oracle database which also acts as the main institutions database. Serious business impact: Here there is degraded loss of service from the systems as a result of component failures. Minor business impact: here the clients experience minor loss of service such as the loss of internet services. No business impact: Here the services are in full working mode and work is not impeded which could just be a minor irritant or the inability to use some specific software features. Enhancement request: Here the customers would like to have a new version of a specific technology in future. Escalation timescales Critical business impact: Will have to be responded to immediately and if 30 minutes has elapsed after initial call without any response the problem has to be escalated to the IT manager. Serious business impact: If 2 hours has elapsed after initial call without any response then the problem is escalated to the technical division. Minor business impact: If 6 hours has elapsed after initial call without response then the problem is escalated to the technical division. No business impact: If 48 hours has elapsed after initial call then the problem is escalated to the technical division. Enhancement request: If 3 months has after initial call without response then the problem will be directed to the technical division. Help desk processes Users normally call the helpdesk and leave their messages on the answering machines and encounter difficulties in completing the fault reporting form. Some of the immediate problems that are expediently resolved by the help desk include loading printer papers in classroom. There is neither staff training nor an online frequently asked question tab. There are no access to systems manuals, and problems are not tracked they are solved as they appear and technical officers firefight problems and the number of jobs at the help desk is constantly static. Organizations options Some of these problems can be resolved by having a helpdesk online telephone numbers, faxes, e-mail and standby customer care representatives whom may also embrace chatting system technologies in order to expediently resolve critical business issues. They should also introduce staff training which can be easily implemented by distance learning tools and other electronic learning methodologies such as social networking sites, CD-ROMs, e-mail technologies among others. With a frequently asked question section, most of the common technology issues could be resolved without bothering the help desk, this saves on both time and money. Help desk should also come up with a systems maintenance philosophy that will ensure that common system malfunctions are avoided which in the end will reduce the downtimes and at the same time educating its users on the working of their information systems. Help desk staffing number and levels IT manager: Rayner riley, electrical engineer by training. Network Administrator: Robert Crunch, former medical student dropout, has hands on the job experience in Networking. IT technician: Derek Joseph, No formal IT education but has a professional development certificate on oracle PL/SQL with on the job hands experience. Systems Administrator: Joanne tango Help Desk: Christine Armani, no formal IT training but has interests in automobiles and car engines. Most of her IT work experience was acquired on the job. Business Analyst: David Sherwood, a graduate with few years of IT experience. Despite the staffs experiences, they only work in their areas of specialty and have never learnt doing the colleagues work. Help desk tools Answering machines Electronic help desk system Service level agreement Scope Technological support services will be provided through technical division help desk unit. The help desk will provide the institution with a service level agreement that outlines specific services, priorities and responsibilities which are related to the support of technology. Customer service statement The help desk of IT is committed to offering quality customer service by: Ensuring there is proper customer satisfaction Responding to support request within the published time frames Interacting with institutions staff in a respectful and courteous manner Requesting feedback in order to look at areas that require improvements Working continuously to improve on the level of service Reviewing and monitoring the established performance indicators periodically. Help desk service The help desk will provide support to the institutions faculty, staff and administrative personnel requiring assistance in the following areas but not limited to: Systems disposal Network infrastructure and storage Database management Hardware and software E-mail account and access Internet access Printer maintenance and set up Remote access Technology consultations, replacement and installations Telephone/PA systems Web development Hours of operation Help desk service will available during the following hours of operation Monday –Friday 08:00 A.M to 9:00 P.M Saturdays 09:00 A.M to 5:00 P.M Whereby the hours of operation are subjected to change and if so will be announced through to the university staff ahead of time to avoid inconveniences. Methods for requesting assistance services Phone: this can be initiated by calling the help desk through (0800-800-800-8000) Voice mail: You can leave a message on the help desk voice mail (*0800-8000000) E-mail: A message can be sent with a detailed description for the service to helpdesk@martniy.edu Priority level for requests The help desk has to make efforts in resolving issues during the time of the service call and if issues are not resolved then priorities will be assigned based on specific definitions and requests will now have to be handled according to the priority assigned to them. Priority Definition Response time Completion time Very High An issue that affects the entire institution Within 1 hour Within 4 hours High An issue with no unknown workaround that affects a single user Within 2 hours Within 24 hours Medium An issue with a workaround solution Within 8 hours Within 48 hours Low A service request that do not require immediate attention Within 72 hours Within 5 working days Remote desktop access & Management Help desk staff will try as much as possible to resolve issues during the service calls by using remote access tools. With such technology, the support representatives will access the callers desktop remotely and the caller can view activities on his/her local monitor in a real time scenario as they occur. All the software patches and security updates will be installed remotely via an automated system in order to ensure on integrity of the systems and the updates may be applied in the background during the systems boot process or whenever the machines are running and are connected to the institutions network. Hardware and software standards There will be support for all the standardized systems and the help desk will also ensure that; There will be no installation of any software without proof of purchase or a copy of the license agreement Whenever purchasing hardware, there should be reference to the modern hardware standard document and hardware’s should be selected from pre-approved list All the non standard system purchases requests have to be accompanied by a justification letter and approved by the technical division. The help desk will offer consultation and assistance with hardware/software purchases Technology inventory The help desk will be responsible for maintaining the current technology inventory which should also include the list of softwares loaded in institutions system and you may be requested to provide a copy of license for software not covered under campus wide agreements and whenever a license or a receipt of purchase cannot be traced then the software should be uninstalled from the system until a license is purchased. Customer responsibilities In order to facilitate the ongoing support process members of the institution will be required to provide comprehensive information pertaining to the service request Provide consent to the support analyst to remotely access the system when requested to Whenever a remote update has been announced, the computers should be left running for the time period specified and all instructions should be followed. Notifying the help desk in advance of any pre-determined assistance will be required. Feedback The technological help desk will be proactive in seeking feedback mainly through follow up calls and whenever a service request is done. This may be achieved through periodic surveys and the institutions community will be highly encouraged in providing feedback regarding the help desk anytime by sending emails to helpdesk@martiny.edu The Technological help desk thanks you for the opportunity to be of service Monitoring help desk performance In monitoring the help desk performance we are going to measure the response times and the success rates in order to ascertain on our level of service. We are going to look at the number of helpdesk service request and divide them by the number of success rate on the first attempt, if the results are anything between 0.8 and 1.0 then we will deem ourselves as successful if below that then we will need to step up our game. Hence we will in the long run embrace the qualitative approach towards our monitoring criteria. Change request procedures These are procedures required that technicians have to obtain authorization before they embark on any maintenance or upgrades and this ensures that (Mike Talon, 2003): More than one person has considered the impact of change in relation to the systems deployed. It also alerts people that something is about to be changed on their systems. Change implementation plan All changes should be identified and planned for prior to the implementation, these are the overhauling of the help desk system, including additional telephone hotlines, emails and fax number to assist in the help desk. We will begin by defining the change management processes and practices: This is going to involve procedures for handling the changes, how they are requested and scheduled for implementation, who is responsible for what and in this instance the IT manager will receive the change request and alert the institutions principal. The change requests will then be channeled to the change coordinator whom will also be the IT manager and it will be done on a form that includes the date and time. We will then plan for the implementation of the changes which involve prioritizing the change request, looking at the available resources to implement the change, the overall impact to the existing system and also provide a schedule for maintenance. The changes will then be implemented systematically while providing feedback to the change coordinator who is the IT manager. We can also modify the change management plan if necessary which could be as a result of changes being not applied on time, enough changes are not being processed on time, a lot of changes are being backed out, no changes at all is being covered (Change tech solutions, 2003). Change management report This change report will be implemented by having a restructuring of the IT department by selecting qualified staffs for a modern business. We will then proceed on and have an audit of the existing systems and at the same time provide recommendation to the institutions principal. It is after the audit that we will recommend the required system and this includes both the hardware and software together with the network infrastructure components. Vendors will then be identified and invited to bid for the required items. Once bidding is done and the preferred vendor is selected, then items will be purchased and their implementation will begin immediately. It will begin by deploying and installing the personal computers together with softwares, we will then go and install the servers and finally finish with the restructuring of the network infrastructure. Staffs will be updated on the developments where by they will also be re-trained afresh to handle the systems and it is during this training period that they will also be taught on the working of the new help desk operations. Conclusion With proper planning, inefficient IT infrastructure at the college is a thing of the past. However, this can only be realized by having an efficient help desk system together with qualified staffs. Additionally this has to go hand in hand with overall support of the institution itself and such as success does not only bring sound business impact but also raise the profile of the institution among its staff, students and the society in general. References University of Cambridge (2010) Reporting network faults Retrieved November 5th 2010 from http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/network/general/ 365 computers (2010) Retrieved November 4th 2010 from http://www.365computerservice.com/maintenance-plans.html Change tech solutions (2003). Implement change management with these six steps. Retrieved November 5th 2010 from http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5 100-10878_11-5074869.html?tag=rbxccnbtr1 Comp USA (2010). Retrieved November 4th 2010 from http://www.compusa.com/ High availability (2010). Escalation procedures Retrieved November 5th 2010 from http://www.high-availability.com/links/4-36-escalation_procedure.php Mike Talon (2003). Establish strong change request procedures to protect your DR plan Retrieved November 5th 2010 from http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-5108758.html SLA agreement (2005). Retrieved November 5th 2010 from http://www.njcu.edu/dept/it/documents/HelpDesk_SLA-Employees_SP08.pdf Read More