Information Technology Operations Department - Configuration Management System - Report Example

IT Operations Department: Configuration Management System By: Foundation Course- Tutor: University of: Department of: 29th May 2016 Management Summary The management of Under Milkwood should aspire to have configuration management system installed in its IT Operations Departments since the benefits associated with systems seems to outweigh the set up and management of the said system. Table of Contents Management Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 1.0 Scope 4 2.0 Objectives of Configuration Management Department 4 2.1 General Objective 4 2.1.1 Specific Objectives 5 2.2 General Objective 5 2.2.1 Specific Objective 5 2.3 General Objective 6 2.3.1 Specific Objectives:- 6 3.0 PROPOSAL 7 4.0 Details of Configuration Management 10 5.0 Businesses, Technology, Organization, Processes and People Implementation (BTOPP) 12 5.1 Businesses 12 5.2 Technology 12 5.3 Organization 14 6.0 Cost of Configuration Management (The Case Against) 14 7.0 Benefits of Configuration Management System (The Case For) 15 8.0 Recommendations 16 1.0 Scope Basically the analysis of Under Milkwood’s IT Operations Department indicates that for efficiency in management of the organization’s operations, the IT Operations department needs to be fully equipped as much as possible. As desired by the management of the Under Milkwood, IT Operations Department should have a Configuration Management Department (CMD). A Configuration Management Department would be responsible for keeping of the organization’s core applications such as the number of available rooms, the number of clients on board, the rate charges, board games and library of DVD’s as well as self-catering provisions among other things running efficiently. The IT specialists are expected to have knowledge enabling them to quickly and effectively solve issues or malfunctions related to the organization’s applications. Likewise, Configuration Management Department also provides a project capacity as well as advisory issues on core applications in the organization (Cordray et al. 2015) 2.0 Objectives of Configuration Management Department 2.1 General Objective According to Maturana and Asenjo (2015), the Configuration Management Department will be responsible for the tools and infrastructure that are necessary to centrally manage the configuration related servers that are hosted at Under Milkwood. 2.1.1 Specific Objectives Identification of appropriate methods and practices that can be used to manage network infrastructure better. Given the fact that most of the bookings is done online, it would be important to have the network infrastructure upgraded to so as to give guests easier time whenever they are requesting for reservations in the resort (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). Give support and initiate expansion of the wireless connectivity within the resort; in order to attract and guests as comfortable as possible, it is of good interest to have wireless network connectivity that they can enjoy will relaxing (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). Expansion of the resort’s advertisement capabilities using technology, including even multimedia desktop technologies and audio visual equipment (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). 2.2 General Objective As stated by Prafullchandra et al (2013), configuration Management Department will also be expected to maintain a secure organization’s information technology environment through taking into consideration that the confidentially, integrity as well as availability of critical information and systems is safe guarded. 2.2.1 Specific Objective Enforcing secure and effective access to technology resources through the usage of the authentication and identity management technologies, which is, incorporating password number with the particular package that has been reserved to a guest. For instance, depending on the room that a guest has booked, the accessibility of the wireless network should be enabled just within that apartment. This will work to minimize chances of the outsiders enjoying the free wireless network whereas they do not add value to the organization (Lechman, Augustinus and Bond 2015). Ensuring that there is availability of systems through Disaster Recovery as well as Business continuity planning, testing and execution; given the fact the guests make online booking, cyber criminals tend to have the habit of cracking companies’ passwords and in the process may transfer the organization’s funds unnoticed, therefore Under Milkwood should have Disaster Recovery platform such that in the event that its website is attached, they can be able to restore the data and even trace the culprits who might have been involved in the unfortunate incident (Lechman, Augustinus and Bond 2015). . 2.3 General Objective As illustrated by Greenspan and Danielson (2016), configuration Management Department would be responsible for the development of the information technology policies, procedures and practices that will efficiently and effectively manage the IT assets while meeting the technology requirements of Under Milkwood. 2.3.1 Specific Objectives:- Develop a technology governance processes comprising of input from all its clients; the IT specialists will take into consideration the requirements of its customers will designing policies related to the information usage (Nilsen and Weber 2014). Implementation of the metrics reporting so as to support organization’s goal of ensuring that it maintains compliance will all the governing bodies such as Environmental Management Authorities as well as Health and Safety entities among others (Nilsen and Weber 2014). Development and implementation of a plan and a budget for an appropriate and wide technical support in issues related to internet subscription (Nilsen and Weber 2014). 3.0 PROPOSAL According to Matsubara et al. (2014), configuration Management Department is necessary in the organization’s IT Department to ensure that existing design and the build state of the organization’s system is known, functional and trustworthy and thus not reliant on the tacit knowledge of the development team in the organization. It also known as IT automation platform, since it upgrades the IT related accessibility while im3.0 proving speed in the process. As a matter of fact, management of any organization would wish to be able to access an up-to date historical record of system state, not necessarily for the project management audit issues but also for the development of some activities such as debugging. Debugging is basically the process of getting to have an idea of what has changed between one group of tests and another so as to establish what could have possibility caused the fault that is being witnessed (Matsubara et al. 2014). The Configuration Management of Under Milkwood will therefore have the following values:- Setting up of service expectations; with the installation of the configuration management system, there will be availability of the service level agreements (SLAs) which enables the support to have a clear understanding of their service targets. In the same scenario, Under Milkwood’s customers will be able to enjoy high service levels whenever they are making enquiries or even when requesting for any other kind of service. Since, these SLAs are often documented in the configuration management system, IT Operations department will have easier time to establish whether its targets is achievable through evaluating trends against their existing abilities to meet them. This arrangement will also work in enabling a targeted program to approximate improvement opportunities that may be available as well. Therefore, installation of configuration management system will ensure availability of information that will enable making of necessary decisions so as to improve service delivery in the organization (Whyte, Stasis and Lindkvist 2016). The management of Outages; Configuration management system will have information that will be essential in determination of the urgency, impact, scope, priority, service level information, the customers that will have been affected in one way or another or well as subsequent changes in the that will be taking place. With such information in place while managing outages, the management of Under Milkwood will therefore have adequate time to minimize the restoration time thus reducing the impact its customers might be exposed to in the process. In an ideal situation when such information are not available, the restoration team normally have to spent a lot of time to gather the necessary information while system users such as customers trying to access information are negatively impacted by the outages (Whyte, Stasis and Lindkvist 2016). Likewise, with the configuration management system, whenever a service is restored after an incident of outage, all the information will related to restoration will be able to be stored for future use. The planning process of the roll out; whenever the organization will be in need of releasing a new system or feature, the configuration management system will come in handy to help determine the scope of the rollout through identifying the various personnel that will be in need of using the new system. Thus, with configuration management system, IT specialists in Under Milkwood will effectively be able to establish the rollout, the required training if any and communication schedules and document the same in the configuration management system. At the same, with configuration system it will be possible to flag entries that have been identified for new releases thus enabling better understanding of the scope. This will as well give the IT operations team the capability to offer effective and efficient support during before, during and after the installation process of the new system thus having less impact to the user community as well (Phelan, Summers and Kurz 2015) Management of the Impact/Risk related information; in every operational entity, there tend to be challenges when it comes to evaluating risks as well as impacts of subsequent changes. In many cases, risk and impact related decisions rely more on the available knowledge rather than documented information. Therefore, with configuration management system, there will be provision of relationship information that will assist the IT operation team to be able to assess the full risk as well as impact of available changes so as to have appropriate planning mechanism undertaken. As a result, configuration management system will provide more holistic view of the necessary change thus minimizing the risk associated with harmful damages when the change is being implemented (Phelan, Summers and Kurz 2015). The fixation and workarounds; in order to ensure that issues are resolved within the fastest time possible, it would be advisable for an organization to have workarounds as well as fixes clearly documented so as to enable the support team to be able to access them and apply them in resolving issues and requests that be available. It would be of great importance that whenever root causes of issues have been identified and necessary solutions developed, the resultant information are documented in the configuration management system so as to enhance visibility and their usage by the support personnel. With the configuration management system, permanent fixes can always be documented as well, thus having the benefit of minimizing the recurrence of outages while providing relevant trending information on the appropriate ways in which the support personnel would be able to permanently resolve issues (Phelan, Summers and Kurz 2015). In for an organization to achieve the stated values. It would be of great importance for the management of the Under Milkwood to have a proper understanding of the three components of the configurations management while planning its implementation effectively. On the other hand it would be critical to have adequate time establish the desired outcome prior to undertaking this initiative, this will thus work to prevent configuration management system from becoming obsolete. However, the long-term benefits associated with configuration management systems will be worth the time spent to have a proper understanding and planning for the anticipated value of a proper and functional configuration management system (Whyte, Stasis and Lindkvist 2016). 4.0 Details of Configuration Management The diagram below shows the structure of the Configuration Management in reference to its usage in the organization As indicated in the diagram, configuration management can be an important component in the organization in terms of its internal services as well as external services (Cordray et al. 2015). Its main purpose can be illustrated by the diagram to be physical implementation of a product which is ideally in line with the documentation that states how to construct a standard IT platform and what it main purpose would be. As describe by IT experts, management of changes to requirements is regarded as an essential entity to minimizing costs and schedule overruns in the ITS related projects. As stated, had there been no use for configuration management on an ITS project, its ability of controlling changes to requirements would be considered to be a reason enough to have it employed in the company’s (Cordray et al. 2015) 5.0 Businesses, Technology, Organization, Processes and People Implementation (BTOPP) 5.1 Businesses The configuration management system is essential in creating adequate understanding of the status of the complex assets with a view to observing the highest level of serviceability for the lowest cost possible. Ideally, configuration management often ensures that an organization’s operations are not affected in any way due to asset or even part of the asset overrunning limits of its anticipated life duration (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). 5.2 Technology The software configuration management is regarded as the best platform to handling changes in software projects. This software is responsible for the identification of the functional and physical attributes of this software at different levels while performing systematic control of changes related to the attributes for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the software as well as the traceability in the entire lifespan of the software (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). The management of Under Milkwood should ensure that the following four procedures are observed to ensure successful implementation of configuration management system;- Configuration identification; this involves identification of the attributes associated with every aspect of the configuration tool. The configuration tool in this case is that product that is software or hardware that has an end-user purpose. These attributes are thereafter recorded in a configuration document (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). Configuration control is a set comprising of a number of processes and approval stages that are often necessary to change a configuration tool’s attributes. Configuration status accounting is referred to as the ability to record and report on the configuration baselines that are associated with each and every configuration tool at any given time (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). Configuration audit refers to those actions and processes that occur either at the delivery or at the point of effecting any given change. For instance, a functional configuration audit is responsible for ensuring that the functional and performance attributes of a given configuration tool are achieved as anticipated whereas physical configuration audit on the other hand ensures that a given configuration tool is installed in line with the requirement of its detailed design documentation profile (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). 5.3 Organization 6.0 Cost of Configuration Management (The Case Against) Despite the many benefits associated with configuration managements, it will however be a little bit costly for Under Milkwood to have the Configuration Management Department in place. Based on the technical advancement, the configuration management system installation has also experienced changes in costs in the recent time (Lechman, Augustinus and Bond 2015). As result management of Under Milkwood should be prepared to go extra mile in terms of expenditure in securing an up-to standard configuration management system based on the many available solutions that ranges from open source projects to commercial off the shelf technology. According to the available information, the cost of the configuration management systems differs depending on the time of the that is required for installation, that is, the system server, database center, network connectivity devices, mobile application devices, storage gadgets, virtual instances among the many other things (Lechman, Augustinus and Bond 2015). In this regard, Under Milkwood should ensure that the IT organization that will be awarded the tender to install configuration management system is the cheapest and offers super standard as confirmed by other beneficiaries that have since incorporated configuration management system in their firms. Apart from the acquisition and installation cost of the configuration management system, the management of Under Milkwood should also be prepared to for another expenditure involving the administration of the configuration management system itself. The organization that shall have won the tender to set up the configuration management system will have to take care of the configuration management responsibilities from the set-up level all the way to the finalization of the installation, in the process they will be some administrative related expenses which should thus be estimated and incorporated in the initial budget submission (Lechman, Augustinus and Bond 2015). As a matter of fact, the configuration management department will have to be operational and since the system keeps evolving as time goes by, Under Milkwood should apportion additional costs for the configuration management system’s maintenance in their monthly or annual budget when drawing their plan before the commencement of the business cycle (Lechman, Augustinus and Bond 2015). 7.0 Benefits of Configuration Management System (The Case For) There is no doubt that every organization that has its IT Department equipped with effective and actionable configuration management system enjoys a variety of benefits as outlined below:- Enhancing system reliability through increased rapid detection and amendment of improper configurations that could possibly have negative impact on the performance of the system Increased system efficiencies, stability and control through improving visibility and tracking avenues; that is, the possibility of managing the online activities such as clients’ bookings and reservations as well as payments (Nilsen and Weber 2014). Minimizing of the system maintenance costs by having detailed knowledge of all the necessary elements of configurations which works to disassociate itself from unnecessary duplication that may arise in the process (Nilsen and Weber 2014). This system will ensure faster restoration of services; with the knowledge of the desired state of the configurations and their interrelations, recovery of the live configurations tend to be much faster and easier with this system. With the many business activities being undertaken by Under Milkwood, Configuration Management will enhance the ability to define and enforce formal policies as well as procedures related to asset identification such as the boats, rooms, household items and vehicles among others, monitoring of their status in addition to the auditing processes (Nilsen and Weber 2014). The system will also work to improve future transition process through knowing how the prior structure is in order to efficiently design changes that do not generate incompatibilities or problems (Nilsen and Weber 2014). This system is believed to have the ability of enhancing the agility and faster problem resolutions hence producing quality service to the clients especially with regard to online services. 8.0 Recommendations Based on the analysis of the configuration management system, experts believe that IT configuration management alone may not be adequate enough to prevent system failures as well as other technical related problems (Pöyhönen and Tuononen 2012). Therefore, in order to ensure that the IT Operations Department is more effective, the management of Under Milkwood should ensure that their IT configuration management is part and parcel of a broader-reaching IT service management strategy that is comprised of change, incident, and problem and release management as well. 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