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1. IBM Global Technology Services August 2011
Thought Leadership White Paper
Gaining efficiency and business value
through better management of your
IT infrastructure
Eight challenges to overcome for effective service delivery and cost savings
2. 2 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
Table of Contents Introduction
Managing today’s complex server environments, networks and
2 Introduction
IT infrastructures is challenging. Most organizations have tools
2 Understand key challenges of infrastructure and disciplines in place to provide basic availability management,
management including hardware and software monitoring capabilities.
However, your staff may not have the skills or time to support
4 Plan for effective infrastructure management and implement notification handling, performance and capacity
management, security management, configuration management
4 Detecting and handling incidents and problems
and automation. With the pressure to do more with less, how
5 Handling changes with minimal impact on availability can you balance the need to drive down costs and also improve
delivery of system administration, information access, remote
5 Preventing security problems access and problem and change management?
6 Using emerging or challenging technologies effectively
This paper surveys the challenges and solutions for effective
6 Maintaining server software and firmware management of your server infrastructures and network devices.
It discusses important disciplines, such as availability manage-
7 Having indicators of status and trends for specific
ment, and the tools you need to support a complex IT environ-
infrastructure activities
ment. Use of outsourcing, managed and cloud services are
7 Having the right tools for the job discussed as strategic ways to drive efficiency and create business
value. You may choose to use this paper as a tool or checklist to
12 Deploying infrastructure and tools rapidly with a evaluate and improve your in-house handling of infrastructure
proper level of ongoing management management or to evaluate potential services providers.
12 Focus on service areas of growing importance
Note: Throughout this paper you will encounter special “call to
12 Batch processing and cross-platform workloads action” sections. These sections are inserted where most relevant
to the main content, and are intended to further your under-
12 Backup and restore standing of the topic with information about efforts and research
12 Middleware and database support services
undertaken by IBM to apply technology solutions to that field.
13 Consider outsourcing and managed services Understand key challenges of
13 Summary infrastructure management
An infrastructure typically consists of a broadly heterogeneous
14 Infrastructure management checklist collection of elements such as servers, virtual machines, logical
partitions, routers, switches, wireless appliances, disks, proces-
sors, operating systems, middleware and database instances and
batch jobs. All of these elements can be mapped, more or less,
into a simple framework as shown in Figure 1.
3. IBM Global Technology Services 3
4. Using emerging or challenging technologies
effectively. New technologies hold great promise for
Applications and services
businesses by enabling cost reductions and flexibility. Even
so, the benefits from these technologies can be elusive,
Middleware
because of the learning curve that users face in understand-
ing them and effectively dealing with their complexity.
Operating system 5. Maintaining server software and firmware. Applying
emergency security fixes or even routine software changes
Platform can be a daunting task for your staff. To avoid negative
Computer and network hardware
impacts on your application availability and performance
requires planning and careful execution, including provi-
sions for restoring to a previous software or firmware level.
Figure 1: Software and hardware service layers in distributed systems.
6. Having indicators of status and trends for specific
infrastructure and activities. Information on the status of
The management of your distributed and complex IT infrastruc- systems and applications is important in infrastructure
ture is often a significant portion of your total cost of ownership management, especially in problem situations. This infor-
(TCO). Getting costs under control while also meeting your mation is also needed for capacity planning. However,
service-level commitments requires a focus on the following obtaining and analyzing operational and trend information
eight infrastructure management challenges: is time consuming and complex.
1. Detecting and handling incidents and problems. 7. Having the right tools for the job. There are many tools,
Incidents and problems are a way of life for systems that from commercial products to home-grown tools, which
involve hardware, software and people. Detecting and can be used to manage IT infrastructures. Having just the
handling problems effectively is simply not easy. Handling right toolset for your environment requires balancing
problems requires discipline, imagination and experience. human aspects, types of tools, number of tools, level of
integration and secure use. A lack of such balance is
2. Handling changes with minimal impact on availability. reflected in ineffective support for business goals or unduly
Change is frequently required in today’s highly complex high software or staff operations costs.
systems. Dealing with change while striving for minimum
downtime requires a variety of skills. 8. Deploying infrastructure and tools rapidly with the
proper level of ongoing management. The fast pace of
3. Preventing security problems. Security challenges change in today’s business environment requires the need
are ongoing and constantly changing. Your management to rapidly deploy systems and the tools to provide ongoing
solution should incorporate plans to address the threats to support, especially for the mission-critical components of
your systems and information in the form of web-based your IT infrastructure. These activities can be routine, but
attacks and hackers. are important for meeting service-level commitments and
supporting new business initiatives.
4. 4 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
Plan for effective infrastructure Detecting and handling incidents and problems
management In addressing this challenge, the goal should be to provide
As you evaluate your current infrastructure management robust incident and problem handling, resulting in the
capabilities and consider outsourcing and managed services smoothest possible operation. If possible, this solution should
providers, focus on solutions that address the key challenges use preemptive actions to prevent failures.
presented earlier. A focus on value should shape your goals, with
cost and complexity playing a major factor in your evaluation The proven tactics that can help achieve this goal include
and consideration. With this focus, you can then determine the proactive and passive monitoring to detect incidents and
best approach to achieving your goals in the context of specific problems. Using technology to automatically handle incidents,
tactics, as shown in Figure 2. open problem records and assign priority is also important to
reduce labor costs. The use of innovative tools and methods to
anticipate and correct problems before they occur is another
labor-saving approach (see sidebar on Parity that follows). It is
also useful to provide automated software support that makes it
Cost and complexity
easier for a system administrator to resolve incidents and prob-
lems. Assigning support personnel based on the severity of the
incident or problem to improve response time is a proven way to
prioritize work in conjunction with using a service level agree-
Context
Goals Tactics ment (SLA). An example SLA pertaining to Severity 1 problems
would have the goal of resolving 90 percent of the problems in
What are we What can less than four hours. Following rigorous problem handling and
trying to we do to
Value
management steps to ensure effective problem resolution is also
achieve? achieve it?
important. So is involving a specialized service manager and a
multidisciplinary team.
The business value of effective detection and handling of
Business alignment incidents and problems is reflected in higher availability of
IT resources, which can result in infrastructure and applications
that function better for the company.
Figure 2: Strategy framework for an effective IT management solution.
Based on this framework, consider the recommendations
that follow for solutions to address the eight key challenges
previously identified
5. IBM Global Technology Services 5
To help achieve this goal, one proven tactic is to have the team
Call to action: Use innovative tools to anticipate and participate at least weekly in change-management planning.
correct problems. Prepare for change by planning activities and estimating the
time required. Test changes prior to their implementation and
Up to 80 percent of system outage time is consumed by
prepare remediation activities in the event of a failed change to
efforts to determine the nature or cause of the problem.
Once the source of the problem is determined, the recovery restore the system to its previous condition. Using a skilled
actions take relatively little time to execute. This represents change manager is a proven way to improve the quality of
an opportunity for continuous improvement, and Parity was change success, because you can benefit from their accumulated
created as a response. As it pertains to the support of dis- experience.
tributed server environments, Parity is a combination of
elements—code, logic, known environmental relationships As shown in the previous example, the business value of
and administration paradigm change—that can enable handling changes with minimal impact on availability is
support teams to eliminate the problem-discovery process reflected in higher availability of IT resources, which can result
and proceed directly to recovery. in better-functioning systems and applications.
IBM Global Services, in partnership with IBM Research Labs,
created Parity. Parity is a tool designed for and used Preventing security problems
exclusively by IBM personnel delivering managed services In addressing this challenge, the goal should be to deliver serv-
that uses patented technology to help improve the stability ices and support that effectively manage security risk while main-
and efficiency of support, and provides support personnel taining the necessary business agility.
with a tool kit to better equip them for day-to-day manage-
ment of their environments. The tool kit can handle common To help achieve this goal, one proven tactic is to use information
problems automatically. For example, it can be used to
security controls based on an industry standard and explain them
perform automatic log-file management for system and
in a living document. Implement key security variables, such as
application logs, including pruning, rotating and rolling. Parity
password length and update frequency, early in the process and
also can be used to gather data so system administration
personnel can be more productive using a real-time graphi- perform security remediation as required for servers and other
cal representation of the entire environment—dynamically devices to help refresh and update your security posture. Look
generated. This is useful in situations in which Parity cannot for security exposures during the ongoing support period. For a
automatically handle the incident. closed-end process, specify the frequency of these analyses with
monthly reporting on key security attributes and activities
related to servers and other devices.
Handling changes with minimal impact on availability The business value you can achieve by preventing security
In addressing this challenge, the goal should be to manage problems is the reduced financial risk associated with security
change in a manner that results in highly predictable outcomes. breaches.
6. 6 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
To help achieve this goal, one of the proven tactics is to focus on
Call to action: Complement day-to-day security operations skills support for virtual machines and logical partitions, using
with end-to-end risk management solutions. change windows to make dynamic changes to production
servers—like adding processor or memory resources to an
As a complement to day-to-day security activities, end-to-
image. Develop the skills of your staff in a variety of HA
end risk management solutions help to protect against the
latest threats while reducing the costs and complexity of software, including HP Multi-Computer/ServiceGuard
security. An example of this is from the IBM X-Force (MC/ServiceGuard), IBM HACMP™, Linux HA or Red
research and development teams that study and monitor Hat Cluster Suite, Microsoft Cluster Services, Sun Cluster or
the latest threat trends, including vulnerability, exploits and Veritas Cluster Services and VMware HA.
active attacks, viruses, malware, spam, phishing and mali-
cious web content. The X-Force team also publishes several The business value of using these technologies includes lower
publicly available reports each year, among them the Trend costs, higher application availability and improved business
and Risk Report and the Threat Insight Report. The Trend flexibility as compared to obsolete technology approaches.
and Risk Report is intended to help clients, researchers and
the public at large understand the changing nature of the Maintaining server software and firmware
threat landscape and what might be done to mitigate it. In addressing this challenge, the goal should be a balanced col-
IBM has developed several technologies and solutions to lection of proactive and reactive activities supported by effective
help clients protect their critical assets from security threats. software products and tools.
An example is IBM® Proventia® Management SiteProtector
System, which is designed to provide central management of To help achieve this goal, one of the proven tactics is to monitor
security devices, policies and events to help evaluate and servers proactively and use monitoring software. Startup tasks
communicate your overall risk posture. Another example is
may involve refreshing operating system processes, establishing
IBM Proventia Desktop Endpoint Security, which helps
startup sequences and changing priorities, as appropriate. Other
secure your desktops and laptops against known and
server support activities include patching, configuring and main-
unknown attacks, providing multilayered security functional-
ity in a single agent. taining log files, using remote tools to perform operational pro-
cedures, providing server security activities for identification and
access, and supporting virtualization software.
The business value you can achieve through server monitoring
Using emerging or challenging technologies effectively
and management is a more reliable server operation that proac-
In addressing this challenge, the goal should be a focus on
tively monitors systems, resulting in higher availability through
emerging and challenging technologies such as virtualization and
early detection of incidents and problems. In addition, compre-
high-availability configurations, resulting in sustained benefits
hensive management can result in fewer software compatibility
from the use of these technologies. Virtualization can provide
issues. Finally, remaining current with software patches and
flexibility to achieve rapid change and high utilization of your
levels helps ensure support is available, when necessary, for the
existing IT resources. High availability (HA) technology helps
software supplier.
support business resiliency and your requirements for continu-
ous application availability.
7. IBM Global Technology Services 7
The business value you can achieve by way of useful reporting
Call to action: Innovate system patching and maintenance is to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the service being
approaches. provided and to report on elements that may have been missed
during the daily operation. An example is servers with outdated
Patching is an important ongoing system maintenance
signature or antivirus files. Dynamic reporting can also be useful
activity. It is a delicate maneuver: to “keep up” with
recommended, scheduled maintenance while working in supporting functional disciplines, such as performance and
to reduce risk by not implementing the system patch too capacity management.
near the release date of a given patch or patch set. It is also
necessary, from time to time, to apply specific patches to fix Having the right tools for the job
or resolve immediate problems. Most patching approaches In addressing this challenge, the goal should be to use mature
require that the system be running; however, many environ- tools and processes that deliver optimal service and support
ments have dormant VM images that require periodic your SLAs.
updates.
Researchers from IBM and North Carolina State University To help achieve this goal, proven tactics include the use of tools
recently published a paper on a tool called Nüwa that per- that can support disciplines or activities that need to be carried
forms offline patching of images.1 The tool examines the out, such as those listed and defined forthwith.
required patches and converts patch instructions so they
can be executed in batch, which is often a more scalable and
Availability management
efficient manner.
The focus of basic availability management is to determine
the operational status of a device or resource. An example of a
tool that is designed to support this capability is IBM Tivoli®
Having indicators of status and trends for specific NetView®, which can provide basic availability monitoring and
infrastructure and activities smart logic to minimize the occurrence of false alerts. The logic
In addressing this challenge, the goal should be a dynamic performs multiple checks to determine whether a device is truly
reporting capability that can yield monthly reports that provide a unavailable.
good way to understand the activities and performance of the
service. An operational or business dashboard is also useful, if Hardware monitoring
you can justify the high cost of information integration. The purpose of hardware monitoring is to pay special attention
to system events that affect hardware. These events may include
To help achieve this goal, one of the proven tactics is to post power failure, tampering, temperature changes and voltage
reports on a portal for easy access. Also, make use of tools that irregularities. IBM Systems Director can be an effective tool
focus on server resource management and generate performance for hardware and software monitoring of server resources.
and capacity reports to help you analyze trends. It is also impor-
Software monitoring
tant to generate and post reports that focus on security manage-
Software monitoring of server resources is aimed at periodically
ment. A portal can also be used to enter problem records and
querying key system elements to determine if any irregularities
change notifications, while providing links to other needed tools,
exist. The presence of these irregularities, even if intermittent,
portlets and services that support ongoing activities.
usually indicates a loss of IT service quality. Monitored system
8. 8 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
elements include processor workload, processor status, processor Security management
consumption and system thrashing. IBM Tivoli Monitoring soft- The focus of security management is internal and external.
ware can make such monitoring possible. Three important areas for security are within a local system,
among distributed processes, in data and over networks and
Notification handling communications.
Notification handling aims to inform systems administrator
personnel that an event has occurred or a threshold has been Examples of security management tools are Fusion, a security
exceeded. The notification can take a number of forms—email, compliance tool designed for and used exclusively by IBM per-
short message or page text. TelAlert from Network System sonnel delivering managed services, and hosted vulnerability
Architects, Inc. (NSAi) is an example of a tool that can be used management, a comprehensive cloud-based program designed
in this manner to notify teams or individuals of problems. to help organizations implement the tools, methodologies and
best practices required to address today’s dynamic vulnerability
Performance and capacity management landscape. Fusion helps improve efficiency through centralized
Performance and capacity management involves the gathering server management. Fusion functions include operating system
of and reporting on data that is specifically focused on the per- security patch management, antivirus status checking, security
formance characteristics of devices and their capacity over time. log management, compliance checking and workflow remedia-
An IBM Global Services web application and service offering tion, systematic attack detection and server information.
called Server Resource Management (SRM), for instance, can be IBM’s delivery compliance administration support team
a valuable tool to assist with server performance and capacity uses Fusion and other tools to help manage efficient server
trend analysis. Figure 3 shows a sample performance report from security-audit compliance, based on the contracted security
SRM on virtualized partitions. policy and Authorized Program Analysis Reports (APARs) for
operating systems.
Figure 3: Performance report on virtualized partitions.
9. IBM Global Technology Services 9
Configuration management as necessary—in short, they perform most activities associated
The focus of configuration management is to identify, capture, with keeping servers up and running. An example of a system
organize and maintain configuration information for use by administrator tool is IBM Service Delivery Portal, a web-based
other processes. A key challenge associated with configuration information integration platform for server system administra-
management is supporting the dynamic nature of systems, tors that can be used to consolidate operational data from client
networks and applications. environments. IBM Service Delivery Portal is a single dashboard
that can standardize and simplify the user interface, helping to
Configuration tools vary greatly in scope—from keeping a basic achieve centralized and consistent execution of tasks.
inventory of the items to using a complete data model that
employs dynamic discovery capabilities. One such tool is the Information access
Global Asset and Configuration Data Warehouse, which uses a The aim of information access is to provide easy access to
configuration management database to help maintain configura- reports, an operational dashboard and tools and related subsys-
tion information about supported features and devices. tems. Information access is important, because it can provide
visibility of the infrastructure management service.
System administration
The focus of system administration is to perform tasks that sup- Typically, access to information is provided by way of a portal.
port devices, especially servers. System administration personnel IBM Services Connection, shown in Figure 4, is a primary
install and maintain software products and tools, patch software interface that organizations can use to access reports and tools. It
and perform problem determination, participate in change- can also support information access for IBM Remote Managed
management activities and support application programmers, Infrastructure Services.
Figure 4: IBM’s Services Connection web portal for IBM Remote Managed Infrastructure Services.
10. 10 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
Automation
The automation functional perspective, or discipline, is complex Call to action: Use autonomic solutions where they can be
to describe, because it is both a stand-alone function and one found.
that is embedded in other functional perspectives, such as opera-
At the same time that databases are growing rapidly in scale
tions and problem management. For example, Parity can be used
and complexity, skilled database administrators (DBAs) are
to proactively and automatically solve problems. Parity checks
becoming more rare and costly, thus inspiring innovative
when a process or communication of a software client is not efforts to automate many of those functions currently
working properly. If the process is not working because of a performed by people. One result of these efforts is
dependent component on a different client, Parity uses known “autonomic databases,” the goal of which is to make
recovery methods to help restore the functionality of the databases self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing and
dependent client. self-protecting—in short, completely self-managing.
This is part of a wider “autonomic computing” initiative by
EnVision, another automation tool designed for and used IBM to provide technology designed to increase the effec-
exclusively by IBM personnel delivering managed services, can tiveness of human intervention in computer systems by
automatically open problem records for access and handling. reducing the number and complexity of those interventions
Developed by an IBM team responsible for enterprise service through the use of automation, intelligent advice and learn-
management infrastructure tools integration, the EnVision ing. These efforts can result in a reduction in the total cost
tool is a single sign-on, front-end web portal designed to of ownership (TCO) and increased business productivity.
access and manage multiple problem management systems. Recently, IBM has extended its research in self-healing
Near-real-time information from disparate systems can be systems to the challenges of problem determination, such
as detecting, isolating and determining the root cause of
organized and consolidated into a centralized web portal for
unknown problems, after first determining whether the
easier access and management. The EnVision integration tool
problem is known by matching the symptoms to a database
helps collectively organize problem tickets, details, priorities
of known symptoms. To learn more about the latest auto-
and statuses from multiple problem management systems into a nomic features of DB2, visit: ibm.com/software/data/db2/
single-access web portal. linux-unix-windows/features.html
11. IBM Global Technology Services 11
Remote access the stability of your systems environment. An important consid-
Remote access tools such as RemotelyAnywhere by LogMeIn, eration for change management is the need for written backout
Inc. and OpenSSH, an open source tool for secure access, can procedures and a process to reduce the risks of failed changes.
assist with reaching infrastructure elements, such as servers, in a
secure and productive manner. OpenSSH is integrated into base ManageNow, another internal web-based tool for use exclusively
systems such as OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BSDi BSD/OS, NetBSD, by IBM personnel delivering managed services, can support
Computone, Stallion, Cygwin, e-smith server and gateway, problem and change management, using enterprise systems
Mac OS X Version 10.1, HP Procurve Switch 4108GL management infrastructure to store and manage problem and
2524/2512, IBM AIX® and SunSSH in Sun Solaris 9. change information.
Problem and change management The business value of having the right tools is measured in
Managing problems is important because users expect timely terms of the effectiveness of the service at a manageable and
correction and resolution. Change management is closely linked sustainable cost. Table 1 summarizes all the tools listed in this
to problem management because change can introduce risk to section, organized by activity or discipline.
Table 1. Tools in context.
Activity or discipline Tool example
Basic availability management NetView with software logic to eliminate false alerts
Hardware monitoring IBM Systems Director
Software monitoring of resources IBM Tivoli Monitoring Windows OS Agent
Notification handling TelAlert
Performance and capacity management Server Resource Management (SRM)
Security management Fusion
Configuration management Global Asset and Configuration Data Warehouse
System administration Service Delivery Portal and Knowledge Base
Information access IBM Services Connection
Automation Parity and EnVision
Remote access RemotelyAnywhere and OpenSSH
Problem and change management ManageNow
12. 12 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
Deploying infrastructure and tools rapidly with a proper level Batch processing and cross-platform workloads
of ongoing management Planned, batch workloads are growing in significance in
In addressing this challenge, the goal should be rapid deploy- midrange systems. It is important to handle this workload in a
ment through pre-engineered and solid ongoing support using a planned fashion using an automated tool. This way, as batch
service manager. windows decrease in duration, you can plan for and automate
your batch and cross-platform workloads.
The proven tactics for deployment to achieve this goal include
using a model project plan based on prebuilt components, with a Backup and restore
project manager to ensure that your deployment goes smoothly. Backup and restore, like batch processing, is an example of
A delivery architect—a specialized role—helps to serve as a a time-critical service that is subject to a shrinking or nearly
technical complement to the project manager. nonexistent time window. Make the best use of the backup
window by using technology to leverage automated approaches.
The proven tactics for achieving ongoing support are to use Also, use backup-while-active when possible. For rapid restora-
well-defined ongoing support activities, using desk procedures tion of the operating system and environment following a disk
to help provide your enterprise with an optimum degree of failure, backups should be independent of incremental copies.
ongoing management. While a specialized service delivery
manager can help ensure the ongoing support goes smoothly, Middleware and database support services
you could also consider using other specialized roles, such as With the dominance of databases and middleware, managed
security specialists, change managers and duty managers. services providers have begun offering support for products in
this category. Middleware and database services are not new, but
The business value you can achieve by deploying infrastructure extensive adoption by companies worldwide is making them
with a proper level of ongoing management is more rapid more relevant. Middleware that supports mobility devices is
deployment (time value of money) and more reliable and growing in importance, and support services in this domain are
predictable outcomes. important to help companies realize the productivity benefits
that come from effective employee mobility.
Focus on service areas of growing
The business value you can achieve from middleware and
importance
database support services is assistance with the daily activities
Three areas of growing importance include batch processing,
of software management and the skill of experienced personnel
backup and restore, and middleware and database support
who accompany the service. This can result in the ability to
services.
better deploy existing support personnel, improve handling of
problems and changes and more rapidly deploy new systems and
applications.
13. IBM Global Technology Services 13
● Experience with processes and tools. This experience is
Call to action: Extend your support for collaboration particularly deep because these providers serve many clients,
beyond the four walls. all of whom look for cost-efficient services.
● Lower cost for a higher level of service. Economies of scale
Advances in mobility technology are helping organizations
can make significant process improvements more affordable.
extend their capabilities beyond the four walls of the office—
enabling employees to collaborate in real time and be pro-
ductive wherever they happen to be. The more mobility This is not a comprehensive list of reasons, but a compelling list,
devices supported by the collaboration software, the better, all the same for you to seriously consider using an outsourcing
as it allows employees to own and use the device of their or managed services provider.
choosing.
Mobility features in IBM Lotus® Sametime® software can
help you collaborate in real time—virtually anywhere you are Call to action: Use managed cloud services.
working. The Sametime mobile client can extend many of the
capabilities available from the desktop Sametime client to IBM is developing the next-generation enterprise cloud
the Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung, service delivery platform, called IBM Smart Business Cloud,
Sony Ericsson and Microsoft Windows mobile devices. And, offered in two tiers—IBM Smart Business Cloud-Enterprise
Sametime 8.5 is designed to support a browser-based Apple and IBM Smart Business Cloud-Enterprise+. Currently,
iPhone chat client. IBM Smart Business Cloud-Enterprise cloud is up and
running around the world and IBM is piloting IBM Smart
Business Cloud-Enterprise+ with key clients. IBM Smart
Business Cloud-Enterprise+ will be available later in 2011.
IBM’s Smart Business is a common IBM architecture and
Consider outsourcing and managed platform for private, public and hybrid clouds and is based
services on IBM hardware, software, services and best practices.
Using outsourcing and managed services are strategic ways to IBM is committed to deliver, as a complementary service to
help drive efficiency and create business value. These services the Smart Business platform, a robust set of services,
can offer: including desktop, compute, storage, backup, SAP, security
and unified communications.
● Broad and deep skills needed to support a heterogeneous
computing environment. It is obviously more difficult for
you to employ these skills within your organization at an
affordable cost. Summary
● Redeployment of your key human resources to more Supporting a dynamic business and resilient IT environment
strategic activities, rather than maintaining existing requires effective management of your server infrastructure and
systems. Even as you use services providers to manage your network devices. By focusing on the activities or disciplines and
infrastructure, your employees can build the future of your tools necessary to carry efficient support and delivery services,
company. you can improve your own management capabilities and evaluate
the capabilities of potential outsourcing and managed services
providers.
14. 14 Gaining efficiency and business value through better management of your IT infrastructure
Infrastructure management checklist
Use the following table as a checklist to help you evaluate your infrastructure management effectiveness.
Table 2. Infrastructure management effectiveness checklist.
Detecting and handling incidents and problems Maintaining server software and firmware
✓ Monitoring to detect incidents and problems? ✓ Proactively administering servers and using monitoring software?
✓ Using technology to automatically handle incidents, open problem ✓ Managing server platform support activities like patching and log file
records and assign priority? maintenance?
✓ Using tools to anticipate and correct problems before they occur? ✓ Performing server security administration for identity and access?
✓ Providing automated support for system administrator to resolve inci- ✓ Providing specific focus and support for virtualization?
dents and problems? ✓ Providing high-availability software support, including periodic
✓ Assigning support personnel, based on the severity of the incident or testing?
problem?
✓ Using service level agreements (SLAs)?
✓ Following rigorous problem handling and management steps to
ensure effective problem resolution?
✓ Using a specialized service manager and a multidisciplinary team as
needed?
Handling changes with minimal impact on availability Having indicators of status and trends for specific infrastructure
and activities
✓ Implementing team participation in change-management planning? ✓ Posting reports on a portal for easy access?
✓ Preparing for change by planning activities and estimating time ✓ Providing tools that focus on server resource management and gener-
required? ate performance and capacity reports to analyze trends and manage
✓ Testing changes prior to their implementation and preparing back-out security?
activities in the event of a failed change? ✓ Setting up a portal to enter problem records and change
✓ Using a skilled change manager to benefit from experience of previ- notifications?
ous changes? ✓ Providing links to other needed tools, portlets and services that
support ongoing activities?
15. IBM Global Technology Services 15
Table 2. (continued) Infrastructure management effectiveness checklist.
Preventing security problems Having the right tools for the job
✓ Using information security controls, based on an industry standard? ✓ Support for availability management?
✓ Implementing key security variables, such as password length and ✓ Hardware monitoring?
update frequency, early in the process? ✓ Software monitoring of key computer resources?
✓ Performing security remediation as required for servers and other ✓ Flexible notification handling?
devices? ✓ Support for performance and capacity management?
✓ Looking for security exposures during the ongoing support period ✓ Support for security management?
and specifying the frequency of these analyses? ✓ Support for configuration management?
✓ Reporting monthly on key security attributes and activities related to ✓ Support for system administration?
servers and other devices? ✓ Easy access to information?
✓ Automation of routine processes?
✓ Standardized remote access?
✓ Support for problem and change management?
Using emerging or challenging technologies effectively Deploying infrastructure and tools rapidly
✓ Focusing on skills support for virtual machines and logical partitions? ✓ Use of a model project plan that is based on prebuilt components?
✓ Using change windows to make dynamic changes to production ✓ Use of a project manager to ensure that your deployment goes
servers? smoothly?
✓ Developing skills in a variety of high-availability software like ✓ Use of a delivery architect?
IBM HACMP and VMware HA?
Proper level of ongoing management
✓ Well-defined ongoing support activities, using desk procedures?
✓ Use of a service delivery manager?
✓ Use of security specialists, change managers and duty managers?
Focusing on service areas of growing importance
✓ Use of planned batch processing and cross-platform workloads?
✓ Use of technology to make the best use of backup windows?
✓ Specialized support for middleware and database?
