Serviceability and Availability Management Theories
In the view of Availability Management, there are opportunities in Serviceability and Availability for this case study. Serviceability is, “the contractual arrangements made with Third Party IT service providers to provided or maintain IT Services or components” (qtd. in Westover et. al). Outages in serviceability are shown in the delay of the start-up of the systems after cutover as well as shortage in manpower, as it has affected the serviceability of the Service desk. As IT Director, I should ensure that any third party contracts are compensated based on Serviceability and compliance to Service Level Agreements.
As an internal measure, Availability is, “the ability of a component or service to perform its required function at a stated instant or over a stated period of time” (Westover et. al). Within the company, the IT department will be measured against the availability of the different IT components or services. Availability levels are based on agreed service levels between IT and the different departments. In this case, the shared network storage capacity should be aligned as available for upgrades only prior to Dec. 27.
Thus, all departments are expected to archive their data prior to Dec. 27, to avoid exceeding network capacity during Dec. 27 –29. Limits can be set per department, to ensure that there is no drain in the network capacity due to simultaneous back-ups at the last hour. Other IT services related to the upgrade, such as Service Desk and Incident Resolution should have separate availability targets. If it is the agreed alignment that Service Desk operates 24X7 despite the network upgrade, then proper resources should be deployed to ensure the continuation of the service, despite the cutover activities.
Four arguments to justify the budget for this position: Savings through reduction of manpower. Full-term employees will be assigned to manage the over-all IT systems, while contracted and third party services can be used for transactional work (user support, systems administration and maintenance), thus, reducing the number of full-term employees, while using third party vendors costs less because they are compensated less than a full-term employee. Reduced storage expenses.
By utilizing just-in-time mode of shipment and delivery, there is a reduced need to store goods for a longer period than necessary to complete transactions related to port entry and release. Increased sales and customer satisfaction due to reduction in delayed shipment, missed orders and possibly lower costs; Capability and ease of expansion of the customer base to Central and South America with a more efficient system. Problems individual to deal with during the implementation Resistance to change.
Introducing new systems across all three sites will impact the way they work was done in the past. Output and efficiencies will be affected by the learning curve. At the extreme, some hardliners may resist the change and cause work stoppages. Labor issues: reduction of manpower. Because the optimization may produce in increased efficiency, and thus less full-time manpower, the company may face labor issues with the change; Budget. To implement a statewide IT infrastructure change, requires capital as well as operating expense for the implementation.
He should have the full support of management to execute this change. Critical success factors in the implementation Availability. To continually support the business despite infrastructure changes, availability of IT services must be maintained. Zero major incidents. The IT department should safeguard against statewide or site-wide incidents that will impact the company’s shipment reliability. System reliability. With better communication link, having shipment data available within an hour, 24X7, statewide, there should be an expected increase in the reliability of their shipments.
Customer satisfaction and sales growth. For bottomline results, IT infrastructure improvement should deliver direct customer satisfaction and thus experience sales and business growth. Possible Action 2: Improve and formalize relations with third party … Description of what needs to be accomplished and scope Improved management of third party vendors via: Clearly define their performance measure to ensure that the application and services support business goals of the company
Payment will be based on certain work delivery milestones, SLAs and Serviceability compliance Impose penalties for major outages on any of the said measures. Better management of software within the company via Release Management Process. Doing so, together with Change and Configuration Management, they can deploy policies and procedures for the use only of company permissible software. Access control software must be installed in every PC to restrict installation of unauthorized software.
