- Management Reference Guide
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Strategic Management
- Establishing Goals, Objectives, and Strategies
- Aligning IT Goals with Corporate Business Goals
- Utilizing Effective Planning Techniques
- Developing Worthwhile Mission Statements
- Developing Worthwhile Vision Statements
- Instituting Practical Corporate Values
- Budgeting Considerations in an IT Environment
- Introduction to Conducting an Effective SWOT Analysis
- IT Governance and Disaster Recovery, Part One
- IT Governance and Disaster Recovery, Part Two
- Customer Management
- Identifying Key External Customers
- Identifying Key Internal Customers
- Negotiating with Customers and Suppliers—Part 1: An Introduction
- Negotiating With Customers and Suppliers—Part 2: Reaching Agreement
- Negotiating and Managing Realistic Customer Expectations
- Service Management
- Identifying Key Services for Business Users
- Service-Level Agreements That Really Work
- How IT Evolved into a Service Organization
- FAQs About Systems Management (SM)
- FAQs About Availability (AV)
- FAQs About Performance and Tuning (PT)
- FAQs About Service Desk (SD)
- FAQs About Change Management (CM)
- FAQs About Configuration Management (CF)
- FAQs About Capacity Planning (CP)
- FAQs About Network Management
- FAQs About Storage Management (SM)
- FAQs About Production Acceptance (PA)
- FAQs About Release Management (RM)
- FAQs About Disaster Recovery (DR)
- FAQs About Business Continuity (BC)
- FAQs About Security (SE)
- FAQs About Service Level Management (SL)
- FAQs About Financial Management (FN)
- FAQs About Problem Management (PM)
- FAQs About Facilities Management (FM)
- Process Management
- Developing Robust Processes
- Establishing Mutually Beneficial Process Metrics
- Change Management—Part 1
- Change Management—Part 2
- Change Management—Part 3
- Audit Reconnaissance: Releasing Resources Through the IT Audit
- Problem Management
- Problem Management–Part 2: Process Design
- Problem Management–Part 3: Process Implementation
- Business Continuity Emergency Communications Plan
- Capacity Planning – Part One: Why It is Seldom Done Well
- Capacity Planning – Part Two: Developing a Capacity Planning Process
- Capacity Planning — Part Three: Benefits and Helpful Tips
- Capacity Planning – Part Four: Hidden Upgrade Costs and
- Improving Business Process Management, Part 1
- Improving Business Process Management, Part 2
- 20 Major Elements of Facilities Management
- Major Physical Exposures Common to a Data Center
- Evaluating the Physical Environment
- Nightmare Incidents with Disaster Recovery Plans
- Developing a Robust Configuration Management Process
- Developing a Robust Configuration Management Process – Part Two
- Automating a Robust Infrastructure Process
- Improving High Availability — Part One: Definitions and Terms
- Improving High Availability — Part Two: Definitions and Terms
- Improving High Availability — Part Three: The Seven R's of High Availability
- Improving High Availability — Part Four: Assessing an Availability Process
- Methods for Brainstorming and Prioritizing Requirements
- Introduction to Disk Storage Management — Part One
- Storage Management—Part Two: Performance
- Storage Management—Part Three: Reliability
- Storage Management—Part Four: Recoverability
- Twelve Traits of World-Class Infrastructures — Part One
- Twelve Traits of World-Class Infrastructures — Part Two
- Meeting Today's Cooling Challenges of Data Centers
- Strategic Security, Part One: Assessment
- Strategic Security, Part Two: Development
- Strategic Security, Part Three: Implementation
- Strategic Security, Part Four: ITIL Implications
- Production Acceptance Part One – Definition and Benefits
- Production Acceptance Part Two – Initial Steps
- Production Acceptance Part Three – Middle Steps
- Production Acceptance Part Four – Ongoing Steps
- Case Study: Planning a Service Desk Part One – Objectives
- Case Study: Planning a Service Desk Part Two – SWOT
- Case Study: Implementing an ITIL Service Desk – Part One
- Case Study: Implementing a Service Desk Part Two – Tool Selection
- Ethics, Scandals and Legislation
- Outsourcing in Response to Legislation
- Supplier Management
- Identifying Key External Suppliers
- Identifying Key Internal Suppliers
- Integrating the Four Key Elements of Good Customer Service
- Enhancing the Customer/Supplier Matrix
- Voice Over IP, Part One — What VoIP Is, and Is Not
- Voice Over IP, Part Two — Benefits, Cost Savings and Features of VoIP
- Application Management
- Production Acceptance
- Distinguishing New Applications from New Versions of Existing Applications
- Assessing a Production Acceptance Process
- Effective Use of a Software Development Life Cycle
- The Role of Project Management in SDLC— Part 2
- Communication in Project Management – Part One: Barriers to Effective Communication
- Communication in Project Management – Part Two: Examples of Effective Communication
- Safeguarding Personal Information in the Workplace: A Case Study
- Combating the Year-end Budget Blitz—Part 1: Building a Manageable Schedule
- Combating the Year-end Budget Blitz—Part 2: Tracking and Reporting Availability
- References
- Developing an ITIL Feasibility Analysis
- Organization and Personnel Management
- Optimizing IT Organizational Structures
- Factors That Influence Restructuring Decisions
- Alternative Locations for the Help Desk
- Alternative Locations for Database Administration
- Alternative Locations for Network Operations
- Alternative Locations for Web Design
- Alternative Locations for Risk Management
- Alternative Locations for Systems Management
- Practical Tips To Retaining Key Personnel
- Benefits and Drawbacks of Using IT Consultants and Contractors
- Deciding Between the Use of Contractors versus Consultants
- Managing Employee Skill Sets and Skill Levels
- Assessing Skill Levels of Current Onboard Staff
- Recruiting Infrastructure Staff from the Outside
- Selecting the Most Qualified Candidate
- 7 Tips for Managing the Use of Mobile Devices
- Useful Websites for IT Managers
- References
- Automating Robust Processes
- Evaluating Process Documentation — Part One: Quality and Value
- Evaluating Process Documentation — Part Two: Benefits and Use of a Quality-Value Matrix
- When Should You Integrate or Segregate Service Desks?
- Five Instructive Ideas for Interviewing
- Eight Surefire Tips to Use When Being Interviewed
- 12 Helpful Hints To Make Meetings More Productive
- Eight Uncommon Tips To Improve Your Writing
- Ten Helpful Tips To Improve Fire Drills
- Sorting Out Today’s Various Training Options
- Business Ethics and Corporate Scandals – Part 1
- Business Ethics and Corporate Scandals – Part 2
- 12 Tips for More Effective Emails
- Management Communication: Back to the Basics, Part One
- Management Communication: Back to the Basics, Part Two
- Management Communication: Back to the Basics, Part Three
- Asset Management
- Managing Hardware Inventories
- Introduction to Hardware Inventories
- Processes To Manage Hardware Inventories
- Use of a Hardware Inventory Database
- References
- Managing Software Inventories
- Business Continuity Management
- Ten Lessons Learned from Real-Life Disasters
- Ten Lessons Learned From Real-Life Disasters, Part 2
- Differences Between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity , Part 1
- Differences Between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity , Part 2
- 15 Common Terms and Definitions of Business Continuity
- The Federal Government’s Role in Disaster Recovery
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 1
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 2
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 3
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 4
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 1
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 2
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 3
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 4
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part One
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part Two
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part Three
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part Four
- The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
- The Origins of ITIL
- The Foundation of ITIL: Service Management
- Five Reasons for Revising ITIL
- The Relationship of Service Delivery and Service Support to All of ITIL
- Ten Common Myths About Implementing ITIL, Part One
- Ten Common Myths About Implementing ITIL, Part Two
- Characteristics of ITIL Version 3
- Ten Benefits of itSMF and its IIL Pocket Guide
- Translating the Goals of the ITIL Service Delivery Processes
- Translating the Goals of the ITIL Service Support Processes
- Elements of ITIL Least Understood, Part One: Service Delivery Processes
- Case Study: Recovery Reactions to a Renegade Rodent
- Elements of ITIL Least Understood, Part Two: Service Support
- Case Studies
- Case Study — Preparing for Hurricane Charley
- Case Study — The Linux Decision
- Case Study — Production Acceptance at an Aerospace Firm
- Case Study — Production Acceptance at a Defense Contractor
- Case Study — Evaluating Mainframe Processes
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part One: Quantitative Comparisons/Natural Disasters
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part Two: Quantitative Comparisons/Man-made Disasters
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part Three: Qualitative Comparisons
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part Four: Take-Aways
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part One: Planning
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part Two: Planning and Walk-Through
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part Three: Execution
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part Four: Follow-Up
- Assessing the Robustness of a Vendor’s Data Center, Part One: Qualitative Measures
- Assessing the Robustness of a Vendor’s Data Center, Part Two: Quantitative Measures
- Case Study: Lessons Learned from a World-Wide Disaster Recovery Exercise, Part One: What Did the Team Do Well
- (d) Case Study: Lessons Learned from a World-Wide Disaster Recovery Exercise, Part Two
In Part One of this two-part series on assessing the robustness of a vendor's data center, I described eight specific measures for evaluating such facilities. In this Part Two I discuss the following six qualitative measures:
Web Environment (Table 1)Development (Table 2)
Database Administration (Table 3)
Security (Table 4)
Operations (Table 5)
Product Quality (Table 6)
These measures can be weighted by the supplier or the client or both, and rated by the suppliers, and then verified by an outside party. In my client's case, they weighted the measures and a colleague and I performed the verification of responses by visiting the sites of the suppliers. The quantitative measures described here centered on the technology and standards that the vendors used in their data centers.
Table 1 Web Environment
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# |
Question |
Response |
Weight (1-to-3) |
Rating (1-to-5) |
Score |
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1 |
On what platforms are your applications certified to run? |
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2 |
What technologies do your web applications use? |
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3 |
Is there any business logic stored in the web application? |
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4 |
What web interfaces do you expose (synchronous, asynchronous)? |
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Table 2 Development
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# |
Question |
Response |
Weight (1-to-3) |
Rating (1-to-5) |
Score |
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1 |
To what degree does Argent maintain ownership of their proprietary changes? |
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2 |
What user customization features do you offer (work flow, rules, field description, report layout)? |
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3 |
What is your standard rate for customization? |
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4 |
What is your customer support model for application support (including customizations)? |
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5 |
On what language and platform is your system designed to run on? (dev lang, architecture, DB) |
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6 |
What is the architecture of your system? |
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7 |
Do you have user/admin/developer documentation for your system and its interfaces? |
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8 |
What integration methods do you support (web service, FTP, API)? |
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9 |
What data abstraction methods do you support (XML, X.12, fixed length, CSV)? |
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10 |
What is your plan and process for legacy conversation? |
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11 |
What makes your user interface easy to use? |
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Table 3 Database Administration
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# |
Question |
Response |
Weight (1-to-3) |
Rating (1-to-5) |
Score |
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1 |
Do you provide an open access architecture to our data and metadata? |
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2 |
How do you supply ad-hoc and customized reporting? |
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3 |
How do you support external data warehousing requirements (real time and batch)? |
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4 |
How do you handle integration with other systems? |
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5 |
How is your database optimized (transactions or reporting)? |
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6 |
How do you replicate your data for recovery? |
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Table 4 Security
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# |
Question |
Response |
Weight (1-to-3) |
Rating (1-to-5) |
Score |
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1 |
Where do you store user credentials? |
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2 |
Do you support role base security? |
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3 |
Do you integrate with external security repositories (LDAP,AD)? |
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4 |
Does your application support single sign-on (SSO)? |
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5 |
What is your transmission security method? |
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6 |
Is our data stored with other customer’s data or in our own repository? |
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7 |
What type of security logging and reporting do you offer? |
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8 |
What methods do you have for privacy legislation (protecting names, ssn, property address, pins, etc.) and how is it audited? |
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9 |
Are you SAS 70 certified? |
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Table 5 Operations
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# |
Question |
Response |
Weight (1-to-3) |
Rating (1-to-5) |
Score |
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1 |
To what extent is your BCP comprehensive and up-to-date? |
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2 |
Do you have a customer friendly version of your BCP? |
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3 |
Do you have an second site (web, app, DB servers)? |
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4 |
What is your availability architecture (load balancers, server config, DB config)? |
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5 |
How do you test your systems performance (load testing, scaling abilities)? |
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6 |
What is your current system threshold? (how many transactions can you handle?) |
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7 |
What monitoring capabilities do you have to ensure uptime of your system? |
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8 |
Is there any client software to role out? (Active X, applets, rich client)? |
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9 |
What is your monthly percent availability (four 9s, five 9s)? |
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10 |
What are your bandwidth requirements? Based on what volume? |
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11 |
How do you handle system latency? |
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12 |
Describe the content and currency of your service level agreements (SLAs). |
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Table 6 Product Quality
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# |
Question |
Response |
Weight (1-to-3) |
Rating (1-to-5) |
Score |
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1 |
Do you have a customer friendly version of you SDLC process? |
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2 |
Do you use version control tools for your system? |
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3 |
How many stages do you have to move code from development to production? |
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4 |
Who has rights to move code from testing and staging to staging and production? |
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5 |
Do you use a defect tracking system to manage bugs and enhancements? |
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6 |
What type of formal change control process do you use? |
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7 |
How often do you release changes to production? |
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This concludes the two-part series on assessing the robustness of a vendor's data center. In Part One I described eight specific qualitative measures that focused on the physical facility and on the plans, processes and procedures used to ensure reliable and recoverable operations. In Part Two I discussed six separate quantitative measures that could be weighted and rated by the suppliers, and then verified by an outside party. These quantitative measures centered on the technology and standards in use by the data center.
As I mentioned at the outset, a recent mortgage client of mine asked me to develop this series of surveys to help evaluate the reliability and recoverability of the data centers of several of my client's key suppliers. These suppliers provided the client with required information such as credit checks, appraisals, inspections, flood information, and past lending history.
A colleague and I used these assessment forms with four different suppliers. After receiving the completed forms back from each supplier, we visited their data centers to validate their responses. For the most part their responses were valid although a few needed clarification. It is my intent for you to use these forms as they currently exist, or to modify them to suit your specific needs. At the very least they can serve to provoke some meaning discussions with key suppliers concerning the reliability and recoverability of their data centers. Your eventual processed data deserves no less.