Chapter 3 – Roles and Responsibilities of Support/Help Desk, Change

Management, Patch Management, and Release Management

Support/Help desk – Roles and responsibilities:

 The responsibility of the technical support function is to provide specialist knowledge

of production systems to identify and assist in system change/development and
problem resolution.

 The basic function of the help desk is to be the first, single and central point of
contact for users and to follow the incident management process

 The help desk personnel must ensure that all hardware and software incidents that
arise are fully documented and escalated based on the priorities established by
management

Change Management and Patch Management Process

Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation

of an organization's goals, processes or technologies.
Change management—also known as change enablement—is an IT practice designed to
minimize disruptions to IT services while making changes to critical systems and services. 

Why IT Change Management is Important?

• Organizations that aren’t adapting for the future will become unable to keep pace with the
speed of business and fall behind their competition. Deploying changes too slowly could result in
employees defecting to work in places with less clunky systems or your customers sending their
support and dollars to other organizations that provide them more value. 

Common Types of Change Management:

1. Standard changes - are low-risk, commonly repeated, and pre-approved. They’re performed
frequently and follow a documented, approved process.

2. Normal changes -  are non-emergency changes without a defined, pre-approved process.

3. Emergency changes - these changes arise from an unexpected error or threat and need to be
addressed immediately—usually to restore service for customers or employees or secure systems
against a threat.

What are the challenges of change management?

• Resource management.
• Resistance.
• Communication.
• New technology.
• Multiple points of view.
• Scheduling issues.

Patch Management:
 an area of systems management that involves acquiring, testing, and installing multiple
patches (code changes) to an administered computer system to maintain up-to-date
software and often to address security risks.
 Patch management requires staying current on available patches, deciding which patches
are needed for specific software and devices, testing them, making sure they have been
properly installed and documenting the process.
Why is Patch Management Important?
 Patch management helps keep computers and networks secure, reliable, and up-to-date
with features and functionality that the organization considers important.
 It is also an essential tool for ensuring and documenting compliance with security and
privacy regulations.
 Patching can improve performance and is sometimes used to bring the software up to
date, so it will work with the latest hardware.
Patch management tasks include the following:
 Maintaining current knowledge of available patches
 Deciding what patches are appropriate for particular systems.
 Ensuring that patches are installed properly, and testing systems after installation.
 Documenting all associated procedures, such as specific configurations required
How does patch management work?

Challenges of Patch Management

 patches can sometimes introduce problems into a system that was previously working
correctly, it is important for administrators to test patches before deploying them.
 disconnected systems might not receive patches in a timely manner.
 managing patches on a wider range of endpoints that connect to the network through
various security mechanisms.

Release Management
Release Management - Software release management is the process through which software is
made available to users. The term “release” is used to describe a collection of authorized
changes. The release will typically consist of a number of problem fixes and enhancements to the
service.
Release management – Also referred to as release and deployment management, it is one of the
main processes under the Service Transition section of ITIL. Release management in ITIL
focuses on quality and customer experience as primary to product and service deployment, while
also promoting cost-effective business practices.

The role of release management:

 Reducing risk – Standardized requirements and governance policies eliminate many of
the risks associated with product release
 Optimizing deployment efficiency – release management provides a clear path to
improving software-deployment efficiency.
  Increasing customer value – Incorporating customer feedback and using an iterative
process of development and testing, release management gives businesses the opportunity
to continually increase the value delivered to the end user.

Release Management Process:

1. Requesting
2. Planning
3. Designing and building
4. Testing and revising
5. Performing final review
6. Deploying

Three Types of Software Release

As discussed, release management ensures that the necessary fixes and upgrades are
quickly and efficiently delivered while maintaining the existing production environments’
integrity. To better understand the types of software releases, there are basic terminologies we
should be able to differentiate. Software upgrade and software updates are often used
interchangeably. Although they both involve changing the product, they have different concepts.
Software upgrade is a new version of the software product entirely and software update offer
small, frequent improvements, simply these are the modifications of the current software. With
that, these terminologies will be used to understand the three types of Software release namely;
major, minor, and emergency release.

Major Releases

This type of release introduces wide-range of changes to an existing software version, like new
features to improve user experience. Normally, it contains a significant change or addition to
new functionality. They typically overrule previous releases. In the user perspective, major
releases can be disruptive or can cause change aversion, they introduce new things and likely
require time and effort to download or configure.

Some examples of Major Release might include:

o User interface changes for a fresh look and feel
o Game-changing new feature releases
o The removal of outdated or dropped features

Minor releases

This release type is also known as “updates”. These are the small enhancements or fixes of the
software. This type of release is generally used to fix small reliability or functionality problems
that cannot wait until the next major release. Fundamentally, they only enhance or edit the
existing functions or current version of the software.

Examples of Minor release might include:

o Limited new features and functionality
o Small updates to existing features
o Minor bug fixes and ongoing security patches

Emergency Releases

Emergency releases occur when there’s a sudden or pressing problems that needs fixing as soon
as possible to prevent user downtime to business-critical function. So, this type of release is not
there to dramatically improve the user experience, but to ensure that the software continues to
run effectively and securely. For users, a prompt emergency release means that the user can
continue to use the software effectively. Although they may experience inconvenience or
disruption from bugs, if handled competently, they can restore their user’s trust in the service.

Situations that Emergency Release might address:

o Critical bugs that make parts of the software stop working
o A high-priority security vulnerability that’s been recently discovered
CHAPTER 3 REPORTERS:
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