Chapter 6-4

TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENT
 HANDLE THE TECHNICAL
ENVIRONMENT
• What do we have here?
– Find out complete inventory of different projects
• Valuable for budget or upgrading a system or hardware
• Existing infrastructure documentation may out of date
 HANDLE THE TECHNICAL
ENVIRONMENT
• Define your scope

Start with Make sure Think about Create a

highest level your staff scenario -> schematic
to the details doing the how to bring diagram to
that you need details (eg the entire IT picture up the
serial #) infrastructure environment
back up after a for getting an
major failure understanding
(eg fire, flood) of how the
environment
operates
 Application & Server &
Vendors Workstations Carrier Local Area Wide Area
Software Storage
Connections Network Network
Inventory Environment
Key Elements to Include
 Key Elements to Include

Site location (remote offices and disaster recovery

facilities)

Types of connections (VPN, leased-line, frame

relay, internet)

Wide Area Backup communication facilities, carriers,

Network
bandwidth, firewall etc

Servers – types, numbers, users, IP Address, key

contracts

Service providers/partners – connections,

responsible person

WAN schematics should up date regularly and

distributed to IT members
 Key Elements to Include

LAN schematic details of a particular site

Include topology, location, and connectivity of

switches, routers, hubs
Local Area
Network

Identify different types of cable (copper, fiber

Room locations for various network equipment, model

numbers for key components, IP address, wireless
capabilities

LAN schematics should up date regularly and

distributed to IT members
 Key Elements to Include

Items including:
• Circuit numbers
• Circuit endpoints (building and
Carrier room)
Connections
• Carriers
• Type/speed of line (analog, ISDN)
• Phone numbers for reporting
problems
 Key Elements to Include

The documentation give

insight into how the
applications work
Server &
Storage
Environment

Need a diagram to indicate

the basics and others to
talk about how key
architecture are set up
 Key Elements to Include

A lot of activity – refresh, upgrade and physical movement

Workstations
Enable to track, maintain and update properly

Keeping track of summary information

• Total number of workstation
• Workstation broken down by OS platform and version
• Average age
• Current standard configuration (year made, model, disk, memory etc)
• Type and duration of warranty/support
• Include remote workstation
 Key Elements to Include

By Creating a diagram,
including all the tools:
Application • application development tools,
& Software
Inventory • desktop tools (eg word
processing, browsers etc)
• Infrastructure tools (eg. Backup
and monitoring utilities)
 Key Elements to Include

Application inventory can include items:

• Application name, brief description, user community,
current version number, vendor
• Database environment, OS environment, interface
Application • Support / maintenance arrangement (and expiration)
& Software • Critical application? Current version copy
Inventory • Server, responsible IT team
• Installation instructions
• Special consideration or special backup requirements
• Peak periods of use or executive usage
• Who needs to be notified when scheduling
downtime, or when there is an unexpected outage
 Key Elements to Include

Need vendors inventory to

keep track of who you’re
deal and special
arrangements
Vendors

Information including
• phone numbers, account number,
levels of coverage, support
contract expires etc
• Information must be current and
available
 Tools for Tracking Technical
Environment

Which can track the inventory, do

management and alerting and will do
configuration management

Management tools that available such as

• Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Dell, IBM, Microsoft.
LANDesk, NetSupport, Sunflower systems, Novell etc

You may develop your own, to keeping

track using spreadsheet or database
 Values for Good Infrastructure
Documentation

Documentation must easily readable format

Use diagrams, charts, schematics etc

Infrastructure documentation should be updated and

available ( in IT intranet or shared directory)

Process of having staff to collect the information and

create the documentation can be a great value

Hard copies must be kept at other places for disaster

recovery, and shall be posted in computer room, or at
staff working places
 Content of Inventory

Can uncover under or over utilized resources,

potential problem and risk areas and resources and
facilities assumed to be work but may not be

May uncover technology that’s outdated and no

longer needed or that needs to be upgraded

May uncover resources providing similar or

identical functionality that can be combined

Can help IT Manager to feel comfortable that the

staff has a good perspective on their environment
 Understanding The User
Environment

Find out who your users/customers,

how they use your services, what
additional services they may be able
to use

Establish and maintain a good

relationship with your users

They should see you as available,

reliable, dedicated to service, and
having their best interest at heart
 Understanding The User
Environment
Determine who your users are

Find out who your department

thinks its users are

Find out who your boss thinks

your users are

Meet the users

Find out who
Understanding The User
your department
Environment
thinks its users
are Determine who your users are

Who are the people your department is trying to

serve?

If customers/business partners – find out who they

are, where they are, how they functions within
their company, what their relationship with your
department and what they want out of the
relationship

Ensure your entire department has the same view

as to who the users are
Find out who Understanding The User
your boss Environment
thinks your
Determine who your users are
users are

Important to give some insight

into how your boss views the
organization’s world

Second, it alert you on the

challenges – political minefields,
the critical of IT’s services

If the views not same with you,

then learn why the difference
exists and which one is right
Meet the Understanding The User
users Environment
Determine who your users are

Help questions:
•• What What services
services do
do you
you
currently
currently get
get from
from ITIT dept?
dept?
Need to meet with •• How well IT satisfy your Tell them time to
needs?
needs? Alert them with the
them, establish a prepare annual Share some trade
•• Which
Which services
services to
to you
you need
need ?? working projects or
relationship, ask them or
or currently
currently not
not getting budgets and give some journal articles that
getting other department are
some questions about •• How do you view the use of IT cost estimates for might be interested
in
in your
your dept?
exploring
their needs dept? common items
•• Who
Who else
else would
would be
be worth
worth
speaking
speaking to?
to?
•• What are your short and long
term
term goals
goals and
and needs
needs
 Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

TCO is a term used

for the sum of all the
costs associated with
a computer, in
addition of hardware
and software costs
 Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Cost of support (staff, consultants, vendors)

Network facilities (servers, applications, cabling, routers, hubs)

Training

Administrative (purchasing, inventory, auditing)

Money costs (capital, depreciation)

Consumables (diskettes, toner, paper)

Wasted user time (playing game, changing settings of fonts, color futzing)

Downtime from problems like virus, crashes

Co-workers’ time
 Calculating TCO

Calculate the current TCO

Evaluate which one can be reduces, how much effort is

required and how much it costs to reduce those costs
• Eg reduce help desk cost by training, but how much the additional
training cost?

Identify the steps then implement it

re-measure the TCO using the same sets of measurement

 Asset Management

Refers to what you do to keep

those costs down

The most expensive factor

related to the labor – the
support team cost or the user’s
cost when the system problems
prevent them from working
 Asset Management

Most popular asset management techniques include:

Maintaining hardware and software standards

• Fewer # technology products, easier to support, maintain and administer

Outsourcing functions

Using tools to automate repetitive procedures

Investing in software distribution tool

Employing disk cloning technology

 Asset Management

Most popular asset management techniques include:

Proactively checking for problems

Having hardware reseller preload your standard disk image in the workstation when they
ship

Using inventory tracking software

Implementing restrictions to that users can’t change system configuration

Proactively deciding on upgrades and replacements

Defining and setting appropriate hardware and software defaults

Providing support personnel with resources

Tracking software usage

Performing upgrades only when necessary

 Standards

Standards for Users

Benefits:
• Have to know fewer products
• Don’t have to keep spares of many
products type
• Simplified inventory of consumables
• Easy for procurement team and
shortens vendors list
• Shorter delivery time and better
volume discounts
 Standards

Issues that users care about -> related to how the product impacts on their daily
life and the performance, such as:

Cordless mice and keyboards

Coolest looking cell phone/ handheld device

Flat panel monitors

Lightest and smallest laptop

Tower / desktop unit

Privacy and anti=glare screen

Leather laptop carrying case vs canvas

Certain colors device

 Standards

Issues that IT cares about

Hardware configuration- choose

configuration should last the life of the
machine

OS and application software(vendor

and version) – more consistency more
compatibility of files among users

Software configuration (option,

settings, directory and menu location)
• Standardize so that software operates
identically for all users
 Standards

Non standard requests

Depending on the
scope request and the
business need, IT may
have to adjust its
model to include these
non-standard item
 Technology Refreshing

Some organization may

set defined refresh
cycles, while others may
choose to use things
until they simply won’t
operate any more
 Technology Refreshing

It depends on a few factors:

• The cost of vendor warranties after
a certain point
• How easy it is to replace a device
that fails
• How accounting depreciates IT
assets
• How your company views IT
spending
 Technology Refreshing

The most important consideration ->

when it can no longer bear the cost of
it:
• Vendor support is unavailable or cost
prohibitive
• The technology is no longer meeting your needs
• The technology presents risks to the
environment
• The technology is holding up other IT projects
• (eg. The latest software from your database
vendor won’t run on your aged server)
 Strategic Information System
Planning (SISP)

SISP is the planning of information systems

for an organisation.

We must decide:
• What information system do we need ?
• When do we need them?
• How will they be implemented?
• Why we want IS?

SISP involves understanding what the

business goals are and identifying how IS
can support those goals by delivering
benefits to the organisation
 Strategic Information System
Planning (SISP)

SISP involves
understanding what the
business goals are and
identifying how IS can
support those goals by
delivering benefits to the
organisation
 Strategic Information System
Planning (SISP)

We must understand:

What is the business about?

• What is its strategy and purpose?

What IS do we have?
• Is it effective?
• Is it meeting business needs?

What Technological opportunities

exist?
• How could new IT support the business?
That’s all.