InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
December 7, 1998
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Database-administration management comprises all administrative and technical activities related to monitoring, analyzing and fine-tuning database resource use. It also includes the configuration and upgrading of production databases, the monitoring of database space utilization, and the running of database reorganization jobs to ensure optimal application performance.
Desktop management entails all activities required to manage desktops, including hardware and software installation, configuration, distribution, troubleshooting, and problem resolution. The creation and enforcement of businesswide desktop-management policies and standards is paramount to regulate the acquisition, installation, configuration, and upgrading of standards-based desktops. Standardization of desktop equipment is the first step toward controlling and ultimately reducing the administrative costs associated with PC management.
Disaster planning and recovery management covers all activities required to ensure continuous automated business operations should a major disaster occur.
Event and alarm management ensures that all the applications, hardware, network, databases, middleware, and underlying resources that affect availability and reliability are continuously monitored. This demands a global understanding of the critical systems resources required to keep the business running smoothly. The event- and alarm-management process entails all the activities required to monitor and report status information on critical hardware, software, middleware, and network components. When predefined operational thresholds are surpassed or component failures are detected, monitoring agents automatically generate alarms to notify the support staff.
Help-desk management includes all activities required to support user queries and requests for problem resolution. The help-desk management process must be closely integrated with other systems-management processes, such as asset, configuration, desktop, problem, and change management. Best practices encompass the ability to identify, track, and monitor the resolution of problems in the shortest time possible. It also includes the ability to contact users to verify problem resolution.
High-availability management entails the implementation of failover capabilities to provide high availability of critical infrastructure components. All potential single points of failure among critical components such as applications, networks, operating systems, servers, and databases must be identified and eliminated. High availability is usually achieved by introducing controlled redundancy into systems.
Job-scheduling management comprises all activities related scheduling of single or grouped batch production jobs on a timed basis, such as hourly or on-demand. Job scheduling must take into consideration predecessor and successor dependencies between jobs in the same group or between different job streams, as well as provide status information on the progress of the overall scheduling process and workload balancing.
Network management includes the discovery and recording of information relating to network assets across heterogeneous platforms and protocols. It also involves the monitoring and optimization of all resources that use the network to ensure that critical client-server and Web-based application service levels are met or exceeded.
Output management entails the manipulation and timely delivery of secured computer-generated outputs such as reports, to one or more destination--printer, fax machine, Web server, and E-mail.
Performance management encompasses all activities required to tune, monitor, detect, and resolve performance bottlenecks on enterprise platforms. Good performance and capacity management ensure that service-level agreements on quality are satisfied.
Problem management entails all activities required to identify, locate, and determine how to fix problems as they surface. Problem management also involves finding the root causes of major incidents to prevent reoccurrence.
Service-levels management involves the activities used to plan, define, and control guaranteed services and the responsibilities of an IT service provider. Service-level agreements should be customer-centric and cover key business processes and the application systems and technologies that support them.
World-class IT organizations regularly measure critical performance against metrics that help them and their customers gauge service quality. Objective and measurable service-level metrics can also be used to negotiate with customers when determining the scope of services rendered and the incremental costs of improving the quality of these services. World-class IT organizations often go one step further, regularly benchmarking themselves against the best practices in the industry.
Software distribution manages all activities related to the planning, delivery, and installation of complete software, across the network. In most instances, software distribution is performed with push or pull delivery. Automated incremental software updates are also supported, for componentized applications. Software-distribution management is heavily dependent on asset- and configuration-management practices.
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