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Existing infrastructure documentation may out of
date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
highest
level to the
details that
you need

Make sure
your staff
doing the
details (eg
serial #)

Think about
scenario ->
how to
bring the
entire IT
infrastructu
re back up
after a
major
failure (eg
fire, flood)

Create a
schematic
diagram to
picture up
the
environmen
t for
getting an
understandi
ng of how
the
environmen

Vendors

Application
& Software
Inventory

Server &
Workstation
Carrier
Storage
s
Connections
Environment

Local Area
Network

Wide Area
Network

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
Network

Backup communication facilities,

carriers, bandwidth, firewall etc
Servers types, numbers, users, IP
Address, key contracts
Service providers/partners
connections, responsible person
WAN
regularly

schematics should up date

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:
Carrier
Connectio
ns

Circuit numbers
Circuit endpoints (building
and room)
Carriers
Type/speed of line (analog,
ISDN)
Phone numbers for
reporting problems

Key Elements to Include

Server &
Storage
Environme
nt

The documentation
give insight into how
the applications work
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

Workstatio
ns
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

Applicatio
n&
Software
Inventory

By Creating a
diagram, including all
the tools:
application development
tools,
desktop tools (eg word
processing, browsers etc)
Infrastructure tools (eg.
Backup and monitoring
utilities)

Key Elements to Include

Application inventory can include

items:
Applicatio
n&
Software
Inventory

Application name, brief description, user

community, current version number,
vendor
Database environment, OS environment,
interface
Support / maintenance arrangement (and
expiration)
Critical application? Current version copy
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 youre
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 thats 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 ar

Find out who your

department thinks its
users are
Find out who your boss
thinks your users are

Meet the users

Find out who

your
department
thinks its
users are

Understanding The User

Environment

Determine who your users ar

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 your
boss thinks
your users
are

Understanding The User

Environment

Determine who your users ar

Important to give some

insight into how your boss
views the organizations
world
Second, it alert you on the
challenges political
minefields, the critical of
ITs services
If the views not same with
you, then learn why the
difference exists and
which one is right

Meet the
users

Understanding The User

Environment

Determine who your users ar

Help questions:
Need to meet with
them, establish a
relationship, ask
them some
questions about
their needs

What
What services
services do
do you
you
currently
currently get
get from
from IT
IT
dept?
dept?
How
How well
well IT
IT satisfy
satisfy your
your
needs?
Which
Which services
services to
to you
you
need
need ?
? or
or currently
currently not
not
getting
getting
How do you view the
use
use of
of IT
IT in
in your
your dept?
dept?
Who
else
would
Who else would be
be
worth
worth speaking
speaking to?
to?
What are your short
and
and long
long term
term goals
goals
and
and needs
needs

Alert them with

the working
projects or other
department are
exploring

Tell them time to

prepare annual
budgets and give
some cost
estimates for
common items

Share some trade

journal articles
that might be
interested

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 users 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 cant 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
Dont 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 wont
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 wont 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
Is

it
it

effective?
meeting business needs?

What Technological
opportunities exist?
How could new IT support the
business?

Thats all.