The history of one infrastructure. MS solutions. Part 3
The history of one infrastructure. MS solutions. Part 1
The history of one infrastructure. MS solutions. Part 2
Everything is fine, everything works. From deviations - only ADSL-channel for access to the Internet (something more serious and more reliable is necessary).
Having considered various options, we make a decision to launch a project on the organization of fiber optic links to an Internet access service provider. There are all prerequisites for successful implementation - there is a facility nearby, where the provider started his FOC and placed its optical crosses. We define the scope of the budget of the event and launch the project to work. And I must say, the chosen telecom is the largest in our region and not very “agile”. And it’s not enough that, as it turned out later, the object located close to it is a state-owned, serious one and does not want to let anyone in.
At idle time, from addressing the organizational issues of the FOCL to Provider project, OIT decided to start creating an IT Center on the internal portal of the document management service (SharePoint) in order to host the user’s instructions for the IC, the knowledge base of the ICU and the newly created documentation of the IC. No sooner said than done. Internal resource “IT Center” was created, documentation of IP was posted, other internal documents (such as “Distribution of tasks of OIT staff”, “Rules for access and use of LAN data”) were published, ITU staff started creating user instructions with pictures in wiki pages format, knowledge base (KB) is gradually updated. To date, "Instructions", there are 30 pcs. (each instruction from 5 to 10 pages of text with pictures). All instructions are intended to expand the user information available with the system and applications, as well as to describe the specifics of a particular IP. The instructions have a detailed step-by-step description of the actions, supplemented by graphic images to facilitate the perception of information. "Knowledge Base" has about 150 articles, is designed to store articles about problems, errors and methods for solving them. Keep a knowledge base always - it is an indispensable tool and assistant (secret knowledge). Our database is already a “invaluable asset of the company” (or, at a minimum, an ITD). Knowledge management is a topic for a separate article.
The organizational issues of the FOL to Provider project are being resolved, and I decided to supplement the IT Center with the management functionality of the ITD, equipment and software, i.e. assets. And added. A “List of equipment” (with several thousand entries), “List of software” (similarly), “Equipment change log” and “Software change log” were created. The necessary reference books were also created (for the substitution of typical data) "Supplier Directory", "Owner Directory", etc. (a lot of them). “Equipment list” is intended for storing equipment records (1 record = 1 equipment unit) by content types (dozens of columns for various attributes) and is able (through data representations) to present data in the necessary section - for example, “Monitors by type”, “ Monitors on the diagonal "," Monitors on the manufacturer ", etc. By filling out this list, which was very difficult, we now have the opportunity to see the cost of equipment in any section, the cost of equipment by department, by owner, by type of equipment, etc., which made it easy to create any reports of an economic nature.
The “equipment change log” is intended to record any work on the equipment (for example, replacement of spare parts, installation, removal, sending in for repair, return from repair, receipt in the warehouse, write-off). The “equipment change log” allows you to track investments in equipment by months and the cost of equipment repairs. When viewing the “Equipment List” records, the associated records from the “Equipment Change Log” are also displayed.
A similar description is in the "Software List" and "Software Change Log". “Software list” and “Equipment list” are connected - the software is installed on the equipment. When viewing the “Equipment List” records, you can see the associated records from the “Software List” indicating the total cost.
Guided by the principle “You can effectively manage only what can be reliably measured”, I come to the conclusion that we need to add “IT Center” with the functionality of consumables management for printing equipment. As a result, “Journal of Acquisition of the Republic of Moldova”, “Journal of Replacement of the Republic of Moldova” and “Catalog of the Republic of Moldova” were created. The new functionality allows you to keep track of costs over specific time intervals, the state of the stock of consumables, and replacements made. The “Equipment List” has been improved - now the “Printing Equipment” type has new data fields and we can see when the PM was replaced, when the next one is planned and which RMs are in stock. Effective management of consumables for printing equipment with the planning available!
Then I come to the conclusion that technical support needs to effectively manage user requests, and I need to effectively manage technical support. As a result, “IT Center” was supplemented with the “Service Requests” and “Requests for the Acquisition of RM” journals, which are filled in by the ITD employees, while customers, in turn, receive email notifications when the request status changes. Created “My service requests”, “My requests for the purchase of RM” and a personal user page that aggregates the information the user needs in one place (the client can only see his own requests). Now users have the opportunity to independently leave requests in the IT Center, which will immediately be notified of technical support, which needs to process the request so that it gets into the familiar Service Requests magazine, and any user is notified of any changes.
The next step was the introduction of incident management functionality. IT Center was supplemented with the Incident Log, the Malware Incident Log, and the Supplier Incident Log. The "incident log" is intended to register and manage incidents with equipment and software, i.e. choose equipment from the appropriate list, write down “what”, “when”, “detailed description”, “performer”, “importance”, “solution method” (if decided), “category”, choose a coherent article BZ (if necessary). Something like this, we manage incidents and can control the number of outstanding, solution time, etc. When viewing the “Equipment List” entries, you can also see all the related entries from the “Incident Log”. Approximately also with suppliers. “Malware Incident Log” - an OIT employee receives an incident notification via email and logs an event in the log. A kind of - "honor roll", a deterrent. And, of course, data is available in any context for analytics (all journals use a lot of calculated columns, and since the most scarce resources are time and money, we consider them).
Further, the “IT Center” was supplemented with the “Journal of Internet Expenditures”, “Journal of other expenses” and “Journal of the purchase of spare parts”. The “Spare Parts Purchase Journal” is associated with the “Equipment Change Journal” and is designed to manage the cost of spare parts for equipment. From now on, all IT costs are fixed and controlled.
The next step, the functionality of the "IT Center" was supplemented with the "Journal of changes in the configuration of the IP" and "Journal of changes in the documentation of the IP." The “IP Configuration Change Log” is intended for detailed registration of all changes to the infrastructure software settings and is associated with the “IP Change Documentation Log” (if necessary, the IP Configuration Change Log ”creates entries in the“ IP Change Log ”, an executor is assigned and notified by email mail). From now on, we always know what, when and why we changed the software configuration and documentation of the IC. When viewing the “Equipment List” entries, you can also see the associated entries from the “IP Configuration Change Log”. Another secret knowledge - it is necessary to record all changes as detailed as possible, the positive effect is worth the effort. For example, the planned process of replacing certificates on Exchange servers is executed once and recorded in the log, as a result, the next time we have detailed step-by-step instructions.
In parallel, lists of key performance indicators (KPIs) were created, grouping KPIs by category and process. List of KPIs for investments, costs, IP management processes, incident management, technical support management. For example, the list of incident KPIs includes the following indicators (indicators):
And, for completeness of the example, indicators of the list of key performance indicators for technical support management:
Each indicator has parameters: set target value, the value at which a warning is displayed. The indicator displays the target value, the current value (for example, the number of items in the list, the percentage of items that match the specified condition, the sum of certain values in the list view, the Excel document), the indicator status icon.
I’ll clarify that the development of the system was carried out with the help of the free product Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and I want to note that the capabilities of the e-mail notifications that are involved in the working process of people are used very intensively, the formalities are followed. By the way, when viewing directory items ("Customer Directory", "Artist Directory", "Supplier Directory", etc.), records from all linked lists and journals related to the selected element with totals (sum, number) are displayed, those. The viewing page is a reporting page for the selected item.
An IT management reporting page was created that displays all KPIs by groups, links to other ITD reports (documents placed in the report library). The existing functionality of the “IT Center” from that moment began to be proudly called the “IT Management System”, the new system found its detailed documentation and was friendly accepted by the management. "IT Management System" is intended for effective management of IT assets and IT processes.
Later, on the internal portal of the document management service (SharePoint), other systems were developed, similar to the IT Management System, that facilitate the management of data for analysis and beautiful reports with KPIs:
')
It will take a separate article to describe the basic functionality of the existing systems.
By this time, positive decisions on the issues of the project "fiber optic to the provider." And then, as usual, work began to boil. Required materials purchased. Employees of the ITD and the company's telephonists completed the installation of a kilometer of FOC (2 segments). The contractor installed crosses, soldered the cable. The provider has allocated an iron router and a block of external IP addresses. The last step, the provider organized the work on the fiber-optic line and that unfortunate wok, suitable for a serious object, deployed and brought us to the switching room of the automatic telephone station of the factory complex, from which we connected the object (for this we needed a second segment).
Works fine, fast, reliable! One more non-critical deviation is eliminated, but it will be possible to be puzzled by the backup segment. In the end, the project turned out to be quite inexpensive, but very long (1 year long-term construction).
Quite unexpectedly, the responsible persons come to understand that the website that we have in place since 2003 does not at all satisfy, as it turned out, our requirements. Arguing with our colleagues about our requirements and deciding what to do, a bad idea came into my head - “Why don't we make a managed site using free Windows SharePoint Services 3.0?”. Not finding the arguments against, I proceeded to the implementation of the plan (that is, to the samples), without promising anyone a positive result. Installed Virtual PC 2007, virtual Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
In the case of a satisfactory result, it was planned to deploy a virtualization service using MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 software on the Exchange edge server (adding memory and a network adapter). By means of the virtualization service, to organize a virtual Server of the Internet site based on Windows Server 2003 R2. Place the virtual server in a separate demilitarized zone. On a virtual server, install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and host the created website. The Exchange server was chosen as a platform. it was idle almost completely without load - there was time, it sifted out millions of unwanted messages per month, but after completely abandoning the old third-level mail domain and other effective measures to reduce the activity of the incoming stream, the number of messages wanting to get to us decreased tenfold . Nuts tightened tight.
The development of the site has begun. And it lasted two months. Two hard months. During which daily puzzles were solved. The knowledge base was replenished with 30 articles. Over 40 working days, 30 new puzzles, 30 new knowledge and 30 new articles in the BR. From the standard little that remains, everything was altered. But, surprisingly, all our plans turned out and all the interested parties were more than satisfied. And, as expected, the test copy moved to a virtual server and was released to the global network.
In the future, as part of the development of this project, it was possible to get acquainted with the methods of search engine optimization, with popular services of collecting statistics, with popular services of contextual advertising. Summarizing - a good experience, an interesting project, but not an easy one!
With the advent of the economic crisis, all large and interesting projects were postponed indefinitely. But work is underway, there are constant insignificant improvements (for example, they put the second air conditioner in the server room for redundant cold, work in pairs), there is a continuous optimization of the ITD processes.
And, apparently, in the economic situation of the enterprise there has been a positive trend.
And, as you know, the development process cannot be completed, it can only be stopped. "To be continued", as they say ...
We will continue and consider in more detail the issue of creating IP documentation.
Let's continue and consider in more detail the issue of creating an IT Management System.
The history of one infrastructure. MS solutions. Part 2
Unfinished. Start…
Everything is fine, everything works. From deviations - only ADSL-channel for access to the Internet (something more serious and more reliable is necessary).
Having considered various options, we make a decision to launch a project on the organization of fiber optic links to an Internet access service provider. There are all prerequisites for successful implementation - there is a facility nearby, where the provider started his FOC and placed its optical crosses. We define the scope of the budget of the event and launch the project to work. And I must say, the chosen telecom is the largest in our region and not very “agile”. And it’s not enough that, as it turned out later, the object located close to it is a state-owned, serious one and does not want to let anyone in.
IT management is a system ...
At idle time, from addressing the organizational issues of the FOCL to Provider project, OIT decided to start creating an IT Center on the internal portal of the document management service (SharePoint) in order to host the user’s instructions for the IC, the knowledge base of the ICU and the newly created documentation of the IC. No sooner said than done. Internal resource “IT Center” was created, documentation of IP was posted, other internal documents (such as “Distribution of tasks of OIT staff”, “Rules for access and use of LAN data”) were published, ITU staff started creating user instructions with pictures in wiki pages format, knowledge base (KB) is gradually updated. To date, "Instructions", there are 30 pcs. (each instruction from 5 to 10 pages of text with pictures). All instructions are intended to expand the user information available with the system and applications, as well as to describe the specifics of a particular IP. The instructions have a detailed step-by-step description of the actions, supplemented by graphic images to facilitate the perception of information. "Knowledge Base" has about 150 articles, is designed to store articles about problems, errors and methods for solving them. Keep a knowledge base always - it is an indispensable tool and assistant (secret knowledge). Our database is already a “invaluable asset of the company” (or, at a minimum, an ITD). Knowledge management is a topic for a separate article.
The organizational issues of the FOL to Provider project are being resolved, and I decided to supplement the IT Center with the management functionality of the ITD, equipment and software, i.e. assets. And added. A “List of equipment” (with several thousand entries), “List of software” (similarly), “Equipment change log” and “Software change log” were created. The necessary reference books were also created (for the substitution of typical data) "Supplier Directory", "Owner Directory", etc. (a lot of them). “Equipment list” is intended for storing equipment records (1 record = 1 equipment unit) by content types (dozens of columns for various attributes) and is able (through data representations) to present data in the necessary section - for example, “Monitors by type”, “ Monitors on the diagonal "," Monitors on the manufacturer ", etc. By filling out this list, which was very difficult, we now have the opportunity to see the cost of equipment in any section, the cost of equipment by department, by owner, by type of equipment, etc., which made it easy to create any reports of an economic nature.
The “equipment change log” is intended to record any work on the equipment (for example, replacement of spare parts, installation, removal, sending in for repair, return from repair, receipt in the warehouse, write-off). The “equipment change log” allows you to track investments in equipment by months and the cost of equipment repairs. When viewing the “Equipment List” records, the associated records from the “Equipment Change Log” are also displayed.
A similar description is in the "Software List" and "Software Change Log". “Software list” and “Equipment list” are connected - the software is installed on the equipment. When viewing the “Equipment List” records, you can see the associated records from the “Software List” indicating the total cost.
Guided by the principle “You can effectively manage only what can be reliably measured”, I come to the conclusion that we need to add “IT Center” with the functionality of consumables management for printing equipment. As a result, “Journal of Acquisition of the Republic of Moldova”, “Journal of Replacement of the Republic of Moldova” and “Catalog of the Republic of Moldova” were created. The new functionality allows you to keep track of costs over specific time intervals, the state of the stock of consumables, and replacements made. The “Equipment List” has been improved - now the “Printing Equipment” type has new data fields and we can see when the PM was replaced, when the next one is planned and which RMs are in stock. Effective management of consumables for printing equipment with the planning available!
Then I come to the conclusion that technical support needs to effectively manage user requests, and I need to effectively manage technical support. As a result, “IT Center” was supplemented with the “Service Requests” and “Requests for the Acquisition of RM” journals, which are filled in by the ITD employees, while customers, in turn, receive email notifications when the request status changes. Created “My service requests”, “My requests for the purchase of RM” and a personal user page that aggregates the information the user needs in one place (the client can only see his own requests). Now users have the opportunity to independently leave requests in the IT Center, which will immediately be notified of technical support, which needs to process the request so that it gets into the familiar Service Requests magazine, and any user is notified of any changes.
The next step was the introduction of incident management functionality. IT Center was supplemented with the Incident Log, the Malware Incident Log, and the Supplier Incident Log. The "incident log" is intended to register and manage incidents with equipment and software, i.e. choose equipment from the appropriate list, write down “what”, “when”, “detailed description”, “performer”, “importance”, “solution method” (if decided), “category”, choose a coherent article BZ (if necessary). Something like this, we manage incidents and can control the number of outstanding, solution time, etc. When viewing the “Equipment List” entries, you can also see all the related entries from the “Incident Log”. Approximately also with suppliers. “Malware Incident Log” - an OIT employee receives an incident notification via email and logs an event in the log. A kind of - "honor roll", a deterrent. And, of course, data is available in any context for analytics (all journals use a lot of calculated columns, and since the most scarce resources are time and money, we consider them).
Further, the “IT Center” was supplemented with the “Journal of Internet Expenditures”, “Journal of other expenses” and “Journal of the purchase of spare parts”. The “Spare Parts Purchase Journal” is associated with the “Equipment Change Journal” and is designed to manage the cost of spare parts for equipment. From now on, all IT costs are fixed and controlled.
The next step, the functionality of the "IT Center" was supplemented with the "Journal of changes in the configuration of the IP" and "Journal of changes in the documentation of the IP." The “IP Configuration Change Log” is intended for detailed registration of all changes to the infrastructure software settings and is associated with the “IP Change Documentation Log” (if necessary, the IP Configuration Change Log ”creates entries in the“ IP Change Log ”, an executor is assigned and notified by email mail). From now on, we always know what, when and why we changed the software configuration and documentation of the IC. When viewing the “Equipment List” entries, you can also see the associated entries from the “IP Configuration Change Log”. Another secret knowledge - it is necessary to record all changes as detailed as possible, the positive effect is worth the effort. For example, the planned process of replacing certificates on Exchange servers is executed once and recorded in the log, as a result, the next time we have detailed step-by-step instructions.
In parallel, lists of key performance indicators (KPIs) were created, grouping KPIs by category and process. List of KPIs for investments, costs, IP management processes, incident management, technical support management. For example, the list of incident KPIs includes the following indicators (indicators):
- Proportion of incidents resolved
- Proportion of incidents resolved
- Number of incidents (current month)
- Number of incidents (last month)
- The proportion of incidents of critical and high importance
- Proportion of malware detection incidents resolved
- Number of malware detection incidents (current month)
- Number of malware detection incidents (last month)
- The proportion of critical and high-priority malware detection incidents
- The proportion of solved incidents with suppliers
- Number of incidents with suppliers (current month)
- Number of incidents with suppliers (last month)
- The proportion of incidents with suppliers of critical and high importance
And, for completeness of the example, indicators of the list of key performance indicators for technical support management:
- Percentage of service requests executed
- Percentage of service requests executed (current month)
- Percentage of service requests completed (last month)
- Number of service requests (current month)
- Number of service requests (last month)
- The share of service requests (performed for a very long time)
- The share of service requests (completed very quickly)
- Percentage of service requests with critical and high priority
- Share of service requests with critical and high priority (current month)
- Percentage of service requests with critical and high priority (last month)
- The proportion of unprocessed service requests to the IT Center
- The share of completed requests for the purchase of consumables
- The share of completed requests for the purchase of consumables (current month)
- The share of completed requests for the purchase of consumables (last month)
- The number of requests for the purchase of consumables (current month)
- The number of requests for the purchase of consumables (last month)
- Share of unprocessed requests for the acquisition of RM in the IT Center
- Number of instructions for using the IC
- Percentage of completed instructions on the use of IP
Each indicator has parameters: set target value, the value at which a warning is displayed. The indicator displays the target value, the current value (for example, the number of items in the list, the percentage of items that match the specified condition, the sum of certain values in the list view, the Excel document), the indicator status icon.
I’ll clarify that the development of the system was carried out with the help of the free product Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and I want to note that the capabilities of the e-mail notifications that are involved in the working process of people are used very intensively, the formalities are followed. By the way, when viewing directory items ("Customer Directory", "Artist Directory", "Supplier Directory", etc.), records from all linked lists and journals related to the selected element with totals (sum, number) are displayed, those. The viewing page is a reporting page for the selected item.
An IT management reporting page was created that displays all KPIs by groups, links to other ITD reports (documents placed in the report library). The existing functionality of the “IT Center” from that moment began to be proudly called the “IT Management System”, the new system found its detailed documentation and was friendly accepted by the management. "IT Management System" is intended for effective management of IT assets and IT processes.
Management is a system ...
Later, on the internal portal of the document management service (SharePoint), other systems were developed, similar to the IT Management System, that facilitate the management of data for analysis and beautiful reports with KPIs:
- "Equipment management system", designed to manage production equipment, repair and maintenance processes, control the execution of applications.
- "Order Management System", designed to manage the processes of non-serial production orders, monitor the implementation of orders, coordination of orders with structural divisions, monitoring and planning payments for orders.
- "Human Resource Management System", designed to manage staffing, absences of employees, violations of labor discipline, to interact with the accounting part of accounting, etc.
')
It will take a separate article to describe the basic functionality of the existing systems.
Give fast Internet to every office! or unfinished. The end.
By this time, positive decisions on the issues of the project "fiber optic to the provider." And then, as usual, work began to boil. Required materials purchased. Employees of the ITD and the company's telephonists completed the installation of a kilometer of FOC (2 segments). The contractor installed crosses, soldered the cable. The provider has allocated an iron router and a block of external IP addresses. The last step, the provider organized the work on the fiber-optic line and that unfortunate wok, suitable for a serious object, deployed and brought us to the switching room of the automatic telephone station of the factory complex, from which we connected the object (for this we needed a second segment).
Works fine, fast, reliable! One more non-critical deviation is eliminated, but it will be possible to be puzzled by the backup segment. In the end, the project turned out to be quite inexpensive, but very long (1 year long-term construction).
Tell about yourself to the world!
Quite unexpectedly, the responsible persons come to understand that the website that we have in place since 2003 does not at all satisfy, as it turned out, our requirements. Arguing with our colleagues about our requirements and deciding what to do, a bad idea came into my head - “Why don't we make a managed site using free Windows SharePoint Services 3.0?”. Not finding the arguments against, I proceeded to the implementation of the plan (that is, to the samples), without promising anyone a positive result. Installed Virtual PC 2007, virtual Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
In the case of a satisfactory result, it was planned to deploy a virtualization service using MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 software on the Exchange edge server (adding memory and a network adapter). By means of the virtualization service, to organize a virtual Server of the Internet site based on Windows Server 2003 R2. Place the virtual server in a separate demilitarized zone. On a virtual server, install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and host the created website. The Exchange server was chosen as a platform. it was idle almost completely without load - there was time, it sifted out millions of unwanted messages per month, but after completely abandoning the old third-level mail domain and other effective measures to reduce the activity of the incoming stream, the number of messages wanting to get to us decreased tenfold . Nuts tightened tight.
The development of the site has begun. And it lasted two months. Two hard months. During which daily puzzles were solved. The knowledge base was replenished with 30 articles. Over 40 working days, 30 new puzzles, 30 new knowledge and 30 new articles in the BR. From the standard little that remains, everything was altered. But, surprisingly, all our plans turned out and all the interested parties were more than satisfied. And, as expected, the test copy moved to a virtual server and was released to the global network.
In the future, as part of the development of this project, it was possible to get acquainted with the methods of search engine optimization, with popular services of collecting statistics, with popular services of contextual advertising. Summarizing - a good experience, an interesting project, but not an easy one!
Instead of a conclusion ...
With the advent of the economic crisis, all large and interesting projects were postponed indefinitely. But work is underway, there are constant insignificant improvements (for example, they put the second air conditioner in the server room for redundant cold, work in pairs), there is a continuous optimization of the ITD processes.
And, apparently, in the economic situation of the enterprise there has been a positive trend.
And, as you know, the development process cannot be completed, it can only be stopped. "To be continued", as they say ...
We will continue and consider in more detail the issue of creating IP documentation.
Let's continue and consider in more detail the issue of creating an IT Management System.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/91479/
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