The Operations View…

An Operation Manager’s perspective on Change, Configuration and Release

Management

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Who am I and Who are you? Why are we here today? How Ops see you... Some “Ops Mgr Rules”... Some Operations Requests... Some examples of tools Summary Questions?

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Agenda

◦Stephen Thair MBCS CITP MBA

◦ 19 years IT experience in Australia (9yrs) and UK (10yrs) Development, Support, Technical Architecture etc 3 yrs as Operations Manager for Totaljobs Group 1 yrs as Operations Manager for TSL Education Seriti Consulting – web operations and performance

consulting

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Who am I?

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Who are you? Hands up...

Who is a Change / Configuration / Release (CCR) Manager?

Who is a Operations Manager?◦ My definition of "Operations Manager“...

"the person who gets it in the neck when the servers/applications/systems go

down"

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Why are we here? The 3 Conference Objectives...

◦ getting more from what you’ve got!◦ cost and risk of not controlling environments (virtualised, end-to-

end, testing, etc.)◦ how the benefits of being in control can be measured and

communicated to the organisation. The ITIL Objectives...

◦ “ITIL is a top-down, business driven approach to the management of IT Services that specifically addresses the strategic business value generated by the IT organisation and the delivery of high quality IT services. ITIL is designed to focus on the people, processes and technology issues that IT organisations face.” – ITIL Official Website

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Why are we here? (2)

But why do we have Change / Configuration / Release Management at all?

◦ The Answer as always is CIA Confidentiality Integrity Availability

◦ We have these disciplines to help the Operational staff do their job better and to deliver a better service to the business so that the business can be more productive and make more profit

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How “we” see “you”...

Are you a hurdle we have to jump?

Or are you the lubricant that makes everything run smoothly?

Or worse...

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The worst case scenario...

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Part of the problem or part of the solution?

What happens if you are seen negatively? We will ignore or workaround the CCR processes

And we'll get away with it for two reasons◦ As long as we are delivering on the service and we

don't mess up a change, all we are going to get is a slap on the wrist (unless it's a high-security environment)

◦ And unless you have automated configuration management tools you probably won't even know...

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Ops Manager rule #1

“CCR without automated configuration management is “optional””

How much “Hidden Change” goes on inside your organisation?

The Four Quadrants of Change

Rollback Incident

Managed Change

“Hidden Change”

Authorised Un-Authorised

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Rules #2, #3, #4...

2. No-one likes someone watching over their shoulder...

◦ AKA the “Big Brother” Rule

3. You get the marketing wrong... ◦ AKA the “FUD Marketing” Rule

4. Where are you when we need you?◦ AKA the “Dial 999 rule”

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Rule #2 – “Big Brother”

No-one likes someone looking over their shoulder – that’s just a fact of life...

Ops people interpret it as "you guys don't trust us to do our jobs properly so we have to get everything approved"◦ Which is arrogant because everyone makes mistakes...

Especially someone who is "less technical" than they are...

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Rule #3 – “FUD Marketing” FUD Marketing

◦ FUD will get your budget signed off

But all the Ops people will hear is "blah blah blah" Marketing 101

Tailor your message to the audience You need to sell the vision just as much to the Operations people as to the IT

Executive... and you can't use the same slide deck...

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Rule #4 – “Dial 999”

Ask yourself the question...◦When something goes wrong does your change / release / configuration management system help your front line staff fix the problem?

And if not, why not?

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Some Operations Requests...

Always ask yourself "How does this help us deliver better IT services to our Customers?"◦ And NOT "How can I implement a Change / Release /

Configuration Management Process“ A set of processes and tools that help us do our

job better◦ Help us transition changes into Production, not stand

in the way Help in dealing with the business sponsors

◦ Getting it approved and signed-off◦ Help in translating Tech speak to Business

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Help us with Information! Can you answers these questions quickly and easily?

◦ What changed on server XYZ today?◦ What fixes where in the release last week (down to the file

level?)◦ If something has gone wrong on server XYZ what applications

are affected and who do I need to notify (RACI Matrix?)?◦ Can I get a up to list of all the servers running IIS in my data

center with their CPU, RAM, Disk, OS version and patch level in under 30 secs?

◦ If I want to roll out Change XYZ across 100 servers how do "your" processes help me do that?

◦ What changes are planned on the Bank Holiday Monday in August?

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Standard Changes Rule!

Work on the “standard change” list!◦ ITIL has the concept of a standard change but rarely

have I seen it implemented effectively◦ If it is something that has been done successfully

many times and/or will incur no service impact (due to redundancy etc) then make it a standard change and let people get on with the job!

"If this change goes wrong will it have a material impact on the service to customers?"◦ If the answer is no - make it a "standard change"

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Integration...

Change, Configuration and Release should work together smoothly...

AND Be integrated with Incident / Problem!

◦ Can I go from an Incident to a Change and updating the CMDB in 2-3 clicks?

AND Be integrated with the configuration/CMDB

automation◦ “Closed loop change”

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Some concrete examples

Configuration Management◦Configuresoft ECM

Service Management◦www.service-now.com

Closed-Loop Change

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Configuresoft ECM

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Why I like ECM Comprehensive depth of coverage Database-driven = fast reports Agent-based

◦ Only delta’s sent over the wire = less network traffic

Web UI – all I need is a browser Lots of pre-canned templates for different

compliance regimes = ECM-driven change remediation = “fix the

ones that are different”

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Service-Now.com

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Why I like Service-Now SaaS

◦ no infrastructure to worry about◦ Access it from anywhere

Web UI Easy customisation from the UI

◦ No hordes of developers required “One stop stop” – ITIL in a box Integrated CMDB...

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The “Holy Grail”

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Summary

What matters is Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability... To deliver IT services to the Business so that the business can deliver service to its customers & clients

Operations are the people who ultimately have to deliver that service

So please make sure that your Change, Configuration and Release processes enable us to do our jobs BETTER

Any Questions?

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If you have any questions around ◦ Web site operations & management◦ Web Performance Tuning◦ Near-shore development & functional testing

Email me – Stephen.Thair@SeritiConsulting.com Connect with me on LinkedIn

◦ http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenthair

Contact Details – Seriti Consulting

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