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The Operations and Support Phase of the MOF Lifecycle

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We have now spent some time talking about IT Governance as well as the Business IT Planning phase of the lifecycle and so I wanted to jump ahead a bit from planning straight into the Operations and Support phase of the lifecycle, with emphasis on the Operations piece. Please understand that I am intentionally leaving out the middle at this point, the design, build, stabilize, and deploy phase that creates a service and moves it into production for the Operations and Support groups. But I do promise we'll come back to that one shortly and fill in the gap.

 

Operations and Support is an area that Microsoft has to get right as we have a responsibility to assist our customers with operating and supporting our platform in the most efficient and painless manner possible. And that requirement does lead very naturally to our goal, or mission statement, for this phase.

 

"To operate, maintain, and support existing IT services in line with SLA targets."

 

To support that goal, we're proposing streamlining the existing Operating Quadrant by combining several of the current Service Management Functions (SMFs) and mapping that workflow throughout the lifecycle in addition to providing technology specific work instructions. In our proposed model, we would be making several changes to the existing Operating quadrant SMFs. I'll list out the current SMFs and then talk about the changes. For a better, graphical representation, please download and review the attached PowerPoint presentation.

  • Systems Administration SMF
  • Network Administration SMF
  • Directory Services SMF
  • Storage Management SMF
  • Job Scheduling SMF
  • Security Management SMF
  • Service Monitoring and Control SMF

The first four of the above list: Systems, Network, Directory, and Storage would all be merged into a single Operations Management SMF. Service Monitoring and Control, as well as Job Scheduling would be moved over to the new lifecycle phase as standalone SMFs, though the focus of each will be updated to reflect both our new form factor and modern IT issues, technology, and concerns. Lastly, Security Administration would be moved to the foundational layer of the lifecycle that includes IT Governance, Compliance, Risk, and related concerns.

 

Now if we take a deeper look at the objectives of Operations Management SMF, we have five goals we hope to accomplish:

  1.  Provide modeling based questions that help the IT pro identify the necessary work instructions
  2. Help the Operations Manager organize the execution of planned daily, weekly, and monthly tasks
  3. Offer guidance around controlling the work performed
  4. Show the integration of the SMF into the overall IT lifecycle
  5. Provide specific technology work instructions for the Microsoft platform

Again, a graphic showing this workflow is included with the attached PowerPoint.

 

So, with all of that said, I once again have a couple of specific questions I’d like to ask you:

 

1. What do you think about the proposed consolidation of the Operating Quadrant SMFs?

2. What specific technology work instructions would you find most useful (a prioritized list)?

 

Thank you all and look for another post from me in the next few days which will provide an in-depth look at our new SMF structure featuring Availability Management.

 

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

 

MOF Update - Ops & Support - compat.ppt

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The IT industry has learned so far that efficient operations without consistent/adaptative processess

  • Anonymous
    September 08, 2007
    Hi Jason! I am wondering If a guidance will be provided about how could System Center Operations Manager fullfill as a tool avery SMF mapped into the new Operations Management SMF. I think SCOM is a great "executing arm" for all this process. Nowadays do not have much time to take an in-depth look into MOF and your post are giving me agreat overview of what is coming. Keep going! Beto.

  • Anonymous
    September 09, 2007
    Hi Jason, I am liking the innovations that you are writing a lot and I'm very anxious to see the new cycle of life of MOF. Do I want to know if you are intending to join the quadrants Operations and Support? Thank you for your email, I promise that will answer him soon.

  1. What do you think about the proposed consolidation of the Operating Quadrant SMFs? R: Perfect, I'm sure that this is the best road to turn the faster life cycle. I hope that also reduces the number of pages in all documents and that the focus is really in important processes only.
  2. What specific technology work instructions would you find most useful (a prioritized list)? R: I think the System Center suite it is an option very complete for that. If you create guides with base in all the modules of this tool I am sure that will be very useful. Continue with the great work, your project is being very good, my congratulations Best regard Cleber Marques Projeto MOF Brasil www.clebermarques.com
  • Anonymous
    October 03, 2007
    I still believe that Storage Management is a big enough / important enough subject to stand on its own. When you consider the cost implications of Storage Management alone it's worth its own spot. I can't see how you can make a case for SM&C and Job Scheduling to stand on their own but not Storage Management. I would be very disappointed to see this one go. Steve