What is infrastructure management?
Infrastructure management is the IT business processes
that control the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of
IT services. It brings together people, processes, organisation
and technologies to support the objectives of its customers'
business.
Why is it important?
Ongoing infrastructure management is needed for today's
fast changing business environments and requirements in
order to deliver business at agreed service levels across
IT infrastructure. Successful delivery of IS/IT services
and business continuity plans will often depend on supporting
IT infrastructure, but it should be noted that justification
of infrastructure projects in the business case is notoriously
difficult to do. The purpose of an infrastructure is to
model the mixture of technical components, (hardware, software,
and communications facilities), their geographical distribution,
and how they support or implement the business systems and
other parts of the information system architecture environment
within the department.
Key factors for success
An IT infrastructure must:
-
possess a clearly defined business rationale
-
support the sharing of information between users and
across business applications
-
be able to move application systems between different
hardware and software platforms
-
ensure the underlying technology is invisible to the
user
-
adhere to defined standards, including those for interoperability
(Open Systems Integration)
-
adhere to well articulated management and technical
policies
-
have clear management ownership and responsibility
for infrastructure components
-
ensure the demands on staff resources are realistic
-
take advantage of economies of scale
-
be compatible between infrastructure components, making
change possible without disruption
-
have clear, well designed change management processes
and procedures.
Who is involved?
Strategic planners define the nature of the infrastructure
required, as part of IT strategy definition. It is the responsibility
of business management for managing providers' definition
and delivery of infrastructure; providers are responsible
for the everyday management of infrastructure.
The customer organisation may wish to retain control over
the technical policy for the IT infrastructure and ownership
of its business and IT architectural design.
Process
Although the IT infrastructure is in many respects a concern
of the IS provider, for various reasons it is also of importance
to the organisation's business. The business may wish to
use a new technology innovatively to support or bring about
a new way of doing business.
Infrastructure needs to be managed across corporate and
business area levels. The infrastructure may have to support
several business areas, of varying degrees of autonomy,
to facilitate the co-ordination of their activities, for
example, through information sharing. Irrespective of who
owns the infrastructure, the business information that it
makes available has to be in the right place at the right
time.
It is now recognised that rapid increase in electronic
interchange of data can dramatically simplify and improve
the majority of public sector processes, in particular the
effective interoperation between the physical infrastructures
of all parties. A key challenge in the implementation of
Information Age Government is that existing IT infrastructure
have largely been established based on departmental or agency
boundaries, each being subject to one or more existing external
contracts, some PFI based and long-term, and some embodying
the supplier being responsible for IT strategy, and even
for business process change.
Infrastructure development – key aspects
Most recently, developments in thinking on IT infrastructure
have opened the way to far greater integration and cheap,
flexible connectivity between the systems and networks of
diverse organizations. Corporate computing resources should
be interconnected to promote interoperability consistent
with information technology policy. Infrastructure development
should adhere to defined standards, including those for
interoperability (see the government interoperability framework
e-GIF).
Managing infrastructure risk
ITIL (OGC's IT Infrastructure Library) is recognized worldwide
as a de facto standard for managing infrastructure, which
includes detailed procedures for managing capacity, availability,
cost, service levels, configuration, business continuity
and relationships. Your provider is responsible for these
day-to-day management processes:
-
capacity management: ensuring that the infrastructure
can support the volumes of demand required and can cope
with peaks and troughs in demand
-
availability: ensuring that network services are available
within the time periods agreed in the contract (eg during
normal office hours)
-
cost: keeping costs to agreed parameters for service
delivery
-
service levels: maintaining agreed levels in terms
of volume and service quality
-
configuration: providing and updating changes to services
as required
-
business continuity: ensuring that the business has
access to the required services and providing contingency
arrangements in the event of disaster such as floods
-
relationship management: providing the interface between
provider and customer (and with third party providers
as required).
To establish what infrastructure and levels of support
you need, consider the following questions:
The infrastructure provides the support and linkages for
the other architectural components, it cannot be fully developed
until the other architectural components have been defined
and developed in some detail. It describes the available
technology and the limitation of technology on business
requirements, business patterns, and business methods. It
focuses on the performance of the information systems in
support of the organization and addresses standards and
security issues.
To define the infrastructure, special consideration needs
to be given to concepts being defined in the other architectural
components, such as the work locations and user groups in
the work architecture. However, by adhering to infrastructure
principles and standards, one can scope the infrastructure
components using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software,
compatible hardware and common hardware.
Risks that you should be aware of as the customer include:
-
business/contractual relationship failure (See
managing relationships)
-
need for the service(s) fails to mature or reach critical
mass
-
failure to deliver the required business outcome because
the infrastructure is unfit in terms of functionality,
flexibility, throughput and/or security
-
failure to sustain service or achieve value for money
because technology is bypassed by better/cheaper options
to which economic migration is not possible
-
technological blind alley - failure to evolve
-
loss of in-house capability to manage the service effectively
and/or to re-compete it
-
failure to interoperate (note that compliance with
the e-government interoperability framework is mandatory
for central government).
The Contract
Management Workbook provides related material in a stage
based (easy to follow) format.
