Out-Tasking Management Services with MOM 2005
Out-Tasking Management Services
with Microsoft Operations Manager 2005
Prepared for
Microsoft
Friday, 8 April 2005
Version .1 Draft
Prepared by
Dean Gardiner
Consultant
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Out-Tasking Management Services with MOM 2005
Table of Contents
Out-Tasking Management Services 1
Managing the Dynamic Environment 2
The Out-Tasking Value Proposition 4
Planning Management Services Offerings 6
Developing a services portfolio 6
Availability monitoring 6
Service desk system integration 7
Proactive notification 7
Trend analysis 8
Performance tuning 8
Troubleshooting 9
Asset management 9
SLA monitoring 9
Security policy compliance 10
Determining Service Levels 11
Types of applications 11
Criticality of systems 11
Geographic boundaries 11
Redundancy and availability of systems 11
Cost of ownership 12
Determining Customer Requirements 13
Level of trust between the customer and the partner organization 13
Infrastructure ownership 13
Network availability 13
Security policies 13
Architectures 14
Scenario 1 – Remote Client 14
Scenario 2 – Trusted Remote Access 16
Scenario 3 – DMZ Remote Access 17
Scenario 4 – Enterprise 19
Scaling the Enterprise Scenario 21
Service Offerings for SQL 2000 22
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Out-Tasking Management Services with MOM 2005
Out-Tasking Management Services
The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for partner organizations that wish to provide services for managing customer’s infrastructure environments. The scenarios envisioned in this document are best described as “Out-Tasking” services.
Partner organizations should create unique individual service offerings that will be appropriate to the types of services that customers demand. In this way service offerings can be customized based on the partner organizations individual strategic strengths while catering to individual customer needs. Service organizations can provide unique value add services by leveraging unique strengths such as;
· Staff skill specialization
· Vertical industry specialization
· Existing investments in skills and infrastructure, for example call centers, mobile field technicians, consulting teams, etc.
· Existing customer relationships, for example leasing arrangements, network monitoring services, etc.
In addition to the framework for building service offerings this document includes an example of how to apply the process for managing Microsoft SQL Server 2000. This provides an example of how managed services can be built and operated in a practical scenario that can be leveraged by partners in a service offering practice.
This paper assumes a prerequisite knowledge of the Microsoft Operations Framework and preferably a good understanding of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) published by the UK government. This document provides information that is in addition to the practices and procedures published in the Microsoft Core Infrastructure Solutions series. In particular the Service Monitoring Solution Accelerators based on MOM 2005 and the Management Architecture guides are referenced extensively.
The practices and process guides utilized in this solution can be found on the Microsoft web site at the following locations;
· Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Version 3.
http://www.microsoft.com/mof
The Microsoft Operations Framework defines best practices for managing the operations environment. MOF is derived from the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) published by the UK government. MOF adopts ITIL processes and delivers them in a practical and targeted framework suitable for a Microsoft based operating environment.
· Microsoft Solutions for Management
http://www.microsoft.com/msm
The Microsoft solutions for Management team provides detailed solution guides for implementing Microsoft technology. All MSM solutions are extensively tested in the Microsoft labs and are fully supported through Microsoft Premier Support Services.
· Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) Version 3.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msf
The Microsoft Solutions Framework is a project methodology that defines an iterative approach to project delivery. Although primarily aimed at software development the methodology is equally applicable to infrastructure projects. All of the solution guides that Microsoft develops are prefaced on an understanding of the MSF.
Managing the Dynamic Environment
The concept of Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) is the core idea behind the development of the next generation of business applications. All of the major software and hardware vendors have published strategies based around leveraging the benefits of building loosely coupled applications that share standards based interfaces.
The dependency on a flexible and agile infrastructure is of critical importance for the next generation of Service Orientated Architecture based business applications. One of the key benefits of SOA is the ability to build and deploy applications quickly, and to be able to add new functionality, increase performance and availability to meet demand dynamically. Business applications and the infrastructure platform that supports them are always interdependent. Unless the infrastructure can be as flexible and agile as the applications that they host then SOA will never be able to achieve the full range of benefits that the business expects.
Microsoft has announced the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI) in order to address these challenges. The core philosophy of DSI is about enabling full application life cycle management. DSI is about designing and architecting manageable applications right from inception through to operations. DSI introduces the Systems Definition Model (SDM) which is a new technique for describing infrastructure architecture for the benefit of the application architects.
One of the great challenges of managing a dynamic environment is how to build deploy and operate the infrastructure. The time required in the effort involved to bring new services online or to increase the capacity of existing services is rapidly diminishing. The ability to be able to respond to these challenges will require the ability to constantly monitor and respond to the current state of the environment.
In a dynamic SOA environment it is no longer possible to assess the state of the system simply by monitoring the performance and availability of single systems that the applications reside on. While this was possible the applications for monolithic this became increasingly difficult when multi-tier applications were developed and has now become impractical in a distributed application environment.
Business applications may consume services from many different sources that may be both internal and external to the organization. In many cases it may not be possible to determine the state of the underlying platforms that these services reside on. Therefore monitoring systems will need to be able to assess the state based on expected business functionality or service levels of the application as it is used by the business.
This changes the way that we respond to issues. In the event of a service outage the best option may be to automatically bring another service online rather than to try and fault find or troubleshoot the original service failure. A similar strategy may be appropriate in the event of performance failing to meet the required service levels. In a dynamic environment it is essential to differentiate between incident resolution and problem resolution, and to develop strategies appropriate for each of these processes.
It is important to ensure that best practice operations processes are adopted when managing complex, dynamic environments. Microsoft is committed to developing and promoting best practice operations processes through the Microsoft Operations Framework, which details processes for operations management.
Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (MOM 2005) is Microsoft's enterprise server solution for monitoring and maintaining information about Microsoft applications and platforms. MOM 2005 is an event alert monitoring and notification tool that assists operations staff in understanding the state of their infrastructure and application environments. In the event of an incident, MOM 2005 can be used to alert operation stuff when an incident occurs and assist staff in locating the problem and provide information on how to rectify the situation. In a proactive capacity MOM 2005 can assist in performing root cause analysis of problems. MOM 2005 also provides the ability to track capacity, performance and compliance against service levels.
MOM 2005 is a key component of the Dynamic Systems Initiative. MOM 2005 utilizes management packs to determine the state of an application or a system and to provide detailed information about the systems state. The MOM 2005 management packs can contain information obtained from a variety of sources. Management packs include knowledge about the product gathered from the applications development team and custom information entered by operations staff about ongoing practices and processes.
Microsoft recommends an iterative approach to software development which is defined in the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF). MOM 2005 can assist in iterative development by providing knowledge collected throughout the application life cycle. This knowledge can then be assimilated into the requirements gathering phase prior to development of the new release of the application. In this way MOM 2005 assists in building knowledge around a full life cycle for application development efforts.
Microsoft releases management packs for all applications that Microsoft releases. The management packs are actually developed by the development teams that are responsible for creating the product. In this way, the knowledge that is released in the management pack benefits from the combined experience and knowledge of the application development team. When customers build their own applications the MOM 2005 SDK can be used to assist customers in instrumenting their applications, providing the same types of management and monitoring services are available in the Microsoft released management packs.
As customers adapt their business processes to take advantage of a distributed approach to the business applications it is inevitable that customers will start to question why they cannot get the same levels of flexibility and agility with infrastructure services.
Traditionally, the types of services offered for infrastructure by service providers were quite limited. The Application Service Provider model where his internal business applications were hosted by a service provider has not proven to be a model that has gained much acceptance. The whole of business outsourcing model has been quite successful, but in practice, the result is that there has not really been a great difference in the way that infrastructure is managed compared to the customer managing their own environments. Hosting services have proven popular for applications that are intended for end customers outside of the organization, but are much less pervasive for applications designed for internal users.
The Out Tasking model compliments a service-oriented view of the word. Out-tasking as the effect of componentizing services and it is a way that SOA componentizes business applications. Once customers get used to the idea of consuming services as small discrete component of functionality than Out Tasking simply becomes another mechanism in a range of services they consume. It is only after services are broken down into discrete blocks of functionality that true competition can emerge, and that service providers can differentiate themselves through providing exceptional value.
The Out-Tasking Value Proposition
Out-Tasking is a type of outsourcing arrangement where selected services are provided by an external service provider. Out-Tasking can be differentiated from conventional whole of business outsourcing arrangements by their scope and by the responsibilities of each of the parties involved.
IT infrastructure operations management has many processes and tasks that are suitable for Out-Tasking. Ideally Out-Tasking services will be standardized and targeted for standard processes as defined in the Microsoft Operations Framework. The closer that both customers and providers align to the MOF the greater the effectiveness and applicability of the services that can be provided.
Out-Tasking can provide significant benefits over traditional outsourcing arrangements for both the customer and the service provider. Out-Tasking can be used strategically or tactically to assist customers in managing their ongoing operations of all to provide short-term and services that they are to be required for specific projects. The most appealing aspect of an out tasking arrangement is that there is a very low barrier to entry. As the contracts are usually quite simple and initially can be short term arrangements there is a much lower level of due diligence required prior to engaging in an out tasking contract.
Out-Tasking benefits from the Customer Perspective
· Supplement customer skills, no negative impact on current staff
One of the complications of outsourcing is that the service provider is responsible for the staff required to manage the technology. In an Out-Tasking arrangement the customer maintains their own staff and supplements their skills are as required from the service provider. This provides the benefits of skills transfer, knowledge and experience for the customer. A major consideration here is that there is no threat to the internal staff so that resistance to you the Out-Tasking engagement is minimal. Staff often see in this situation as an opportunity to improve skills.
· Get access skills of best specialists in the business
For large customers the outsourcer’s staff tend to be dedicated to a single account and do not get the broad experience that can be attained by servicing multiple customers. With service providers that specialize in Out-Tasking it is much easier to obtain very high levels of skills in specialist areas that are required to service a large and diverse customer base.