Service Management at SES

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Service Management at SES

• Daniel Bonnans
• itSMF 9 dec. 04 Version 0.98

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Introduction

• Service Management and ITIL is an wide subject
• I will focus on
• How best practice of ITIL was introduce
• Helpdesk and CMDB Tools
• Disciplines
• Management

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SES Astra IT environment

• Its an heterogeneous company
• Engineering, but as well legal, marketing and
  financial
• Many new projects,
• INT provide general IT services
• In charge of an modern infrastructure
• INT is composed of 4 teams (Helpdesk, Office
  Automation, System and Communication,
  Development)

IT environment is complex ! Ill focus on the INT
section
500 Users worldwide
Support SES Global
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SES Astra environment

• Network Capacity and Availability is required
  by the nature of the business
• The confined operation network is critical for
  the satellite fleet management systems
• Security and risk assessment is a requisite in
  protecting this vital business environment
• Redundant servers services (cluster and
  multi-replications bring resilience)
• Storage capacity is managed via SAN virtualized
  storage (9 Tb on 3 sites, including DRP)
• SAN backup system (Tape Libraries in two location)

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SES Astra environment

• Changes are common and needed
• Complex network and security infrastructure
• Important servers farm infrastructure, giving
  numerous, more and more complex services to an
  fast evolving organisation

Evolves from ATM, 100 Mb switched Ethernet to
1Gb backbone and layer 3 switches. Multi-layer
firewall, IDS and more..
40 Wintel Servers (from which 21 are running
Lotus Notes) and 30 Linux and Sun boxes
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SES and ITIL Service Delivery Mgt.

• SES is more mature in Service Delivery
• Due to the pressure of the business objectives
• We have to be more and more better and to follow
  the perpetual evolution of the technology
• The SD best practice is not new, come from
  mainframe era and operations industry (Space)
• SD are naturally in use, or was introduce and
  enhanced via other framework (Cobit, Sixsigma)
• Trend analysis of all Servers and Networks
• DMAIC used to managed INT Maintenance cost
• Accounting center (Cost are managed, budget ..)

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ITIL Service Support Mgr. and SES
Room for improvement, specially in IT support
(Helpdesk, Support flow between IT teams, ..)

• First used when we externalize the Helpdesk late
  1999, to built SLA
• ITIL used as inspiration tools in applying best
  practice in my team since 1999
• ITIL introduce in INT begin of 2004

I took profit of my effort to pass the ITIL
Manager certificate and it was the right time..
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Problem end of 2003

• IT infrastructure information and procedures are
  not centralized, difficult to access and not
  linked
• Impact analysis of Change not always done
  accurately, causing incidents and downtime
• Helpdesk is not informed of infrastructure
  changes, and no work-around is given
• Changes and solutions are not well documented

• We spent a lot of time to find IT infrastructure
  information
• Its a potential factor to create
  miss-understanding
• Some Incident takes a long time to be resolved

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Problem - The Support

• Helpdesk
• No full view of the life environment
• Lack of good escalation procedures
• INT Teams
• Support to the helpdesk is not brilliant
• Infrastructure information is divided by teams,
  prevent us to do impact assessment, etc..

Lack of awareness, communication discipline
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ITIL Introduction begin 2004Quick Wins

• ITIL awareness training to all INTs members
• Focus on Configuration, Incident, Problem and
  Change Management
• Difference between Incident and Problem
• Focus on the Business and Customer
• The importance of Discipline
• De-mystify the ITIL methodology

Ex Start where you are ! Go for simplicity and
good sense !
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ITIL AwarenessHelpdesk re-focus
SPOC

• To most users the Service Desk is IT
• It is essential to make a good impression
• The Helpdesk is the prime component of user
  satisfaction
• Good interface with INT teams is essential
• Every Call should be logged
• Focus on Incident

Windows of INT
Windows of INT
2nd level teams forgets to do 2nd level
incidents support
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Quick Wins - Communication
In this world, nothing is like you think to be !

• Inter-teams communications
• Reviewed the escalation procedures
• Understand the customer perception
• INT weekly meeting was reviewed
• Change assessment and inter-teams dependencies
• Dont keep inter-teams issues hidden !

Open Communication and understanding of
perception
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Discipline Awareness

• Rely to cultural aspect
• Badly perceived
• But accepted when the benefit are understand
• Ex you save your future time in recording
  resolution
• Example Incident / Problems
• Always confusion
• Forget about business priority

Or when the non-benefit are understood
Focus on Customer and Business !
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Result of the Quick Win

• Bring immediate benefit
• Specially
• Now workaround are given to the Helpdesk
• Helpdesk is careful before escalating
• Enhancement was identified and agreed
• To centralised documentation
• To change the Helpdesk tools
• To implement Network Change Mgr. Software
• Helpdesk ITIL training was scheduled

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ITIL Discipline introduce in SES

• I mean ITIL processes. ?
• Helpdesk and Incident support re-focus was
  already cover
• But we needed procedures and processes
  implemented in software's

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Configuration as today

• Legacy asset management (Peoplesoft)
• Lotus Notes database
• Share drive on our File Servers containing many
  documents (Word, Excel, ..)
• Many Directories (Tel list, employee id,..)
• MVPcInfo on login time gives dynamic Pcs
  configuration in different format

We decided to not have as objective the full
integrated CMDB concept of ITIL
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Configuration, the Plan

• All technical and related information will be
  consolidated in Lotus Document Manager
• Directories will linked to an meta directory
• feasibility and analysis
• Implementation
• No real plan to consolidate asset and
  configuration, but MVPcInfo will be linked to
  the new Helpdesk software

Since June 04, Implementation start now !
End 2004
2005
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Service Desk Helpdesk Tools

• 1995 Ms Access DB
• 1996 HEAT software
• 1999 Lotus Notes DB
• Develop in house Notes DB with Percussion
  workflow
• 2001
• 2003

• Call and request
• Team assignment
• Digitalized process for well defined task (Move,
  New users, departure, ..)
• Supplier loan Mgt.
• Telephony

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Helpdesk Tools

• HEAT
• Too many windows to go through
• Difficult user interface
• Not easy to tailor to our needs

At the time, it was an overkill solution
To many click to enter small calls and request
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Lotus Notes Helpdesk ToolsThe good things

• Organization Processes (IT, HR, Logistic,
  End-User) for well defined Changes
• New Users, Departure, Move, Renewal of temporary
  and consultants
• Cover not only PC, Printer, networks and
  telephony, but as well, access right management
  to systems
• Management reports
• Task assignment to different support teams

The workflow processes took years to be natural
in the community
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Lotus Notes Helpdesk ToolsThe bad things

• As we added more and more functionalities, the
  interface reaches the complexity level of HEAT
• Not able handle the increase of call and request
• Except for the well know procedure
• the system do not give user feedback
• Difficult to dispatch call to second level team
• No automatic escalation, nor good KPI

No SLA
To many click to enter small calls and request
Slow
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New Helpdesk Tools
We are currently comparing product

• Re-engineering
• ? But too costly and difficult to integrate
• On the market
• ? Expensive and need a lot of customization
• Open Source
• Gratis and support from the community
• Money can be used for tailoring

We have expertise, and solution to integrate our
current dynamic PC configuration inventory
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Change / Release

• Still no formal/common processes
• Varying according support area (seen as an
  overload)
• Well known Changes are built in the Helpdesk
  workflow (New Users, Move, Re-install...)
• RT (Best Practical) was introduce to manage
  Change in Firewall rules and Network
  configuration
• But we were able to bring an working Change
  Management by
• Bringing awareness and discipline
• Formal and Informal meetings
• Mails, Calendar, Software tools

No CAB, but we do regular meeting
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2004 Reviews..

• But..
• As soon as you have a working processes..
• .. Cool time..
• And initial excitement period is consume..
• You fall back to the old behaviour !

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Discipline
You cut one head of the dragon and soon another
one appears

• Related to management
• A constant surveillance
• Training as a bottom approach
• Key point for
• Quality of processes
• Improvement
• Awareness

As for cultural changes, it takes years to change
the focus !
The management historical nightmare !
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.. management is needed

• Quick Wins and Awareness brings real benefit,
  but, need to be nurture, specially
• The culture of Discipline
• Working on Problem than Incident
• Focus too long on an Incident before escalating
  (Group work helps finding new ideas)
• Forget to focus on Customer

We all need some kind of management support..
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Management
Well implemented ITIL processes are fast and
efficient

• Not people, but processes
• Cross-function
• Avoid bureaucracy, pragmatic approach
• We started simple, Lets keep it simple

You still have to think ! ITIL is not a panacea
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Conclusion
Be patient !

• Perpetual evolution
• We do ITIL since years without knowing it !
• ITIL was an accelerated factor since we started
  the awareness program
• In 2005, the plan is to renamed Helpdesk to
  Service Desk.
• What count is service improvement

remove the stress component
More time available, due to focus on whats needed
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Conclusion

• We have still have a long way, despite good
  performance from all teams ..
• Subscribe to itSMF
• More topics will be covered in future events

.. The fun of the job is in appreciating the
journey of enhancing and perfecting services..