The session outlines why IT operations teams need to be "SharePoint operational ready" by ensuring that when project teams handover solutions built using SharePoint, these can be supported using existing support tools and processes. The session covers IT operational management frameworks and how/why IT teams should plan to add SharePoint to their operational management duties. The session will cover roles, responsibilities and skills required in IT teams to be able to help the business manage and operate a SharePoint platform after "go-live". The session will look at some of the challenges and possible actions to overcome these in order to provide a stable and robust SharePoint operational management platform.
2. Chandima – aka “Chan” @chandimak on twitter Director @ Knowledge Cue from New Zealand Started with SharePoint 2001... SharePoint MVP since 2007 www.chandima.net/blog chandima@knowledgecue.com
3. Quick poll IT Managers? Developers? Business Analysts? Support/Help Desk Analysts? CIOs? Others?
5. Operational Management Characteristics There is work involved to ensure something is working (running) – ex: TimerJobs - Backups Schedule with actions to perform Daily/Weekly tasks Actions performed by ‘technical’ experts Focus is on repeatable and consistent actions Investment in equipment/technology or staff Value of operational actions must outweigh the costs
6. Frameworks… Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) Provides guidelines and process for service management in IT
10. Frameworks… and SharePoint Each of these come with their own pros and cons In ‘real world’ these can be very ‘logic’ driven and can be hard to be put into ‘practical’ use Lot’s of acronyms but not much ‘action’ Requires expertise ‘in-house’ or have to be trained and administered to gain measurable success overtime
11. I will shoot the dog if you don’t apply <insert> to my SharePoint!
12. SharePoint – post deployment stress Company XYZ has deployed ‘SharePoint’ Company XYZ has used SharePoint ‘Expert(s)’ company ABC to build an Intranet/DM/RM/Widget etc – or something that no one knows apart from it’s ‘SharePoint’ You are part of a team or ‘the team’ who looks after IT or the designated ‘SharePoint thingamabob’ You get called into a meeting and you are IT! (from tomorrow) You are a manager who has been told by your boss that your team is now responsible for managing ‘SharePoint’! You get called/email by a user with “my sharepoint is broken”
14. Why is SharePoint special? It’s a business enabler Requires ‘business first’ attitude Usually it’s the g33ks who get’s to play with it first and make rules on how to use it… (and manage it) There is shortage of people with experience in business/technical balance People who have ‘skillz’ was already recruited by your competition
17. What is the core platform? Hardware Network Software Management and Operations
18. Solution Solution Solution Solution Solution Solution Solution Solution Solution SharePoint Platform Development Test Production Production Backup Disaster Recovery
20. Key decision points Learn as you go Up skill your existing team Look for a ‘SharePoint-SomethingSomething’ – call Bob the recruiter Seek external expertise Outsource everything Out source but In Source key knowledge Do nothing..
22. Easier said than done… The mythical all encompassing ‘Governance’ document! – who wrote that? Fairly new people in SharePoint space People leave.. (after you’ve trained them!) Continuous change.. More solutions.. Shrinking windows for overall SLA’s High complexity..
24. Operations Planning – solution vs. platform Separating “technical exercise” Identifying the overall process Risk assessment Business impact assessment Business continuity plan
25. Planning Scenarios ABC application is a business application used by all users between the hrs. of 8am and 6pm It is hosted on the SharePoint platform XXX server has gone down and to mitigate the business impact to users of ABC application we need XXX to be operational in N hrs. In order to recover XXX server/system we will opt for YY process. In order to meet this we need ZZ hardware/software etc
26. RTO and RPO Recovery Time Objective The amount of time that can elapse between the occurrence of a ‘disaster’ and the affected system being returned to an ‘agreed’ operational readiness state The time it takes to get up and running again
27. RTO and RPO Recovery Point Objective The amount of time prior to any ‘disaster’ where data loss may (and will) occur Maximum amount of data loss that is deemed acceptable in the event of DR Near – Zero RPO always incurs $$$ and complexity
28. Less critical RPO = 12 Hrs. – Data loss of 12 Hrs. or less RTO = 24 Hrs. – SharePoint is unavailable for 24 Hrs. Disaster declared at 8am Last backup at or after 8pm Fully operational by at 8am next day Time RPO 12 Hrs. RTO 24 Hrs.
29. High critical RPO = 30 Mins. – Data loss of 30 Mins. or less RTO = 1 Hrs. – SharePoint is unavailable for 1 Hrs. Disaster declared at 8am Last backup at or after 7.30am Fully operational by at 9am Time RPO 30 Mins. RTO 1 Hrs.
30. Company ‘Crash n Burn’ Users 200 Distributed to 3 offices (3 locations) No centralized IT team Very re-active to business/user needs Strong focus on ‘new shiny’ technology driven by IT Short lived projects with low budget Unfinished projects DIY mentality
31. What ‘Crash n Burn’ wanted.. And got.. Our users wanted a place to store some documents. We are running out of server space and thought that we should put documents in SharePoint We asked ‘company’ to setup SharePoint and have been using SharePoint to store documents and now we also use it as our Intranet One of our guys want to know how to look after it since we don’t want to keep paying for support
34. Company ACME Users 6000+ Distributed to 2 offices Centralized IT team Long term IT strategy and vision with CIO and second and third level management teams Risk averse – prove before move IT spending is managed and aligned to business growth
35. Acme wish list… We want to see if we can provide our teams with the ability to share documents online relating to projects that they need to have access to across the two locations Longer term we have identified that we need to apply document management practices across all our business units – so this can be used as a test bed as it’s in our business plan Before we buy into any technology we’d like to see if it (technology) fits within our current IT framework and if we need to hire new staff or up skill existing staff
36. Finding the ‘Balance’ Soft skills and technical skills Very good business communication skills Spatial awareness of organisation
37. Training… not an afterthought.. There is no point in telling someone else to run with SharePoint if you don’t know how to walk with SharePoint Invest in a balanced mix of out sourced vs. in sourced Ensure you get ROI from vendors/third parties by working with them directly ‘on-site’
38. Daily Tasks Performing Physical Environmental Checks Performing and Monitoring Backups Checking Disk Usage Checking the Event Viewer Monitoring Server Performance Monitoring Network Performance
39. Weekly Tasks Archive Event Logs Check for Security Updates Review SLA Performance Figures Archive Data Environmental Tests Database Maintenance
41. Key Takeaways -Operational Management The managing of stuff to keep everyone in a ‘happy’ place There is NO ‘one size fits all’ What works for me will not work for you Take the ideas and build on them Start Small – Think BIG Consider Office365 > All of the usual operational headaches are taken care of! White paper with ‘Tasks’ and ‘Checklists’ > http://bit.ly/spopschecklist - good learning point…
42. Other sessions Health and Monitoring for the IT Pro – Todd Carter (part 1) 4.15pm – Whittle Room Extending Health and Monitoring – Todd Carter (part 2) Wednesday 3pm Westminister Room Fine Tuning SharePoint 2010 – performance and optimasation – 4.15pm WestministerRoom – Eric Schupps and Rob Foster (Developers)
The session outlines why IT operations teams need to be "SharePoint operational ready" by ensuring that when project teams handover solutions built using SharePoint, these can be supported using existing support tools and processes. The session covers IT operational management frameworks and how/why IT teams should plan to add SharePoint to their operational management duties. The session will cover roles, responsibilities and skills required in IT teams to be able to help the business manage and operate a SharePoint platform after "go-live". The session will look at some of the challenges and possible actions to overcome these in order to provide a stable and robust SharePoint operational management platform.
It has been 10 years of SharePoint – personally I’ve worked on MCMS/SPS2001/STS and WSS/SPS2003 and 2007 and 2010 over the years – now I mainly focus on IT pro and system architectureOver the last year or so I have been involved with working with companies on how to mobilise their existing teams to understand the magic (sometimes black) behind ‘SharePoint’ and help them grow and retain their staff from a day to day operational point of view…
The challenge that we see at the moment is across many organisations is that over time as the use of SharePoint grows up – the demands from business as well as users also goes up! When a single ‘solution’ is deployed to SharePoint then there is only less things to worry about – however as we all know SharePoint as a platform can be used for many things. Whether it is document management or as an intranet that provides a host of ‘services’ that sit on the SharePoint ‘platform’ over time the existing processes must be revisited and revised.
When starting for form a picture of what it is that is meant by operational management its important to understand that you need to relate these to the underlying technology stack of SharePoint as well as what’s possible with SharePoint..
When talking about IT operational management it’s also important that we know about industry recognised standards and frameworks – companies sometimes put a lot of emphasis on these and it’s important to be mindful of these when talking with IT managers and IT departmentsThere are many companies who go to great lengths to ensure that these are the processes or the frameworks they put into practice.
Why MOF?Changes to the components of an organization's infrastructure, such as firmware updates to routers and firewall rules changes, on which SharePoint Server relies can result in an unexpected outage. Modification in these areas can happen without the involvement of the organization's SharePoint team. MOF is a structured and flexible model that is based on the following resources:Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) and Customer Support teams and their experiences working with enterprise customers and partners, as well as the internal IT operations groups at Microsoft.The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which describes the processes and best practices that are required for the delivery of mission-critical service solutions.ISO/IEC 15504 from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which provides a normalized approach to assessing software process maturity
You need to make sure that you can understand what they mean when they say this – I was working with an organisation where the business owner of the ‘operations’ assurity team was very passionate about the subject but had no real visibility of how it was actually applied in real world – so there was a disconnect between the people who actually carry out the doing!
The appeal of SharePoint is that it serves multiple purposes with a single technology stack being used – the promise is that it’s business user focused
The true challenge with a ‘deployment’ that is multi-use is the way in which you manage it – for example if you commoditize the offering to a large user base with different needs then your process/rigour around how you look after the ‘core deployment’ is very important.
The key decision points for any type of organisation when it comes to SharePoint is if whether to ‘learn as you go’ vs options such as hiring new or third parties.
What else would you add to this?ABC application should not incur any data loss?ABC application should must not be offline for more than 30mins a day!
Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm and RickDanko
This is a challenging one – for example you may find that within your team you have very exceptional technical team members who are extremely well aware of the technical functionality etc however if that person now needs to understand what end users are experiencing and need to interact with the business as part of this then they maybe not the right person.scope –Internet (WCM)Intranet + ExtranetBusiness Application PlatformDM/RMTeam SitesBI PortalsReportingPoint Solution
The challenge that we see at the moment is across many organisations is that over time as the use of SharePoint grows up – the demands from business as well as users also goes up! When a single ‘solution’ is deployed to SharePoint then there is only less things to worry about – however as we all know SharePoint as a platform can be used for many things. Whether it is document management or as an intranet that provides a host of ‘services’ that sit on the SharePoint ‘platform’ over time the existing processes must be revisited and revised.