Ensuring IT business service availability around the clock

1. Ensuring IT business service availability Ensuring IT business service availability around the clock around the clock Quality IT infrastructure management adapts to changing business demands The goal of all good IT infrastructure management is to ensure business services are available around the clock, seven days a week, 365 days a year. However, with the multitude of service offerings and vendors available today, assets can become fragmented and their management challenging across multiple platforms. What is needed is a single point of contact for best practice IT infrastructure service delivery and management that offers continuous reporting and always accessible response support to meet the ever changing IT infrastructure demands of any business environment. The challenge of IT infrastructure management Technology is becoming increasingly complex and the operational processes required to support cloud architecture and hybrid workloads are constantly evolving. The biggest challenge is how to deliver cost effective, uninterrupted service and operations in an ever changing environment. Many businesses rely on on-site infrastructure, outsourced services, private and public cloud services. With the wide array of IT delivery models, the risk of fragmentation is high. This leads to vulnerabilities in the system and consequently business threats and risk, usually in the form of data breaches, data loss and downtime that costs businesses customers and revenue. Proactive IT infrastructure management is crucial to ensuring infrastructure supporting business applications is maintained and protected for operations such as provisioning, patching, backup and restore, and DR. Engaging IT infrastructure management services When engaging IT infrastructure management services, it is essential to consider their approach to both the business as client as well as third party vendors and suppliers. They will require an in depth understanding of business operations and processes as well as the capacity to engage in proactive monitoring of key applications, platforms and infrastructure to address problems before they arise. IT infrastructure assessment services The first step in providing an IT infrastructure management service is to gain a thorough understanding of the current infrastructure and operating system environment including incident and problem logs to determine any underlying infrastructure issues. Opportunities to migrate, consolidate or retire legacy infrastructure should be identified and a report

2. document produced. Service sizing follows to clearly define the scope of required services and define the service metrics to identify resource requirements, scaling services up or down to meet the requirements of the service level agreement and key performance indicators at any point in time. Introducing IT infrastructure management The IT infrastructure management service must be tailored to the particular requirements of the client's business environment. Typically, it should offer operating system maintenance and support, server management, proprietary server management and database support services. For Wintel, this includes managing the operating system, providing support services, testing and deployment of patches using WSUS, active directory support and administration, email and messaging platform support and administration, Wintel based security system management, file server administration, support and configuration. UNIX server management should involve operating system support, testing and deployment of UNIX system patches using automated tools and backup software support. Proprietary server management should include support using Solaris and AIX, testing and deployment of system patches using automated tools and backup software support. Database support services covered should include MySQL, SQL Server, DB2 and Oracle. Proactive database management is an essential feature along with regular maintenance, engine patch testing and deployments, monitoring and fault diagnostics as well as database administration. A flexible solution to IT infrastructure management In an increasingly complex, competitive and fragmented digital environment, IT infrastructure management has become a highly specialised field. The lack of personnel and on site expertise should not be a reason to default on infrastructure management. A best practice IT infrastructure management service is a flexible solution in a fluid and ever changing business environment. About us: Bell Integration provides expert IT services and consultancy to businesses across Europe and Asia- Pacific. Their services are focused on four key capabilities – transact, transform, run and recycle – to provide their customers with an end-to-end service and a wide range of propositions to help meet business challenges. Bell is at the forefront of helping companies drive down operating costs and improve their ability to engage with their own

3. customers, either by supporting the growth of their channels to market, or by aiding their responsiveness and service quality. Bell Integration is proud to have won listings in The Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200 and The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 and has featured in The Business Magazine’s Solent 250 and Southern Tech 100. Bell Integration continues to grow and now has over 300 permanent staff and over 50 associates employed at their offices in London, Portsmouth, Wokingham, Stevenage, Hyderabad, Singapore and within many of their customers’ sites. For more information Please visit: https://www.bell-integration.com Call: 44 2392 825925