support
introduction
Just about anything to do with keeping customers happy can be classed as support.
The people who organise and run the LIC are the support staff. The people who look at the big picture and organise everything are the support managers. The people who keep the LIC running 24 hours a day are the support team.
what it is
Plenty of jobs must be done to keep the LIC running smoothly so all these jobs can be viewed as support. The LIC would run smoothly without any support if no-one ever used it and it stayed static, but that is not the way of the Internet: the configuration of the LIC changes all the time. New services are added, existing ones are kept working and old ones are deleted. Someone has to keep track of changes, plan for the future and make fast repairs when things go wrong.
In any large organization many people support the customer before a site is created. They are organised by obsessive list makers into the support function categories below. Technical support can be seperated from customer support so a team does not deal with both things and with people. Some geeks are not good mixers.
The most miserable doom monger gets the job of service continuity. He must think of all the terrible things that can go wrong and make plans for the services to continue despite computers catching fire, plagues of locusts and no toilet paper in the cubicles.
| LIC table: support functions | |
|---|---|
| name | description |
| availability management | The process of defining what needs to be available, arranging to deliver that availability and measuring actual availability. |
| capacity planning | The process of figuring out what capacity an enterprise will need in the future. The current capacity of an enterprise is calculated by monitoring its resources. |
| change management | The process of controlling and tracking changes to all systems is down to these people. |
| configuration management | Every big enterprise has multiple versions of computers, operating systems and applications. These need to be controlled and tracked. |
| data center management | Everything to do with the physical bits of the data center. This includes air conditioning, fire suppression, power supply and security. |
| problem management | Organising a workable setup to meet availability targets when parts of the system are broken and tracking down where the break happened. |
| release management | The process of controlling and tracking new versions of web sites. |
| security management | The process of approving access to new resources and monitoring access to existing resources. It's all about protection. |
| service architecture | Designing and directing the construction of new services |
| service continuity | The process of figuring out what disasters can happen to an enterprise in the future and how to keep systems going despite these disasters. |
| service desk | The front line of the enterprise. The single point of contact for customers, with links to all other support functions. Also called a help desk. |
| service level management | The process of defining the objectives for a service. A formal contract is made between the customer and the enterprise. |
what it isn't
Automatic. Support functions are carried out by people, not computers.
where it is
Just about anywhere. Only the support people who attack computers with screwdrivers need to be physically close to the LIC. The rest need to be on the same planet.
