Data center management#Tech Support

{{main|Coopetition}}

Data center management is a growing major topic for a growing list of large companies who both compete and cooperate, including: Dell,{{cite web |website=The New York Times |date=August 21, 2012

|title=Dell Makes Moves to Survive in Cloud-Centric World

|url=https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/dell-makes-moves-to-survive

|first1=Quentin |last1=Hardy

|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116110501/https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/dell-makes-moves-to-survive/ |archive-date= Jan 16, 2023 }} Google,{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 8, 2007

|title=Google and I.B.M. Join in 'Cloud Computing' Research

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/technology/08cloud.html

|url-access=subscription

|first1=Steve |last1=Lohr

|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231024213747/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/technology/08cloud.html |archive-date= Oct 24, 2023 }} HP,{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C4006938800025749500529A63.html?ref=technology

|title=Yahoo, Intel and HP Form Cloud Computing Labs

|date=July 29, 2008

|first1=Juan Carlos |last1=Perez

|agency=IDG News Service

|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116110457/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C4006938800025749500529A63.html?ref=technology |archive-date= Jan 16, 2023 }} IBM, Intel and Yahoo.

Hardware/software vendors who are willing to live with coopetition{{cite news

|newspaper=The New York Times |title=Coinages That Last |date=August 9, 2003

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/09/opinion/l-coinages-that-last-834360.html

|quote=Many buzzwords, like coopetition and thought-leading,

|url-access=subscription

|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117133514/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/09/opinion/l-coinages-that-last-834360.html |archive-date= Jan 17, 2023 }}{{cite web |website=The New York Times |date=November 7, 2005

|title=The Online Travel Landscape Is Getting Crowded

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/technology/the-online-travel-landscape-is-getting-crowded.html

|quote=... which Internet analysts love to call "coopetition."

|url-access=subscription

|first1=Bob |last1=Tedeschi

|url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230117133518/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/technology/the-online-travel-landscape-is-getting-crowded.html |archive-date= Jan 17, 2023 }} are working on projects such as "The Distributed Management Task Force" (DMTF){{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 27, 2008

|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/external/idg/2008/10/27/27idg-Meeting-virtual.html

|title=Meeting virtualization management challenges

|first1=John |last1=Fontana

|agency=IDG

|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117133518/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/external/idg/2008/10/27/27idg-Meeting-virtual.html |archive-date= Jan 17, 2023 }} with a goal of learning to "more effectively manage mixed Linux, Windows and cloud environments."

With the DMTF a decade old, the list of companies is growing, and also includes companies much smaller than IBM, Microsoft, et al.The Times article mentions "a crop of next-tier vendors, start-ups and open source players."

Among the topics currently being explored are:{{cite magazine |magazine=The Data Center Journal

|url=http://www.datacenterjournal.com/category/data-center-management

|title=Data Center Management |access-date=October 28, 2018}} scalability, securing data center networks, disaster recovery, government restrictions.{{cite magazine |magazine=Computer Weekly

|url=https://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1540568729_307.html |title=Power struggle

|date=October 26, 2018 |author=Matt Hancock

|quote=a row is brewing over an EU plan to curb datacentre energy use}}

Another major area is the cost of downtime regarding customer dissatisfaction & business loss,{{cite news |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-airports-heathrow-idUSKBN18P01O|title=Flights Cancelled for more than 75,000 passengers|newspaper=Reuters|date=May 29, 2017}} and also the "astonishing" yet hidden cost and effect regarding personnel & productivity.{{cite web

|url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-astonishing-hidden-and-personal-costs-of-it-downtime-and-how-predictive-analytics-might-help/

|title=The astonishing hidden and personal costs of IT downtime (and how predictive analytics might help)

|author=David Gewirtz |website=ZDNet

|date=May 30, 2017}}

Business-service management (BSM) treats IT as part of the larger enterprise strategy,{{cite web

|title=What is business service management (BSM)?

|url=https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/business-service-management-BSM}} and helps fill the gap between business and IT.{{cite web |author=Jenko Gaviglia |title=Business Service Management |url=http://www-05.ibm.com/be/pdf/en/events/com_inf_solution_day/Skillteam_Common.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225130036/http://www-05.ibm.com/be/pdf/en/events/com_inf_solution_day/Skillteam_Common.pdf |archive-date=2018-12-25 |website=IBM.com}}

IBM notes that major problems often happen in the grey areas, particularly due to errors in the interfaces, and focuses on critical failures. Sufficient redundancy should allow failures in non-critical areas to protect the business from being affected. BSM, which is positioned above IT Service Management (ITSM), promotes a customer-centric and business-focused approach to service management, aligning business objectives with IT or ICT from strategy through to operations. Tools that help BSM include a modeling language,{{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-22760-8_16 |chapter=The Business Service Representation Language: A Preliminary Report |title=Towards a Service-Based Internet. ServiceWave 2010 Workshops |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |year=2011 |last1=Ghose |first1=A. K. |last2=Lê |first2=L. S. |last3=Hoesch-Klohe |first3=K. |last4=Morrison |first4=E. |volume=6569 |pages=145–152 |isbn=978-3-642-22759-2 |chapter-url=https://ro.uow.edu.au/infopapers/1518 }} and a common dashboard, which together allow data center personnel to see problems before business customers do.{{cite news

|url=http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/350083/hp_targets_hybrid_it_environments/?fpid=1

|newspaper=Computerworld

|title=Targeting hybrid IT environments. |author=Bednarz |date=June 2010}}

Remote data center management{{cite web

|title=Remote Data Center Management

|url=https://cyrusone.com/resources/tools/remote-data-center-management}} allows offsite experts to watch for situations needing their timely intervention at a lower cost than having such staff be onsite 24/7/365.

While some requirements for on-site hardware have been reduced,{{cite web |url=https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/hard-times-could-create-a-tech-boom

|title=Hard Times Could Create a Tech Boom |author=Quentin Hardy |date=November 17, 2012}} spending in other hardware areas such as UPS may have to increase.{{cite web

|url=http://www.dc-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/DataCenterJournal-DCgroup.pdf

|title=In 2014, Proactive UPS Maintenance is Essential for all Data Center Managers

|quote=UPS-redundant configurations, providing backups for backups that have their own backups.}}

Data center asset management (also referred to as inventory management)or IT asset management (ITAM) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management and strategic decision making for the IT environment. Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment.{{cite web |publisher=Gartner

|url=https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/it-asset-management-itam

|title=IT Asset Management (ITAM) |date=May 18, 2013 |access-date=January 15, 2019}}

IT asset management generally uses automation to manage the discovery of assets so inventory can be compared to license entitlements. Full business management of IT assets requires a repository of multiple types of information about the asset, as well as integration with other systems such as supply chain, help desk, procurement and HR systems and ITSM.

;Hardware asset management

Hardware asset management entails the management of the physical components of computers and computer networks, from acquisition through disposal.{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/business/smallbusiness/13hunt.html

|title=It's Easy, and Expensive, to Forget About Old Equipment

|author=Brent Bowers |date=March 13, 2008}} Common business practices include request and approval process, procurement management, life cycle management, redeployment and disposal management. A key component is capturing the financial information about the hardware life cycle which aids the organization in making business decisions based on meaningful and measurable financial objectives.

;Software asset management

Software Asset Management is a similar process, focusing on software assets, including licenses. Standards for this aspect of data center management are part of ISO/IEC 19770.

Data center-infrastructure management (DCIM) is the integration{{cite magazine |magazine=ECmag

|url=https://www.ecmag.com/section/systems/tracking-all-data-data-center-infrastructure-management

|title=Tracking All the Data: Data Center Infrastructure Management ...

|quote=(DCIM) software enables ... integration ...}} of information technology (IT) and facility management disciplines{{cite web |url=https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/data-center-handbook/9781118937570/c33.xhtml

|title=Data Center Infrastructure Management – Data Center Handbook}} to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center's critical systems. Achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors, DCIM enables common, real-time monitoring and management platform for all interdependent systems across IT and facility infrastructures.

DCIM products can help data center managers identify and eliminate sources of risk{{cite magazine |magazine=Network World

|url=https://www.networkworld.com/article/734734/compliance-measure-and-manage-the-risk-inherent-in-your-it-infrastructure.html

|title=Measure and manage the risk inherent in your IT infrastructure

|date=August 13, 2010}} and improve availability of critical IT systems. They can also be used to identify interdependencies between facility and IT infrastructures to alert the facility manager to gaps in system redundancy, and provide dynamic, holistic benchmarks on power consumption and efficiency to measure the effectiveness of "green IT" initiatives.{{cite magazine |magazine=Forbes |date=September 9, 2018

|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2018/09/18/green-computing-and-storage

|author=Tom Coughlin |title=Green Computing And Storage}}{{cite web

|website=The New York Times

|url=https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?docTag=201808201100PR_NEWS_USPRX____SF82236%26feedID=600%26press_symbol=7084606

|title=Mission: Green Computing" by Supermicro Introduces Total Cost

|date=August 20, 2018

|access-date=December 3, 2018

|archive-date=November 30, 2018

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181130113121/https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?docTag=201808201100PR_NEWS_USPRX____SF82236%26feedID=600%26press_symbol=7084606

|url-status=dead

}}

Important data center metrics include those regarding energy efficiency and use of servers, storage, and staff. In too many cases, disk capacity is vastly underused and servers run at 20% use or less.{{cite web|url=http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/large-business/measure-data-center-efficiency.aspx |title=Measuring Data Center Efficiency: Easier Said Than Done |publisher=Dell.com

|access-date=June 25, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101027083349/http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/large-business/measure-data-center-efficiency.aspx |archive-date=October 27, 2010 }} More effective automation tools can also improve the number of servers or virtual machines that a single admin can handle.

DCIM providers are increasingly linking with computational fluid dynamics providers to predict complex airflow patterns in the data center. The CFD component is necessary to quantify the impact of planned future changes on cooling resilience, capacity and efficiency.{{cite web|url=http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/computational-fluid-dynamic-cfd-analysis|title=Computational-Fluid-Dynamic (CFD) Analysis | Gartner IT Glossary|publisher=gartner.com|access-date=August 27, 2014}}

File:NOC-Architel.jpg

Information technology operations, or IT operations (IT ops), are the set of all processes and services managed by IT staff{{cite web |url=https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes439011.htm

|title=Computer Operators}} for use by internal or external clients. The term refers to the application of operations management to the technology used to run the business.

Operations work can include responding to support tickets generated for maintenance work or customer issues.{{cite book

|title=Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems |date=2016

|publisher=O'Reilly |isbn=978-1-491-92912-4}} Some operations teams provide on-call support, responding to incidents outside of normal business hours.

As lights out{{cite magazine |magazine=Informationweek

|url=https://www.computerworld.com/article/2562532/premier-100-q-a--hp-s-cio-sees--lights-out--data-centers.html

|title=Premier 100 Q&A: HP's CIO sees 'lights-out' data centers

|date=March 6, 2006}} operations increased, less of the staff are located near corporate headquarters.{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/20/realestate/postings-from-manhattan-to-montvale.html

|title=From Manhattan to Montvale |date=April 20, 1986}}{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/dell-sees-double-with-data-center-in-a-container

|title=Dell Sees Double With Data Center in a Container

|author=Ashlee Vance |author-link=Ashlee Vance |date=December 8, 2008}} Gartner defines IT operations as "the people and management processes associated with IT service management to deliver the right set of services at the right quality and at competitive costs for customers."{{cite web |url=http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/it-operations

|title=IT Operations – Gartner IT Glossary |date=February 8, 2012|website=gartner.com}}{{clear}}

File:HelpDeskLibrary.jpg

Technical support (often shortened to tech support) refers to services. Within a corporation, these are also known as help desks{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/in-your-company-everywhere/

|title=An Update for the Corporate Help Desk

|author=Quentin Hardy |date=October 30, 2012}} often arrange their technical support structure as a three-tier (plus two) system:{{cite web

|url=https://www.bmc.com/blogs/support-levels-level-1-level-2-level-3

|title=IT Support Levels Clearly Explained: L1, L2, L3, and More

|author=Joe Hertvik |date=July 7, 2016}}

• Tier 1: Basic help desk – initial point of contact, including software opening a trouble ticket. Information available to its personnel include FAQ and a basic knowledge base.
• Tier 2: In-depth technical support
• Tier 3: Expert product and service support.

The extra tiers are:

• Tier 0: Self help (i.e. by the end user)
• Tier 4: Outside support for "items not directly serviced by the organization"

Access to varying levels of support for products and services to in-house employees and corporate customers, providing information

and troubleshooting{{cite web |url=http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/ebusiness/230800044 |title=IT Help Desks Not Just For Large Enterprises |access-date=May 12, 2019 |archive-date=July 18, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120718030404/http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/ebusiness/230800044 |url-status=dead }} is via various channels such as toll-free numbers,{{cite web

|url=https://www.calvin.edu/it/about/student_jobs/HelpDesk+Technician.pdf

|title=Students – Information technology – Calvin College

|website=Calvin College |access-date=March 23, 2018}} websites, instant messaging, or email.

An ITIL-compliant help desk is usually a part of a bigger service desk unit, which is part of ITSM.{{cite web|url=https://www.jitbit.com/news/helpdesk-service-desk-itsm/|title=Help Desk vs Service Desk vs ITSM}}

As the incoming phone calls are random in nature, help desk agent schedules are often maintained using an Erlang C calculation. Companies with custom application software may also have an applications team who are responsible for the development of in-house software. The help desk may assign to the applications team such problems as finding software bugs. Requests for new features or information about the capabilities of in-house software that come through the help desk are also assigned to applications groups. The help desk staff and supporting IT staff may not all work from the same location. With remote access applications, technicians are able to solve many help desk issues from another work location or their home office. While there is still a need for on-site support to effectively collaborate on some issues, remote support provides greater flexibility.

File:Attdevicesupportcenter.jpg previously provided technical support for some of its mobile phones through Device Support Centers.]]

Some companies and organizations provide discussion boards for users of their products to interact; such forums allow companies to reduce their support costs{{cite web|url=http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/04/using-online-forums.html|work=Inc. |title=How to Use Online Forums |date=April 22, 2010}} without losing the benefit of customer feedback.

Some fee-based service companies charge for premium technical support services.{{cite web

|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4387525.stm

|title=Technical support for the neighbours |access-date=March 6, 2008 |work=BBC News |date=March 28, 2005}}

Many organizations relocated their technical support departments or call centers to countries or regions with lower costs. Dell was amongst the first companies to outsource their technical support and customer service departments to India in 2001, but then reshored.[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4853511 Dell moves outsourced jobs back to U.S. shores] There has also been a growth in companies specializing in providing technical support to other organizations. These are often referred to as MSPs (Managed Service Providers).{{cite web|url=http://www.greatvoiceco.com/wp_maggiek.html |title=Call Centre Trends |access-date=May 2, 2008 |last=Berkley |first=Susan |author2=Maggie Klenke |work=The Great Voice Company }}

For businesses needing to provide technical support, outsourcing allows them to maintain a high availability of service. Such need may result from peaks in call volumes during the day, periods of high activity due to introduction of new products or maintenance service packs, or the requirement to provide customers with a high level of service at a low cost to the business. It allows businesses to use specialized personnel whose technical knowledge base and experience may exceed the scope of the business, thus providing a higher level of technical support to their employees.

{{main|Technical support scam}}

A common scam typically involves a cold caller claiming to be from a technical support department of a company like Microsoft. Such cold calls are often made from call centers based in India to users in English-speaking countries, although increasingly these scams operate within the same country. The scammer will instruct the user to download a remote desktop program and once connected, use social engineering techniques that typically involve Windows components to persuade the victim that they need to pay for the computer to be fixed and then proceeds to steal money from the victim's credit card.{{cite news|last = Arthur|first = Charles|title = Virus phone scam being run from call centres in India|url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/18/phone-scam-india-call-centres|access-date = March 31, 2014|newspaper = Guardian|date = July 18, 2012}}

{{Main|Preventive maintenance}}

Preventive maintenance (or '''preventative{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18FOB-onlanguage-t.html

|title=Wellness

|quote=Complaints about preventative go back to the late 18th century ... ("Oxford English Dictionary dates preventive to 1626 and preventative to 1655) ..preventive has won"

|date=April 18, 2010

|author=Ben Zimmer}} maintenance (PM''')) is ongoing scheduled{{cite web |title=What is Preventive Maintenance? |website=MicroMain.com

|url=https://www.micromain.com/what-is-preventive-maintenance}} inspection{{cite web

|website=BusinessDictionary.com

|title=What is preventive maintenance?

|url=http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/preventive-maintenance.html

|access-date=November 18, 2018

|archive-date=November 19, 2018

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119051648/http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/preventive-maintenance.html

|url-status=dead

}} intended to detect and correct incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major problems such as downtime.

File:Capacity of a datacenter - Life Cycle.jpg

With the increasing use of "the cloud" and what has been called "the Era of Infinite Capacity",{{cite web |url=http://www.datacenterjournal.com/capacity-planning-era-infinite-capacity

|title=Capacity Planning in the Era of Infinite Capacity

|author=Samir Mehra |date=September 11, 2018}} there is still a need for professional Data Center Capacity Planners.{{cite web |website=indeed.com (job search)

|title=Data Center Capacity Planner Jobs, Employment

|url=https://www.indeed.com/q-Data-Center-Capacity-Planner-jobs.html

|quote=293 Data Center Capacity Planner jobs available on Indeed.com}}

There is a need to know what will be needed, and when.{{cite news

|newspaper=Computerworld

|url=https://www.computerworld.com/article/2843960/room-to-grow-tips-for-data-center-capacity-planning.html

|title=Room to grow: Tips for data center capacity planning

|author1=Thomas A. Limoncelli |author2=Strata R. Chalup |author3=Christina J. Hogan}} Data must continually be collected regarding usage of power/energy, computing power, data storage and networking/telecommunications. Plans must include awareness of cooling and space requirements.

Sometimes analysis of this data, and comparison to industry norms, can be outsourced. The balance for the need to focus more on data collectionsince this consumes both computing and storage resources or analysis depends on current use levels: prior to 50%, the focus can stay more on data collection. Beyond 75%, the focus must shift to analysis, in preparation for upgrades, replacements and expansions. The data center is a resource in its own right.{{cite book |doi=10.1109/ICAC.2007.28

|chapter=On the use of fuzzy modeling in virtualized data center management

|author1=J Xu |author2=M Zhao |author3=J Fortes |author4=R Carpenter

|title=Fourth International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC'07)

|date=2007|page=25

|isbn=978-0-7695-2779-6

|s2cid=16153431

}}

According to Cloudscene's Leaderboard for Q1 2018, data center operators are ranked "based on both data center density (total operated data centers)", as well as "the number of listed service providers in the facility". Cloud service providers are ranked based on "connectivity (the total number of PoPs) for the region." Chosen from a pool of more than 6,000 providers, the rankings are as follows:{{Cite web|url=https://cloudscene.com/top10|title=Cloudscene Rankings: Top Data Centers & Service Providers Worldwide|website=Cloudscene|access-date=November 9, 2018|archive-date=October 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181026064504/https://cloudscene.com/top10|url-status=dead}}

; Q1, 2018 Top Data Center Operators Worldwide

class="wikitable sortable" !Rank !North America !EMEA !Oceania !Asia
1 |Equinix |Equinix |Equinix |Equinix
2 |Digital Realty |Interxion |NextDC |Global Switch
3 |CoreSite |Telehouse |Vocus Communications |NTT Communications
4 |Zayo |Digital Realty |Global Switch |GPX Global Systems
5 |Level 3 Communications |Global Switch |YourDC |ST Telemedia Global Data Centres
6 |Cologix |Level 3 Communications |Macquarie Telecom |Netmagic Solutions
7 |Cyxtera |itconic |iseek |AIMS
8 |TierPoint |Colt Technology Services |Interactive |Digital Realty
9 |Netrality Properties |Nikhef |Datacom |Telstra
10 |QTS Realty Trust |Orange Business Services |Data Centre Limited |OneAsia Network

; Q1, 2018 Top Service Providers Worldwide

class="wikitable sortable" !Rank !North America !EMEA !Oceania !Asia
1 |Zayo |Colt Technology Services |Telstra |Colt Technology Services
2 |Level 3 Communications |EuNetworks |Vocus Communications |PCCW Solutions
3 |Verizon |Cogent Communications |PIPE Networks |Tata Communications
4 |Crown Castle |Zayo |Optus |PCCW Global
5 |AT&T |Level 3 Communications |NextGen Group |Telstra
6 |Cogent Communications |BT |AAPT |NTT Communications
7 |CenturyLink |Interoute |Megaport |Superloop
8 |XO Communications |Verizon |Superloop |Zenlayer
9 |Comcast |Orange Business Services |Zencross Connect |China Telecom
10 |TW Telecom |NL-IX |Uecomm |Singtel

{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|

• Application performance management
• Business process management
• Business transaction management
• Business transaction performance
• Comparison of help desk issue tracking software
• Comparison of issue-tracking systems
• Configuration management database
• Help desk software
• IT governance
• License manager
• Network administrator
• Software licensing audit
• Team service management

}}

{{reflist}}

Category:Asset management

Category:Cloud storage

Category:Computer data storage

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Category:Data management

Category:Workflow technology