Infrastructure Management Services

Matching IT infrastructure with the needs of a business is a CIO’s biggest challenge. The increasing complexity of IT infrastructure and the constant pressure to reduce its costs, forces CIOs to maximize the use of existing resources and to enhance productivity of key technical people.

“Gartner estimates that the hourly cost of network downtime is about $42000”.
Downtime, however brief, can result in revenue losses, unhappy customers and a loss of productivity. Instead of using productive time to making strategic decisions, key personnel are forced to spend it in routine operations management of IT infrastructure. Staffing a 24x7x365 IT operation is too complex and expensive for many businesses.

Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) enables organizations to concentrate on their core businesses, while leaving the IT infrastructure to service providers having critical capabilities – the understanding of the IT infrastructure, the resources, the tools and functional expertise.

Remote Infrastructure Management Services

Traditionally, large service providers offered IT Infrastructure Management Services within the premises of the company. Now, Remote Infrastructure Management Services provide for monitoring and management of all infrastructures pertaining to networks, data centers, servers, storage security, Applications and End user computing, outside the company’s offices. RIM involves a combination of near-shore and offshore delivery models. RIM can reduce the costs of operations, thus enabling IT managers to consider investing in new technology.

“Gartner’s market overview of remote Infrastructure services worldwide predicts that by 2012 50% of labor hours for global IT infrastructure service delivery for commercial clients will shift from on-site support to remote delivery.”

Business Drivers for RIM
Cost Reduction - Reduced manpower, performance efficiency and capacity planning resulting in 40-60% reduction in costs
Quality and Process –Process-based approach to solve issues, efficient handling of escalations, and quality certifications to ensure adherence to standards and security controls
Best practices – Experience with multiple enterprises resulting in standardization through ideas, learning and best practices
Expertise - Domain experts who aid others in skill development
Risk Mitigation - Improved risk-mitigation and assured business continuity
Visibility - Timely reporting providing CIOs with greater visibility, real-time control and analysis of historical trends. Increased automation with integrated tools, providing common framework for operations
Scalability - Absorb the peaks and troughs of manpower needs
Service levels - Precise service-level agreements with penalty clauses for downtime
Pre-emptive problem resolution - Through proactive monitoring and event correlation

Who is looking for RIM?

Business Issues
• Companies interested in upgrading or investing in new IT Hardware or Solutions
• Companies facing contract renewals (if they are unhappy with current vendor costs, service levels, scalability and stand-alone services)
• Companies on the lookout for service providers assuring better service
• Companies looking to upgrade or migrate to newer technologies with complex IT environments
• Companies interested in consolidating their current IT set-up and improving performance
• Companies on the lookout for hosting and co-location services
• Companies facing challenges related to Processes, People and Technology connected with infrastructure management

Operational Issues
• People related issues
• Poorly defined roles and responsibilities
• Every team does administration, development & support
• No clear responsibility matrix / SLAs. Outsourced support -
• Technology related issues
• When there is no evidence of architecture documents for network, systems and security
• When there are no tools for monitoring & managing the infrastructure
• When there is poor metrics measurement
• When there are single points of failure in Internet connectivity, Load Balancers, Firewalls
• When there is weak security
• When redundancy for applications at the system/ server/ database level is unavailable

Sify’s RIM Solutions
Sify’s Infrastructure Management Solutions ensure that your IT Infrastructure and applications are designed, managed and operated on a 24X7 basis, and that your IT transactions take place within a highly available and secure environment. The Sify Global Delivery Model makes sure that all this is done within the proposed time and budget.

Service Offerings
Sify can provide the entire gamut of RIM solutions. With its Global Infrastructure delivery and its management centers around the world (US, UK, Dubai and India), it can offer any company the right mix of near-shore and off-shore Service Delivery platforms. It also has the most extensive portfolio of managed service offerings as attested by Gartner.
Infrastructure Management Services that can be delivered remotely are:
· Network Management Services
· Datacenter Outsourcing
· Helpdesk Outsourcing
· Desktop Outsourcing
· Storage Outsourcing
· IT Security Outsourcing
· LAN Outsourcing
· WAN Outsourcing
· Database
· Telecom
· Application Monitoring and Management

Sify’s Approach
On partnering with Sify, an extensive knowledge acquisition will be conducted. During this important phase, Sify gains an understanding of your company’s current operations, its business imperatives, its business objectives, business users and their demands. Thus gaps can be identified and mended when offshore transitions begin.

Sify’s rapid transition methodology is based on its concept of selective offshoring. A team of infrastructure & ITIL consultants from Sify will conduct a due diligence at the customer location, to establish a process maturity rating for each process.

Sify discusses these ratings with the client, along with other considerations like the process criticality, technology environment, time & scope factors and people issues. Finally a detailed transition roadmap is drafted.

The transition roadmap is further elaborated into process level transition plans, with specific measurable action items and performance parameters. Processes are refined during a period of parallel support. Once the performance reaches agreed upon service levels, the process is moved entirely to Sify.

Delivery Process
The snapshot of the delivery process below explains how Sify handles each engagement. A bulk of the work is performed at the offshore location while scoping, knowledge acquisition and support work is done on-site. Our delivery uses ITIL best practices and processes together with risk assessment and management processes.

Engagement Governance
Sify has a tested methodology in place to ensure an effective and risk-mitigated approach for selective offshoring of Infrastructure Management Services. Sify understands that apart from its capabilities, experience, service culture & methodologies, it needs to combine the right proportion of flexibility and control in its engagement model.
The Sify engagement governance structure ensures the following:
· Single point of project contact from Sify for service delivery
· Service level management and risk management at operational level
· Periodic reporting and reviews to ensure adherence to performance commitments
· Seamless processes for contract level reviews and changes - scope, time, quality & price

Tools and Processes
Sify brings its own integrated set of service tools:
· Sify NMS – a comprehensive enterprise system management tool
· Sify IONI – Sify’s management portal
· Sify Info desk – Sify’s trouble ticketing system
· Sify also makes us of various superior tools for monitoring and management of infrastructure such as Unicenter TNG, HP Openview, IBM Tivoli and BMC Patrol, to name a few

Sify RIM Services

Key Success Factors
· Effective on-site documentation and discovery
· Process Standardization (ITIL)
· Performance Improvements (SLA)
· Reduction in noise levels (RCA)
· Value added projects (technology, optimization)
· Visibility & Engagement Control (iONi)
· Cost Savings

Sify’s Uniqueness
Key Drivers and Benefits of RIM: going beyond cost-saving
· Increased customer satisfaction
· Risk mitigation
· 24X7 coverage
· Shift from technology to business optimization
· Reduced IT budgets, hence impacting the bottom-line
· Flexibility
· Domain expertise and a dedicated skill-set
· Visibility and Control
· Precise and unambiguous SLAs

Engagement Models
Compliment existing team with resources (offshore/on-site)
· Extended shift coverage
· Consulting engagements
· Audits

Device monitoring & management
· Start only with network and systems monitoring
· Scale up to management gradually

Dedicated support team (fully outsourced)
· Dedicated resources available on-site
· Remote support for 24X7 skills
· Combination of on-site/off-site services for cost effectiveness

Dedicated customer port
· Dedicated offshore operation center for support

Pilot and Phased Approach
· Manage the defined pilot infrastructure
· Stabilize and replicate it across the entire infrastructure

The Sify edge
Flexible Engagement models
Flex and Surge Capabilities
Risk mitigated transition
Process improvements
Noise Reduction
Standardization
Best of Breed Service Portals and Tools
Proactive Preventive Maintenance