Complete IT solutions and an example with vSphere virtual infrastructure

This article tell you how stole. solutions "complete" are not, and you have to complete them to really fulfill the purpose for which they were designed. There are also comments on the areas of responsibility of third party IT providers and suppliers regarding internal IT organization with its main client (the organization).


Good solutions, but partial
Infrastructure is common to see that when buying an IT solution, the company agrees to perform work, comes to the company / organization, does the work and then leaves. Leaving outstanding guarantees, for a time, under certain conditions, etc..

For example, installing an infrastructure vSphere hypervisors are installed, mount the vCenter server is added to vCenter hypervisors, virtual machines are deploya some - probably not, and ready (up there is the work agreed with the supplier IT service in this example). The customer then takes the baton from there, managing all infrastructure - now virtual. Installing, migrating operating systems from physical to virtual, etc.. etc.

The spot price of infrastructure work and its limits are essential, but the supplier will take over to Infinity any question related to what you installed / configured initially.


Complete IT Solutions
Now, the case of the areas of internal systems in the organization is rather different. Each area internal IT organization is required to sustain the continuity of the infrastructure over time, long-term.

What is very different from commercial IT supplier obligation, however it is common for the internal IT solutions are implemented in an organization "one-time", then they are left "as is" and without taking into prerogative account maintenance and continuous improvement (which is stole. a requirement of the job for internal IT employees in the area by the way).

Following the example of vSphere infrastructure, some steps after the "simple" installation and configuration of vSphere virtual infra could be (more or less in order of strategic importance-technical):

1) Implement automated backup vCenter Configuration (and backend DB)

2) Implement the automated backup ESXi configuration,

3) Deployar (buy stole.) Virtual backup solution (Veem, etc..) To the virtual machines themselves,

4) Implement automated check settings (remove all settings in vSphere, dump a GIT or the like, then go doing it regularly, to have an accurate central record of each configuration change), AKA "configuration management".

5) Implement virtual infrastructure monitoring (several ways)

6) Deployar one vSphere Update Manager (to keep all hypervisors updated / patched),

7) Implement High Availability for vCenter (ie mount another vCenter server, any of the several possible ways),

8) Implement required maintenance automation for vCenter (tip: the DB backend needs attention at times).

9) How to proceed and what to do just from the technical to recover the fall / crash / out of service any component of vSphere virtual infrastructure (including having installed and configured the tools, plans, and that there will be any recovery, have done internships and field tests to know that all policies / procedures / tools actually work as they should).

If you notice, extrapolating the general idea of ??the example, basically any infrastructure needs (plus installation, configuration and start initial production):

- Backup,
- Configuration Management,
- Monitoring and Optimization / Maintenance / Continuous Improvement.
- Add redundancy / additional resilience (as part of the continuous improvement)
- Action plan for disaster recovery.

Without all these details (and several others not mentioned), the solution can "crash" very easily and stop working properly, and with some bad luck also unexpectedly (eg New Year morning, 3 am, call from the owner of the company IT staff, dropping to 3.10 when the personnel using the system will warn that just does not go. "Use Cases" guard clinic, pharmacy guard, security company, polícia, etc.).

* This is a matter of opinion, but to complete more than the TCO of the solution, you could add the forecast / estimate future costs of lifecycle management, for example, by providing a platform migration.

Following the example foresee a possible / eventual migration path VMware vSphere 5.1 (+ ESXi) to Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 + System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager.

For example: having to buy a SAN "now":
- Increases the TCO of the solution vSphere, but
- Lower the TCO of the - possible future - Hyper-V 2012 solution, but
- Stole. lowers the TCO of the solution "Virtual Infrastructure"
(Which is what matters to the organization actually), and therefore generates a "migration path" acceptable, and concludes that buy the SAN "be good" :-)

Areas and limited times
Internal IT areas have an area of ??interference and obligations to the IT infrastructure by far much greater than almost any solution "turnkey" that can provide a third party, as even with the best available budget, the scope of interference by an outsourced IT provider always - but always - is limited to certain tasks and obligations, and a range of time - engaged - during which he will respond to the client. And after which, it will no longer have an obligation to respond to the client.

The internal IT area otherwise not limited at all of its obligations to the organization, which must respond by organizational commitment (ie, regardless of who / is are integrating the area as employees / managers), so continuous , and is responsible for completing and correcting any limitations that exist in the infrastructure.

Following the example in the solution which "turnkey" has not provided a backup mechanism for ESXi hypervisors. If the provider does not, it is the duty of the internal IT area complete the solution.


The IT provider's contractual obligation, always has a practical limit: the maximum time hired and how much work can be done during that time. Although and though they usually hire:
- "Solutions",
- "Turnkey solutions",
- "Solutions",

and other good IT vendor jargon, though is "promised" the solutions provided by a third party will never be able to be fully complete, but only will be hired in accordance with (a tasks list contained in the contract) , any additional work, paid or not is at the discretion and goodwill of the third party provider.

Directly ... unless they are permanently contracted to do the work of the internal area IT ... ooops, but the contract also has a maximum, so no, you can not sustain unlimited outsourcing, there will always be that pay more or additional services outsourcing to have an unlimited (so it is very good business indeed.