NETWORK PERFORMANCE
From the February 2007
issue of Communications News
ITSM project drives long-range vision
Service-management overhaul brings firm into Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
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In 2002, Lucent Technologies’ IT department began developing new processes and procedures in order to assure its ongoing compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. Initially, a tactical approach was planned, including in-house development of standard processes, many of which would be implemented without supporting tools. Eventually, however, the IT team decided to move beyond vertical process development to implementing best-in-class processes and tools, working toward an architecture founded on the IT Information Library (ITIL) framework and IT service-management (ITSM) best practices.
“The promise of establishing an end-state ITSM architecture, integrating a global best-in-class IT platform, and leveraging our own VitalSuite performance-management software were key factors that drove unanimous support for the IT service-management overhaul,” says Sheila Bridge, IT director, Lucent Technologies.
Governance standards such as ITIL and ITSM provide consistent and
comprehensive documentation of best practices for IT service management and
are used by organizations around the world. ITIL and ITSM consist of a
series of books that give step-by-step outlines defining what quality IT
services are and how to accommodate them, as well as define the
environmental facilities needed to support IT. This leveraging of a
best-practice framework is meant to be one that is operating within a
continuous service-improvement model. By switching to this model, Lucent
wanted to better align IT service delivery to meet business requirements as
defined and driven bythe business.
“As we were looking to refine our IT best practices, setting clear
objectives for the outcome was only part of the equation,” Bridge explains.
“All aspects of the IT environment needed to be considered before developing
the overall approach.”
Lucent’s approach was to deliver a full IT transformation rather than a
piecemeal approach. “It may seem more manageable to focus on individual
processes sequentially,” Bridge says. “However, this may not be as
beneficial as it may seem. Our goal to take a holistic view of ITSM yielded
more benefits in the long run rather than a quick-fix plan.
“The success of this implementation was contingent on the total commitment
of leadership and resources. Buy-in from senior executives was necessary
from end to end, as well as top to bottom.”
Project is top priority
Seeing the project as a top priority at the company was important, she adds.
“After all, the scope of the project entailed the redesign and integration
of 12 global operating processes across an IT environment comprising 500
applications, 4,000 servers and a mix of internal and outsourced channels,”
she emphasizes.
Three main objectives were identified. First, a clear definition of a single
global standard for all IT work processes was needed, coordinated through
common integrated tools. This goal included defining and implementing the
integrated physical and virtual architecture to support the new processes.
Secondly, IT general controls needed to be established from an operational
and design effectiveness perspective to support Sarbanes Oxley section 404
certification. IT focused on establishing a general controls framework of
integrated, repeatable processes, where mitigating risks is ingrained in the
fiber of how IT manages day-to-day operations.
The third goal was to integrate the ITSM platform with the existing IT delivery model, which described the governance and delivery of services, in order to confirm ongoing global integration and segregation of duties required for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
“The entire project provided the opportunity to build efficient, cost-effective systems that would enable the company to meet the expectations of our customers while reducing IT operating costs,” says Bridge.
The solution was a set of consistently executed processes, tools and controls to confirm the integrity of Lucent’s Sarbanes-Oxley critical financial applications and supporting infrastructure. To implement this solution, Lucent IT collaborated with HP Services, which was chosen primarily for its technical expertise in ITSM, process collateral and supporting tools.
challenges were complex
“The Lucent ITSM team faced significant challenges during the
implementation,” notes Bridge. “The task of identifying universal processes
and tools that could be used by the entire organization was extremely
complex. This was important from a usage and benchmarking perspective. In
addition, ensuring appropriate segregation of duties and consistent roles
and responsibilities of IT personnel was needed. And finally, we were
looking to gain cross-visibility into IT projects, since they tended to be
worked in a vertical fashion, hampering the ability to leverage best
practices.”
The entire project was divided into an initial design phase, an
implementation phase and the deployment phase. At the core of the design
phase was HP’s “Best Practices” program that included pre-integrated
processes and tools. The tool infrastructure was built around a
configuration management database (CMDB), a unified repository of
information related to all components of the information systems to
understand the relationships between these components and track their
configuration. This is a fundamental component of an ITIL framework.
The initial design phase required significant attention to evaluation and
assessment of the process collateral, according to Bridge. “In order to
minimize customization and focus on the larger components of the project,”
she says, “the team adopted Lucent’s policy of ‘confirm, not customize’ to
streamline activities and avoid the distraction of other priorities.”
The design integration took three weeks. “This approach included a total
organizational commitment to the processes, along with a complete end-to-end
focus and integration of all the IT work processes,” she adds. IT executives
were an integral part of these workshops as they met on a daily basis to
discuss progress and to provide an avenue for escalation of issues.
HP played a significant role in the implementation and deployment phases, especially in the configuring, building and testing (CBT) of the software and hardware tools. CBT took 19 weeks to complete and included implementation of an organization change-management strategy mandating that the entire IT organization was ITIL-certified. In addition, every IT employee took the annual IT general controls certification training.
on time and on budget
The entire ITSM implementation was completed within 11 months, on time and
on budget, Bridge says, allowing Lucent’s IT infrastructure to be
transformed into a “client-facing” organization with a specialized ITSM
service-delivery model. “The end result is our ability to better leverage IT
resources to enhance customer experience and drive competitive advantage for
Lucent,” Bridge says. The IT team was able to benchmark success to date and
have many statistics to show the success of the transformation, including:
- facilitated consolidation of 14 help desks worldwide to one global desk, with three locations using one process (ITSM incident and service request management) and one tool (HP’s OpenView Service Desk), resulting in a 50 percent reduction in cost;
- facilitated a seamless move of a major data center from one state to another; and
- high-priority help desk tickets are closed within eight hours 99 percent of the time–a 67 percent improvement–and misrouted tickets have been reduced by more than 50 percent, in spite of the fact that the group processed more than 300,000 tickets in the first year.
The CMDB has improved IT’s ability to gain understanding of components and their relationship to other components 50 percent faster than before, Bridge contends. More than 20,000 active configurable items exist in the CMDB, including software, hardware, and network components and their relationships.
According to Bridge, “Overall system availability response time increased
and downtime was reduced with the implementation of the interface between
VitalSuite and HP OpenView Operations/OpenView Service Desk. When issues are
detected, they are logged by VitalSuite and immediately sent to the incident
module so that an incident ticket can be established long before the actual
event is noticed and logged by a user.”
Business users can now view their incident/service request ticket status
online through the self-service portal, providing a quick way to get status.
“The return on investment was significant,” Bridge states. “The scope of the
project was enormous. The timeframes to complete were very short, yet the
project was successfully completed on time and on budget. As we look back at
the efforts put forth on this ITSM implementation, we can’t stress enough
the importance of a single-minded, relentless execution toward the goal. The
ITSM implementation was demanding, yet rewarding, and proved to be a
valuable growth opportunity for all in the organization. ITSM has become a
standard operating procedure for the IT operating environment.”
On Nov. 30, 2006, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies completed their merger
transaction. Alcatel-Lucent began operations on Dec. 1, 2006.
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