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.