UIU Blog

This is Part 3 in the series "Windows PC Imaging - The ONE Fundamental of Systems Management". Be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2.

Operations and Maintenance (PLM Steps 6-8)
Operations and Maintenance is easily the most high-profile segment of PLM. Every day IT must support the entire end-user population within the organization while being evaluated for performance and justifying their costs as a department. Support calls and logs, system crashes, hardware and software maintenance and updates, security issues, user resets and disaster recovery all fall under this section.

Granted many of the issues are user-based, but the support and maintenance structure in place needs to address the user issues just as efficiently as the operational issues. The primary foundational concern is maintenance of security and updates. Ideally most end-user security updates are automatic and sent down from a server. However, security updates should also be current on any PC image. Unfortunately, with the majority of support demands dominated by support calls, new equipment rollouts and any other manner of day-to-day requirements, minimal time is allotted to update existing PC images.

The problem again arises with the maintenance of the high quantity of PC images due to different types of hardware in each environment. With each new Service Pack, anti-virus, or Patch Tuesday update from Microsoft, countless items are necessary for best practices and policy compliance.

User Downtime and Business Continuity
When hardware becomes inoperable it must be replaced. Installing new hard drives requires considerable time and effort as each new hard drive must be given the  appropriate PC image. Depending on the other hardware present in the machine, updated drivers will need to be obtained for each unique component. Downtime for each  workstation can be considerable, which adds to the cost of IT support and decreases productivity.

As an illustration of several examples of user downtime, consider the situation in which the CIOs PC becomes inoperable on the day of a merger. On a slightly larger scale, a sprinkler gets set off on the accounting floor ruining 35 workstations completely shutting down the department. And on a grand scale, an entire building is wiped out due to a flood. Certain areas of the country are plagued by various natural disasters with enough frequency that
disaster recovery programs are built in to their systems management. Hurricanes in Louisiana and Texas, and fires in California are responsible for millions of dollars in damages.

But disaster is not limited to the natural; the east-coast power outage in 2003 and September 11th, 2001 impacted the operations of countless businesses and government agencies. What happens if your entire environment is wiped out and you have to replace everything? How much money is lost for the days or weeks those workstations remain inoperable?

Few have the financial resources to have a hot site prepared and ready to function. Fewer still have arrangements with data centers or co-location sites to transfer operations for a short period of time. Most must rely on relationships with business partners or are forced to replace their equipment. Regardless of the scenario, the survival of a business and its ability to produce revenue depends entirely on how quickly the new equipment is set up according to business needs.

The simplest fundamental in this scenario is being able to get each workstation installed with the compliant operating system as quickly as possible. If PC images of the new equipment do not exist, they must be created, updated and deployed to each individual machine. If those images were hastily created, the potential for error and inconsistencies rises sharply increasing future PLM costs. However, if a proper Master Image (the image created with all OEM, driver and security updates with the ability contain all necessary drivers and handle hardware differences) has been created and maintained, then regardless of laptop or desktop, or manufacturer, downtime would be significantly reduced.
Proper Master Image maintenance presents solutions to the illustration above.

The CIO can quickly use an available laptop that has been re-imaged. The accounting department can set up newly imaged machines on an alternate floor while their offices dry out. And, in a remote location, new machines containing all necessary re-imaged functionality can be quickly set up so that business may be resumed as soon as possible after a flood.

Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion to our four-part series "Windows PC Imaging - The ONE Fundamental of Systems Management."