Objectives
• Provide Tier Three Operations support of the client’s production applications, to include incident management, deployment and change management and capacity expansion services
• Assess and manage a backlog of more than a year of work items
Challenges
• Relocate the current team to an off-site location
• Develop a resourcing strategy to add to staff as needed
• Createandrefinetrainingandonboardingprocesses
Implementation Highlights
• Recognizedefficienciesinticketmonitoring,leadingto resolution of tickets in higher complexity and increased inbound volume
• Guided client through an unexpected power failure and exceeded incident management standards for full system restoration
• Expanded scope of services to include mailbox moves and upgrade services
Technologies Supported
• Active Directory
• Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint
• Security Patching
• Code Deployment
• Capacity Expansion and Incident Response
• DNS Support, IIS Support
Results
• Provided a scalable team, ramping up by more than 60 engineers to meet the project needs and introduce a 24/7 support model
• Streamlined hiring, onboarding and training processes for the client, cutting the time to acquire environment credentials and be productive in the environment in half
• Respondedtomorethan44,000incidentsinthefirstyearof the engagement
• Completed more than 2,250 deployment activities and more than 2,600 sustained engineering activities
• Successfully executed deployments according to the client’s project schedule
• Absorbed Tier Two operations resulting in reduction in cost and consolidation of resources
QUICK FACTS
Client Profile Industry: Software
Revenue: $74.3 billion
Employees: More than 94,000
Geographic Presence: Headquartered in Washington state, with 646 locations worldwide
Managing a Service Operations Team for a
Leading Software Developer
TEKsysTEms Global sErvicEs
Managing a Service Operations Team for a Leading Software Developer
Client Profile
Founded in 1975, the client is a leading developer and manufacturer of computer software, services and hardware for individuals and businesses. The client seeks to develop new products, new technologies and new ideas to transform the industry and their business.
Project Overview
The introduction of cloud computing changed the way businesses deliver or acquire IT services. Cloudstoresfilesandsoftwareremotely,enabling users to access information through a web browser or mobile application.
Organizationsbenefitfromtheflexibilityof accessing information anywhere the Internet is available. With the increased adoption of personal smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, cloud computing facilitates ease of information transfer and collaboration. By placing less emphasis on traditional hardware and software programs, cloud also enables organizations to adapt to new IT requirements without the time and expense of setting up new systems and maintaining programs.
While the advantages to cloud computing are numerous and interest in cloud technology remains high,manyorganizationsstrugglewithfinding software and systems engineers and network administrators with the skills necessary to develop cloud technology, integrate or migrate services and support cloud technology. This skills gap leads many companies to turn to experienced partners for assistance.
Situation
TEKsystems’ client operated a suite of online messaging and collaboration tools as a
subscription service to its customers. Designed to enhance productivity, the suite uses cloud computing technology to offer email and calendar services, document sharing portals and live communication tools (instant messaging, video and web conferencing). To further enhance its online services and support its customer base, the client had to overcome the following challenges:
Support. The client needed additional skilled
resources to support the management efforts and grow its Tier Three Operations team, but the client already struggled with managing multiple staffingvendors.Byconsolidatingitsvendors,the client wanted to identify core partners that could
The client engaged TEKsystems to grow and manage a Tier
Three Operations team in support of critical infrastructure
and business applications on the client’s cloud platform.
TEKsystems provided off-site resource management under
a managed service program and evolved the project over time
to assume responsibility for increased process improvements
and outcomes.
“ The team worked amazingly well together to prepare,
organize, and then execute on as swift a complete service
restoration from the ground up as I have ever seen for an
outage of this magnitude.”
Director of Service Operations
ExECUTIvE
SUmmAry
consistently provide support for its infrastructure and business applications.
Space. The client’s facilities were crowded and
their current workspace could not accommodate the required addition to staff. The client desired an off-site solution, with the new location in close proximity so the client could visit and interact with the team.
Strategy. The client sought a trusted partner to
oversee all resource management at the off-site location, improve reporting metrics and provide overall support for the external customers on the existingcloudplatform.Theclientdefinedsuccess as building a team that was able to successfully troubleshoot and maintain the cloud computing infrastructure.
Solution
TEKsystems, a client partner since 2002, proposed an off-site delivery model under a phased managed service program:
Transition of Existing Resources: Shift the current
engineers and consolidated vendors to an off-site facilitymanagedbyTEKsystems.Specifically,the TEKsystems team would provide the following services:
• Incident Engineering (IE): Restoring systems and user capabilities to normal service availability, with limited customer impact. IE consists of Incident Management, or recognizing and addressing issues that arise, as well as Problem Management, or identifying incidents and assessing their root cause of incidents that
have occurred and making proper diagnoses for correcting the incident at hand and preventing future occurrences.
• Change Management (CM): Ensuring the stability of the implementation of operating system patches and application code deployment.
• Sustained Engineering (SE): Providing support for enterprise-wide capacity expansion, hardware replacement and decommissioning and server rebuild requests.
Resource Expansion: Identify and onboard
additional resources at the off-site facility; develop stronger processes and metrics for monitoring those processes. This would be accomplished by: • Transition the team to a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week coverage model, reducing overtime and increasing responsiveness to critical issues. • Refineprocessanddocumentationaround Security Patching and Code Deployment to reduce the amount of time to deploy and reduce errors during deployment.
• Refinealertstoreduce‘noise’andmakethe alerts more meaningful.
This proposed approach would enable the client to smoothly transition its existing team to a facility with ample space, while simultaneously growing itsteamwithqualifiedandknowledgeabletalent. TEKsystems was selected due to our longstanding partnership with the client our experience with past managed services engagements and our off-site services solution.
The client sought a trusted partner to
oversee all resource management at
the off-site location, improve reporting
metrics and provide overall support for
the external customers on the existing
cloud platform.
Managing a Service Operations Team for a Leading Software Developer
Results
Transitioning the client’s Tier Three Operations team off-site steered the subsequent expansion of its infrastructure and business applications support. With just nine engineers at the start, TEKsystems grew the team to over 60 highly skilled and competent engineers at the new facility. This exponential growth in numbers meant that key foundational processes—including hiring, onboarding and training—needed to be developed,
updated and enhanced. TEKsystems also managed aresourcingstrategytoincludetherefinement of these processes and enable maximum potential and value of the new hires.
Incident Engineering
Over the course of the engagement, TEKsystems was able to highlight underperforming areas where the client could improve and become moreefficientwithitstoolsandprocesses.For example, TEKsystems had inherited a backlog of work items that were idle for over one year. The team responded to more than 44,000 incidents, evaluating these work items and categorizing each as valid or invalid due to the passage of time. Under TEKsystems’ management, the backlogshrunktozeroforthefirsttimeinthe application’s history.
The volume and complexity of inbound help desk tickets increased during the second phase of implementation. Through collaboration with theclient,theticketprocesswasfine-tuned andefficienciesweregained.Inturn,theclient was able to accept more work and resolve more complex ticket orders.
The team also responded to challenges with agility, exceedingclientexpectations.Duringthefirst
year of the engagement, the client’s overseas data center experienced a 100% power failure due to a severe electrical storm. Back-up generators failed, leaving the client’s customers unable to access the services. The client’s crisis plan estimated an eight-hour downtime to investigate and resolve the power failure. TEKsystems engaged an incident response team and restarted the servers within minutes, and the team completed validation and full recovery within 2.5 hours.
Change Management
The change management engineers completed more than 2,250 deployment activities, including routine, planned and unplanned emergency requirements. The team also enhanced existing Quality Assurance (QA) procedures to ensure consistent delivery. The team was called on to completezero-daypatchinginthefirstyearof the engagement.
Sustained Engineering
TEKsystems established a dedicated team of sustained engineering resources to replace end of life servers, support planning for the creation of a new data center and create a server availability dashboard. The dedicated team allowed the customer to be more responsive in remediating critical server resource constraints. The team completed more than 2,600 sustained engineering activities.
Expansion of Scope
Due to the process improvements and successful milestones reached by the TEKsystems team, the client expanded the scope of the project during thefirstyearoftheengagement.Inaddition to supporting Tier Three incident engineering,
“ TEKsystems’ continued professionalism and adaptability to
rapidly changing requirements has been fantastic.”
change management and sustained engineering, TEKsystems also assumed responsibility for Tier Two mailbox moves, Tier Two incident engineering and upgrade services. The team moved more than 225,000 mailboxes and more than 250,000 gigabytes of data in 24/7 support of the new scope and the customer’s load balancing efforts.
TEKsystems also introduced further enhancements to process by creating a business continuity
plan and reviewing and modifying quality assuranceprocedures.Duetotheefficiencies recognized throughout the engagement, including consolidation of resources and streamlined operations, TEKsystems was able to add these new services while also reducing overhead.
Key Success Factors
A successful partnership is reliant on:
• Vision Alignment: At the start of this project, the client did not have a clear vision for the evolution of the off-site operations. TEKsystems helped the client plan a path for the future and maturation of the service into what it is today.
• Relationship Development: Given TEKsystems’ long-standing relationship with the client, a level of trust had been established. The client wascomfortableandconfidentworkingwith TEKsystems in an effort to transition its off-site efforts and strengthen the Tier Three team. • Flexibility. The establishment of the off-site
location was a new undertaking for the client. TEKsystemsprovidedaflexible,scalablesolution to help the client realize its goals. The high level of collaboration and phased approach allowed the client to transition responsibilities at its own pace.
AboUT TEKSySTEmS
®People are at the heart of every successful business initiative. At TEKsystems, we understand people. Every year we deploy over 80,000 IT professionals at 6,000 client sites across North America, Europe and Asia. Our deep insights into IT human capital management enable us to help our clients achieve their business goals— while optimizing their IT workforce strategies. WeprovideITstaffingsolutions,ITtalent
management expertise and IT services to help our clients plan, build and run their critical business initiatives. Through our range of quality-focused delivery models, we meet our clients where they are, and take them where they want to go, the way they want to get there.
