Dimension Data’s
services capabilities
Our support, managed
and ITO services
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Our services framework
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Our global service centres
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Our global services
operating architecture
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Our remote infrastructure
management platform
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Our IT service
management platform
How Dimension Data Delivers Support,
Managed and IT Outsourcing Services
Our approach to
annuity-based services
Dimension Data’s support, managed,
and IT outsourcing lines of service
are closely interrelated. We use the
same platforms, systems, processes
and delivery teams to deliver all three
service types.
‘ These lines of service each include a portfolio
of
annuity-based custom
and
standard
services
and are provided to you through
contracts ranging from as little as a year to
eight years or more.’
These lines of service each include a portfolio of annuity-based custom and standard services and are provided to you through contracts ranging from as little as a year to eight years or more.
We also view these lines of service as a continuum in which our involvement in – and level of responsibility we take for – your ICT environment increases progressively. This grows from pure maintenance and support for your technology estate (device-based for multiple technology types and across vendors); to the operational management
of a specific technology domain (for example, our managed services for video or security infrastructure); to an outsourcing agreement for an entire technology tower (networking and communications, data centre, etc.) and the aggregation of services across towers.
Even though we draw on the same underlying foundation in services
capabilities, these lines of services are each designed to meet different needs:
services capabilities
services capabilities | How Dimension Data Delivers Support, Managed and IT Outsourcing Services
IT outsourcing
Managed services
Support services Dimension Data
service lines Standard and custom service areas
Transition and tranformation
IT service management assessment and consulting
IT support assessment and consulting
Multi-Vendor service management and contract aggregation Service aggregation and cross-functional services Network comms
tower
Enterprise networks
Uptime
maintenance Uptime support Insite predictive Insite pre-emptive
Cisco unified comms
Data
centre Contact centre
Custom services per client Microsoft Lync Security infrastructure Data centre
tower compute towerEnd user tower and BPOContact centre
Our portfolio
The high-level portfolio of services contained within each line of service is as follows:
Support, Managed and IT Outsourcing Service Portfolio
Our Support, Managed and ITO Services portfolio is aligned to your challenges and needs
IT outsourcing End-to-end
management of towers and cross-functional services
Operational management of technology domains
IT support for
technology estate Support services
Your challenges
and needs Support, Managed and ITO services
Managed services Commercial
outcomes Transformation
Local delivery, globally Mult-vendor, multi-technology coverage
Scale and reliability of services Technical domain
Expertise Service management scale and best practice
Custom services
Our lines of service portfolios include both standard (‘productised’) services and customised services. With our standardised services, you can leverage the advantages that our scale and expertise bring in terms of cost-efficiency, predictability and repeatability. With our custom services, we’re able to offer you greater flexibility and adaptability to match your specific requirements.
services capabilities | How Dimension Data Delivers Support, Managed and IT Outsourcing Services
Both our standard services and our custom services are built from a selection of service elements and deliverables – or building blocks – in our services framework. For our standard services, each offer is designed to bring you the best combination of service capability and delivery. When we build a custom service for you, you may pay a little more, but you’ll get the benefit of a service construct uniquely tailored to your needs.
We build the service based on our in-depth understanding of your business and its processes. We’re also able to custom-develop new service elements not listed in the services framework, according to the unique requirements of your environment.
IT outsourcing
Managed services
Support services Dimension Data
service lines Services Framework
Strategy mangement for IT services Demand management Service catalogue management Capacity management Supplier management Service asset and configuration management Knowledge management Incident management Access management Service Portal management Business relationship management Service level management
IT service continuity management Transition planning
and support Release and deployment
management Service validation and testing Request fulfilment Continual service management Finance management Design Co-ordination Availability management Information security management Change management Change evaluation Event management Problem management Custom per client or domain
These service elements also available as custom add-ons
Support, Managed and IT Outsourcing Services Framework
‘ Both our standard services and our custom
services are
built from a selection of
service elements and deliverables
– or
building blocks – in our services framework.’
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com CS / DDMS-1412 / 09/13 © Copyright Dimension Data 2013
Lifecycle management
We manage our standard annuity services according to Dimension Data’s Product Management Lifecycle Framework, which is based on industry best practices. This ensures that we continue to invest in, and
services capabilities | How Dimension Data Delivers Support, Managed and IT Outsourcing Services
innovate with, our services throughout all the stages of their lifecycle: from discovery and innovation, to new product planning, new product introduction, post-deployment product management, and back again to discovery and innovation.
At each stage of their lifecycle, we ensure that our additions and enhancements improve the scalability, predictability and quality of standard services.
Discovery and
innovation
Market review
and insights
Strategic
and tactical
management
Concept
outline
feasability
Concept
High-level
scoping
(New) product
planning
Post deployment
product
management
Development
Deployment
(New) product
introduction
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) framework
Services framework and
ITIL alignment
Each service element – or building block – listed on our services framework has a clearly defined set of deliverables that we’ll provide to you according to our agreed contract. These service elements and their deliverables are based on industry standards and best practices as defined by ITIL. This standardisation helps to ensure greater clarity and mutual understanding in terms of the IT service management language we use in delivering our services to you.
Our platforms – the Global
Services Operating Architecture
(GSOA)
The GSOA refers to the foundational toolsets and platforms we use to support our processes and people in delivering services to your business. It consists of two main parts:
• TheIT Service Management (ITSM) platform provides call management functionality, supported by Service-now. com, giving you all the advantages of the latest version of ITIL and Web 2.0-stye delivery, together with a hosted, integrated service portal.
• The Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) platform provides proactive monitoring through a combination of leading vendor technologies for discovery and monitoring, event management, reporting and configuration management.
We’ve been investing in our GSOA for many years, and we continue to develop and grow its capacity and capabilities today. It’s a substantial service-delivery platform that’s been extensively tested, and has elevated our ability to deliver services globally to the highest standards in the world. Our platform is truly global and scalable: it supports more than 6,000 clients globally, over 6 million of their assets and handles more than 1.5 million transactions daily.
Our Global Service Centres
(GSCs)
Our GSCs are the organisational hubs within which our service delivery and technical support experts receive calls from your business and work to resolve tickets, requests and problems. They follow the standard processes and procedures defined by our services framework and use our GSOA toolsets.
Our GSCs are highly secure, managed environments governed by detailed performance metrics and measurements to ensure strict adherence to the contractual service level agreements we have with you. A technical expert receives your call,
diagnoses the problem – either verbally, or by accessing your environment remotely – and will often resolve the issue there and then. If resolution isn’t possible from the GSC, technical experts will be assigned to work on your ticket or request and field engineers can be dispatched to your premises to solve your problem on-site. Depending on our contract with you and with third parties, such as vendors, the GSC also manages the backing out of certain support and maintenance elements to external service providers, if and where appropriate.
What is the services framework?
The services framework is a collective term for the set of service elements – or ‘building blocks’ – we use to build all of the services in our portfolio. No matter whether its maintenance and support services, professional and consulting services, managed services, or IT outsourcing services – all are constructed using elements from the same set of building blocks.
The framework also incorporates all the associated descriptions, templates, delivery models, processes, cost drivers, roles and responsibilities, and system functionality of each service element and its associated deliverables.
The service elements in the framework are technology-agnostic, which enables us to create services with enough flexibility to accommodate the specific requirements of your environment. So, while the services themselves may differ, the components with which they’re constructed remain consistent.
The Services Framework
services capabilities
Creating services with the
services framework
Each service element in the services framework has a set of associated deliverables. We then select deliverables from various service elements and combine them to form a basic framework for the service we’ll deliver to your business.
With each service we create in this way, there’s a degree of further customisation and adjustment necessary to ensure the service adequately covers the technologies in, and unique requirements of, your environment.
The
framework
also
incorporates
all the associated
descriptions
,
templates
,
delivery
models
,
processes
,
cost drivers
, roles
and responsibilities,
and
system
functionality
of each
service element
and its associated
deliverables.
services capabilities | The Services Framework
Constructing services using the services framework
Professional Service X • Service element A – Deliverable y • Service element C – Deliverable m – Deliverable n • Service element D – Deliverable g Services Framework • Service element A – Deliverable x – Deliverable y – Deliverable z • Service element B – Deliverable q – Deliverable r – Deliverable s • Service element C – Deliverable m – Deliverable n – Deliverable o • Service element D – Deliverable e – Deliverable f – Deliverable g – Deliverable k Managed Service Y • Service element A – Deliverable x – Deliverable z • Service element B – Deliverable s • Service element C – Deliverable m – Deliverable n • Service element D – Deliverable e – Deliverable f – Deliverable k IT outsourcing Managed services Support services Dimension Data
service lines Services Framework
Strategy mangement for IT services Demand management Service catalogue management Capacity management Supplier management Service asset and configuration management Knowledge management Incident management Access management Service Portal management Business relationship management Service level management
IT service continuity management Transition planning
and support Release and deployment
management Service validation and Testing Request fulfilment Continual service management Finance management Design Co-ordination Availability management Information security management Change management Change evaluation Event management Problem management Custom per client or domain
These service elements also available as custom add-ons
Relationship to service lines
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com CS / DDMS-1412 / 09/13 © Copyright Dimension Data 2013
Drilling down into each service element’s set of associated deliverables, it’s important to note that each deliverable itself is also a multifaceted construct consisting of a set of attributes that defines it. Attributes of this deliverable may include:
• a description • a process • a service code • a delivery model • service levels • cost drivers
• system functionality/a tool • templates
• roles and responsibilities • skill levels
ITIL alignment
Each of the service elements is aligned to industry standards and best practices as defined by ITIL. This standardisation helps to ensure greater clarity and mutual understanding in terms of the IT service management language we use in delivering our services to you. It’s important to note, however, that the ITIL-standardised naming of our service elements doesn’t necessarily dictate the selection of deliverables we deliver to your organisation. You still have the freedom to choose and combine deliverables from various service elements to best suit your organisation’s requirements.
What the services framework
enables us to do for you
The standardised, modular approach supported by the services framework enables us to develop, deploy and scale services more rapidly, because we use standardised building blocks to create the basic structure of each service. This speed-to-market also means we can offer you market-leading services that are directly related to the latest technology trends and developments.
The high degree of standardisation offered by the services framework creates cost savings within our organisation which we can pass on to your business, and reduces the risks associated with bespoke services. The services framework also enables us to offer you the convenience of: packaged managed services in which certain service elements and deliverables are already combined; the freedom to select add-on deliverables that suit your needs; and – in an IT outsourcing engagement – the flexibility to create a more customised experience combining your own menu-based selection of service elements and deliverables.
services capabilities | The Services Framework
The
high degree
of
standardisation
offered by the
services framework
creates
cost savings within our organisation which
we can pass on to your business, and reduces
the
risks associated
with bespoke services.
Our GSCs are organisational
hubs situated at central locations
around the world. This is where
our service delivery and technical
support experts receive calls from
your business and work to resolve
tickets, requests and problems.
They follow the standard processes
and procedures defined by our
services framework (ITIL v3) and
use our Global Services Operating
Architecture (GSOA) toolsets,
consisting of our Remote Incident
Management platform, and our
IT Service Management platform.
Our GSOA is truly global and
scalable: it supports more than 6,000
clients globally, over 6 million of their
assets and handles more than 1.5
million transactions daily.
Our GSCs are ISO-certified, highly
secure, managed environments
governed by detailed performance
metrics and measurements to ensure
strict adherence to the contractual
service level agreements we have
with you.
Our Global Service Centres
services capabilities
We’re globally
standardised
, but
regionally
relevant
to your business.
service capabilities | Our Global Service Centres
How the GSCs deliver services
Our GSCs provide non-technical request resolution and resource management, as well as first and second-level phone-based and online technical support in a local language (depending on GSC location). We can provide support in Cantonese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai. Incident management is provided by a service desk located within the GSC, while on-site support is performed from a location that’s close to your site.
When a problem or support need arises in your business, a technical expert receives your call, diagnoses the problem – either verbally, or by accessing your environment remotely – and will often resolve the issue there and then. The people we employ in our GSCs aren’t simply data capturers – they’re highly skilled and can assist you immediately.
If resolution isn’t possible from the GSC, technical experts will be assigned to work on your ticket or request, and field engineers are then dispatched to your premises to solve your problem on-site. We also offer a mobile monitoring application so that you’re able to remotely view all statistics relevant to the contracted services we deliver to your environment.
Depending on our contract with you and with third parties such as vendors, the GSC also manages the backing out of certain support and maintenance elements to external service providers, if and where appropriate.
Our
GSOA
is truly
global
and
scalable
: it
supports more than
6,000
clients
globally
,
over 6 million of their
assets
and
handles
more than
1.5 million transactions
daily.
• Local language • L2 service desk • Local RIM / data
(compliance) • Client-specific
Regional Support Centres
English Portuguese
Spanish
Americas Boston & Chile
English
Africa Johannesburg
English
Australia
Melbourne & Sydney
Global Architecture • Global ITSM system • B2B gateway (SD integration) • Global Web portal • Multi-service /
multi-tenanted Dimension Data Direct • Global e-commerce platform • Selling products and services • Supply chain management
English German French Europe Frankfurt Dutch Spanish Italian Czech English Chinese Cantonese Japanese Asia Bangalore, Auckland and Singapore
Global orchestration,
local delivery
We’re globally standardised, but regionally relevant to your business. Our GSCs are located in every region around the globe, so you have access to a rich complement of technology and services experts who speak your language and live in your time zone. We don’t use a ‘follow-the-sun’ approach that’s typical of other service providers. This global spread also enables us to solve data sovereignty issues effectively.
Global service architecture
service capabilities | Our Global Service Centres
Central delivery organisations
We’re constantly improving and expanding our service delivery organisation to support our rapid time-to-market with new and innovative services. This enables us to offer you market-leading services that are directly relevant to the latest technology trends and developments around the world. Our infrastructure, systems and processes are robust enough to incorporate such emerging technologies rapidly – which provides a viable solution to your challenge of making new technologies work with legacy infrastructure.
An example of such improvements and expansions is our Central Delivery Organisations (CDOs), which deliver specific services from a single international hub. Our Managed Services for Visual Communications, for example, are delivered from the video network operations centre in the UK, while our telecom expense management and cloud services are delivered from two separate hubs in the US.
Our GSCs and field engineering
When on-site engineers are required to resolve an incident, the GSC sends a field engineer to site. If required, the field engineer will collect a replacement part from the closest logistics centre en route to your premises. Our logistics centres are strategically located to ensure access to spares in support of the service levels we’ve agreed with you.
As an example, we have close to 60 logistics centres in Europe alone. To further build upon individuals’ formal certifications, our technical teams are grouped into technology-focused centres of excellence (COEs) according to their level of seniority and experience. This structure ensures adequate support for more junior engineers, as well as knowledge-sharing between similarly focused individuals. Hierarchical escalation of issues to more experienced and skilled resources is also simplified through these structures. Access to, and use of, well-provisioned technical laboratories provide the COE teams with exposure to evolving technologies and invaluable hands-on experience.
We’re
constantly improving
and
expanding our
service delivery
organisation
to support our rapid
time-to-market
with new and
innovative services.
Client – ubiquitous global access
• Infrastructure anywhere • Portal from anywhere
MSVC CDO • Central team • Global teach • Operating on ITSM TEM CDO • Central team • Global teach TEM CDO • Central team • Global teach MSIS COE
• Central team, global reach • Regional tools • Fully integrated into GSOA Global Architecture
• Global ITSM system • B2B gateway (SD integration) • Global Web portal • Multi-service /
multi-tenanted Dimension Data Direct • Global e-commerce platform • Selling products and services • Supply chain management
Global service architecture
• Service desk Integration
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com CS / DDMS-1412 / 11/13 © Copyright Dimension Data 2013
The Global Services
Operating Architecture
services capabilities
What is the Global Services
Operating Architecture (GSOA)?
The GSOA refers to the foundational
toolsets and platforms we use to
support our processes and people in
delivering services to your business.
The figure illustrates the GSOA’s high-level architecture:
Global Services Operating Architecture 2.0
GSOA 2.0
• global ITSM system • B2B gateway (SD integration) • global web portal
• multi-service / multi-tenanted
Dimension Data Direct
• global ecommerce platform • selling products and services • supply chain management MSVC CDO • central team • global reach • operating on ITSM MSIS COE • central team • global reach • regional tools • fully integrated into GSOA TEM CDO • central team • global reach Regional GSC RIM Platform • client instrumentation • RIM infrastructure and services Client – Ubiuqitous global access • infrastructure anywhere
• portal from anywere • service desk integration
services capabilities | The Global Services Operating Architecture
We’ve been investing in our GSOA for many years, and we continue to develop and grow its capacity and capabilities today. The GSOA has been extensively tested, and has elevated our ability to deliver services globally to the highest standards in the world.
The evolution of the GSOA
GSOA 1.0 was developed in the years 1998–2000 using commercial applications as well as Dimension Data’s in-house developments. It was deployed to the Group towards the end of 2000. Since its deployment, GSOA 1.0 had undergone incremental levels of improvement, with an average of three major system upgrades each year. These introduced new features and capabilities
which allowed us to better support our clients’ needs and drive greater operational efficiency in the services we deliver. In 2008, we initiated a complete upgrade of our GSOA platform to replace its old technologies with newer SOA-orientated technologies, in order to:
• provide a global, multi-tenanted solution that would support our different services offerings – from support to outsourcing – on a common platform, as well as support local delivery requirements with global delivery capability. • upgrade and further automate
our remote monitoring and management capabilities. GSOA 2.0 has been operational for over a year in all regions, and is now comprehensively deployed.
The underlying toolsets:
how we use the GSOA to
deliver services
The GSOA consists of two main parts: the IT Service Management (ITSM) platform, and the Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) platform.
The implementation programme for ITSM and RIM spanned three years across our five regions and was completed in March 2011.
The ITSM platform provides call management functionality, supported by Service-now. com, giving you all the advantages of the latest version of ITIL and Web 2.0-style delivery, together with a hosted, integrated service portal.
Single IT Service management platform – worldwide hosted at Navisite, Boston Multi-tenanted > regionalisation and client customisation as needed
RIM Platform • instance per GSC • multi-tenanted per client
ITSM Overview • web 2.0, ITIL V2/V3 • SaaS
• single high availability instance • multi-tenanted
• zero downtime in upgrade • single portal for all services
London Frankfurt Johannesburg Melbourne Sydney Wellington Boston Singapore Bangalore The figure below depicts the operations of our ITSM platform.
The central database and web servers are hosted in North America from where they may be accessed by all our regions:
services capabilities | The Global Services Operating Architecture
The figure below shows the three layers of our RIM platform:
The figure below depicts this architecture and some of the levels of automation delivered:
The RIM platform provides proactive/ predictive monitoring through a combination of leading vendor technologies for discovery and monitoring, event management, reporting and configuration management.
In our GSOA architecture, the events collected by our RIM components are transferred to ITSM through a middleware orchestration engine, BizTalk. This orchestration engine ensures communication services between ITSM and RIM, as well as a number of scalability functions.
Client A Client B Client C Client D
Three layers for RIM platform
Biztalk / ITSM
Global storms prevention logic
CDL SAM (Smarts Assurance Manager) Regional storms prevention logic CAL SAM (Smarts Assurance Manager) IDM
Scheduled outages and storms prevention logic Authorised deployment Authorised deployment Authorised deployment Events Other 3rd party NMS EMC Network Configuration Manager APG alerting CDMs
Scheduled outages and storms prevention logic
Events
Events Acknowledgements view symptoms
Events topology
Events topology
Client Display Level (CDL)
The service portal and integration layer. Shared by multiple clients.
Client Aggregation Level (CAL)
The aggregation layer for information from managed environments. Shared by multiple clients.
Client Domain Manager (CDM)
The collection layer, responsible for monitoring managed environment and collect all required information. Also the conduit into your network. One per client.
services capabilities | The Global Services Operating Architecture
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com CS / DDMS-1412 / 11/13 © Copyright Dimension Data 2013
The figure below shows the architecture of our identity and access management platform:
Information security is of paramount importance to Dimension Data. To this end, we’ve integrated an identity and access management solution into the platform, with links to our Microsoft© Active Directory servers. Not only does this solution provide the required level of security, it also improves our operational efficiency through the automation of most of our identity and access management processes.
Why the GSOA makes us better
at delivering services to you
Our GSOA platform allows us to bring new services to market more rapidly and reduces our support costs. In addition, the time required to train new employees is significantly less and we enjoy increased automation and efficiency. This reduces the cost of running our operations and creates savings which we can pass on to you. The GSOA platform also provides you with: • a new and more functional services
portal that you can access at any time. • the ability to integrate your service desk
system with ours for faster access to service and information.
• improved service quality through root cause analysis.
• higher availability of the service, and improved efficiency.
• the ability to white label our services and provide these to your customers along with your own services.
• e-bonding capabilities, that is, exchanging service requests and incidents with you as well as with a third-party organisation.
• an innovative service dashboard through a mobile app, which may be accessed not only by you, but also our Service Managers and Field Engineers.
ITSM portal (production)
Dimension Data Direct
Client users 3rd party users Internet users Practice User repository Client’s user repository Uptime pricing calculator ITSM portal (development) ITSM portal (testing) ITSM portal (training) Internet
Important GSOA facts and statistics at a glance
18,250 active users 1,500,000 transactions per day 400,000 new tickets per month 300,000 distinct locations 6,000,000 assets concurrent 35,000 running SLAs
The Remote Infrastructure
Management Platform
services capabilities
What is the Remote
Infrastructure Management
(RIM) Platform?
As part of our Global Services
Operating Architecture, the RIM
platform is used to support our
processes and people in delivering
services to your business.
The platform provides proactive/
predictive monitoring through a
combination of leading vendor
technologies for discovery and
monitoring, event management,
reporting and configuration
management.
High-level architecture: how
the RIM platform helps us
deliver services
The RIM platform has been architected in a modular way to support any future toolsets required to manage technologies that are currently unsupported by Dimension Data. It is split into three levels, all on virtual machines for easy deployment and upgrade: • Client domain manager (CDM) –
the toolset accessing your devices via the demilitarised zone (DMZ) and tagging all information with an identifier. This can be housed on-site or on your network if necessary.
• Client aggregation layer (CAL) – the domain layer accessed in the Global Service Centre (GSC) for cross-client, cross-service service aggregation. • Client display layer (CDL) –
this is integrated into the IT Service Management (ITSM) platform for event management and allows access from anywhere (by our other GSCs or directly by you, for example) to the events, reports and configurations of the devices under management.
‘ the RIM platform
is used to
support
our processes
and
people
in
delivering services
to your business
.’
services capabilities | The Remote Infrastructure Management Platform
The figure below shows the three layers of the RIM platform:
The core focus of the RIM platform is to automate as far as possible the following processes:
• Detection – extensive use of root cause analysis, threshold analysis and trending help automate the diagnosis of outages. • Remediation – access to the device
from the portal is automated for remediation, and supports pre-emptive remediation through script automation. To further automate remediation and provide a seamless remediation process we’ve also deployed and integrated EMC Network Configuration Manager (NCM), formerly known as Voyence, into our identity and access management which is accessible through the ITSM platform. • Management – ongoing capacity
management, configuration audit, end-of-life, end-of-sales audits, etc. are automated through the toolset, ensuring proactive management for business continuity and capacity management purposes. Our unlimited enterprise level agreement with key vendors of the solution allows us to monitor previously unmanaged devices, as well as have more flexibility for client-side root cause analysis.
The events collected by our RIM platform are transferred to the ITSM through a middleware orchestration engine (BizTalk). This orchestration engine ensures communication services between ITSM and RIM, as well as a number of scalability functions including:
• Event storm management –
the purpose of this capability is to ensure that our ITSM platform, and therefore our operators, are protected from an influx of events from a single source, so that another client environment has no effect on the service delivered to you. When an event storm is detected, all associated events are automatically discarded, and summarised into an event announcing the beginning and the end of the storm, and the number of events that were generated as part of the storm. • Deployment automation –
we’ve focused on automating the deployment of the devices to be monitored to make the process less time consuming. We’ve developed the capability to perform pre-deployment checks, as well as post deployment checks that ensure that all devices in the list of managed devices are properly configured
with the correct IP addresses, community strings, passwords, device names, etc., and are correctly deployed in all of the RIM components in which they need to be deployed (Smarts, NCM and Watch4Net). This automation means devices are deployed at the click of a button. • Scheduled outages – this gives
you the ability to define online your scheduled outages for a list of affected configuration items. From there, the information on the schedule outage will be communicated to our toolsets so that: events are suppressed during an outage, performance reports take the outage into consideration, and our operators are informed of the outage when it happens. This shortens processing time on our side, but also ensures a better service experience for you, with a reduced risk of overlooking a non-related issue during an outage.
Client A Client B Client C Client D
The CDM is the collection layer, responsible for monitoring managed environment and collect all required information. Also the conduit into your network. One per client. The CDL is the service portal and integration layer. Shared by multiple clients.
The CAL is the aggregation layer for information from managed environments. Shared by multiple clients.
services capabilities | The Remote Infrastructure Management Platform
• Event management to service request (incident, change)
automation – our GSOA also allows the complete integration of the RIM practices into our ITSM delivery processes. Since all relevant events are transferred to the ITSM platform, and processed from the ITSM platform, the entire ITSM lifecycle is seamless. The full history, relationships and evolutions are accessible to you through the services portal.
• Multiple source event system integration – our RIM platform allows us to seamlessly integrate the various components of the EMC Smarts suite. Through the EMC ‘Notif’ interface, we’re also in a position to integrate events into our RIM platform that come from client-specific or technology-specific environments. We normalise those events, enrich them with the required GSOA information (for example, client
The figure below depicts this architecture and some of the levels of automation delivered:
identification) and pass them on to the ITSM platform for processing alongside the events generated by the core platform capability. This allows us great flexibility and the ability to rapidly integrate with client- or technology-specific toolsets while enabling exactly the same level of service.
Biztalk / ITSM
Global storms prevention logic
CDL SAM
(Smarts Assurance Manager) Regional storms prevention logic
CAL SAM
(Smarts Assurance Manager)
IDM
Scheduled outages and storms prevention logic Authorised deployment Authorised deployment Authorised deployment Events Other 3rd party NMS Voyence application APG alerting CDMs
Scheduled outages and storms prevention logic
Events
Events Acknowledgements view symptoms
Events topology
Events topology
‘ The platform provides
proactive/predictive
monitoring
through a combination of leading
vendor technologies for
discovery and
monitoring
,
event management
,
reporting
and configuration management
.’
IDM
The underlying components of
the RIM platform:
EMC Smarts
A core data collection, root cause analysis and event management system. EMC Smarts includes the following core elements: • The Notification Manager (present
at the CDM and IDM layers) is a rules-based filter engine that processes SNMP traps, syslog messages and other event formats for the purpose of eliminating event storms and to facilitate integration with external client-owned element management platforms.
• The IP Availability and Performance Manager (present in the CDM layer) polls configuration items for availability and performance metrics, then performs intelligent root cause analysis on detected problems. The result is a root cause event created in the service assurance manager for further action. • The VoIP Availability Manager
(present at the CDM layer) takes network topology feeds from the IP availability manager and enriches this topology with voice-over-IP configuration item topology. It further facilitates the processing of voice-over-IP events for the purpose of cross-domain root cause analysis in order to create an appropriate root cause event in the Service Assurance Manager.
• The EMC Server Manager (present at CDM layer) polls virtualisation hypervisors, physical servers and enhanced server platforms for hardware, operating system and application process status and performance metrics. It integrates via open APIs with hypervisor managers such as vmware vcenter server and extracts server configuration item topology. This is to aid cross-domain root cause analysis of network and server events.
• The Service Assurance Manager (present in the IDM, CAL and CDL layers). It is the manager-of-managers for all topology and event data and plays a different role at each RIM layer.
services capabilities | The Remote Infrastructure Management Platform
At the CAL layer, it aggregates all topology and root cause events from all CDMs for a given region. All data that originates on the CDM is tagged with your RIM tag for filtering and segregation.
At the CDL layer, all events that need to go into ITSM are forwarded from the CAL layer. These events are then filtered for root cause and forwarded to ITSM for event management and incident management. At the IDM layer, events from client element management systems are processed, normalised and tagged for forwarding to the CDL layer.
CDL SAM BizTalk / ITSM CAL SAM CDL SAM CDMs CAL SAMs Events Acknowledgements view symptoms Events topology Events topology Events topology
EMC Network Configuration
Manager (formerly Voyence)
A primary network configuration management engine for network device configuration file collection and configuration item provisioning. • The device server (present in the
CDM layer) uses standard network configuration protocols (SSH / Telnet / SNMP / ICMP / TFTP / SCP / etc.) to log into network devices and collect single or multiple configuration files for backup purposes from these devices. The Device Server is triggered by a change trap received from the network device in question. It can also be used to push out configuration changes to individual or groups of network devices.
• The database server (present in the CAL layer) is the central data store for all data. • The application server (present in the
CAL layer) is accessed via web services API from the CDL layer to provide clients with pass-through access to network devices using the EMC Network Configuration Manager interface, as opposed to the device’s native CLI interface. This enables audit logging and tracking of user activity when changes are made to network devices. The application server also hosts the configuration policy engine which can be configured to perform configuration compliance audits on your network devices. However, this has to be defined in the services description for the services product that’s offering this capability.
EMC Watch4Net (formerly APG)
The primary component for availability, capacity and performance monitoring and reporting.
• Collectors (present at CDM layer) extracts performance data from EMC Smarts IP Availability and Performance Manager for aggregation into a central performance management database. It also extracts event data from the EMC Smarts Service Assurance Manager. Technology-specific collectors can also be deployed for more detailed analysis of performance and capacity metrics, but has to be defined in the associated service description for the services product that’s offering these capabilities. • The database and back-end server
(present at the CAL layer) normalises and stores all collected metrics.
• The outage manager (present at the CAL layer) allows configuration item planned outages to be configured in EMC Watch4Net for the purpose of factoring outages into configuration item availability calculations.
• The alerting manager (present at the CAL layer) manages performance and capacity thresholds and generates traps and notifications when threshold conditions are met. These traps are forwarded to the respective EMC Smarts Notification Manager for further processing. • The portal (present at the CAL layer)
provides access to all data stored in the EMC Watch4Net database and backend server. ITSM uses the web services API to access the relevant dashboards and reports on the EMC Watch4Net portal.
Microsoft
®BizTalk Server
BizTalk is the primary information integration layer between all the components of GSOA. It facilitates all communications between RIM components and between RIM and ITSM in order to form an open architecture for service operations globally.
services capabilities | The Remote Infrastructure Management Platform
Some important facts
and statistics about our
RIM platform:
• Locations: 300+ • RIM assets: 100,000+ • Active users: 20,000+ • Tasks per month: 400,000
(events: 300,000; incidents: 60,000; requests: 40,000)
Frequently asked questions:
How is the platform secured
when it’s connected to my
business environment?
The CDM has an internal and an external interface to overcome overlapping IP space issues between clients, specifically in the private RFC1918 spaces.
Identity and access management provides role-based user provisioning and access with single sign-on. It uses reverse proxy for transparent connectivity to other toolsets. Authentication is provided using RSA authentication manager. All end-user interaction goes through identity and access management.
services capabilities | The Remote Infrastructure Management Platform
Internal interface (CDM network) Internal routes (public IP space) External interface (customer VLAN) Default route (public IP space) GSOA
(IAM, ITSM, Direct) Client
How is data sovereignty ensured?
Dimension Data has a registered business in each country we trade in. The
contractual terms and conditions of our services contract is bound and governed by the applicable laws of that country. The primary concern with data traversing country boundaries relate to the changing data protection laws across borders, which means that data may be subject to less robust law and regulation, putting data owners’ privacy at risk.
Our GSOA architecture includes a combination of onshore and offshore components to help address your needs. The RIM component is an onshore platform for localised data collection, processing and analysis. The ITSM component is an offshore software-as-a-service platform (ServiceNow.com), hosted in a highly secure data centre in London UK. All your asset, contract management, services aggregation, portal and reporting services are delivered using this platform.
All RIM instances communicate securely via the Microsoft BizTalk integration platform with ITSM and client data tagged and segregated by the respective RIM platforms prior to updating ITSM.
Dimension Data’s GSOA architecture doesn’t collect or store any business data in ITSM – only contact, contract and IT asset information needed to deliver our services. In countries where data sovereignty regulations are very strict, we’re able to deploy an onshore GSOA architecture with localised RIM and ITSM instances. However, this is not our preferred option as it doesn’t benefit our international clients and makes delivering a unified service experience hard to achieve.
How do you handle redundancy/
disaster recovery?
RIM is deployed as a fully virtualised environment running on the latest versions of vmware. For hardware fault tolerance, we use vmware vmotion, and for centralised fault tolerant storage, we use EMC SANs. Our CDMs are built from a standard virtual machine template which makes it quick and easy to commission a new client. All servers are built on RedHat Linux Enterprise Edition for homogeneous support. Communication between RIM back-ends and ITSM, identity and access management and BizTalk use Dimension Data’s global wide area network which is fully redundant and highly secure. The CDMs connect directly to a client-specific VLAN which connects to an MPLS VPN and, in rare occasions, a leased line.
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com CS / DDMS-1412 / 10/13 © Copyright Dimension Data 2013
Why is full estate discovery/
monitoring important?
EMC Smarts is a core component of the RIM platform. EMC Smarts is an intelligent root cause analytics system. It uses it’s understanding of the connectivity and dependencies between IT assets to populate a ‘codebook’ with symptomatic analysis capabilities.
What does this mean? In the example above, the CDM connects via an access router or VPN concentrator to the your network. It uses this link to process traps and poll the IT estate for status, availability, and performance metrics. In the example above, if the CDM only has knowledge of Router 1, as that is the only asset to manage as per the services contract, EMC Smarts will automatically assume Router 1 is down and
services capabilities | The Remote Infrastructure Management Platform
CDM Router 1
Router 2
Router 3
won’t be able to confirm if this is the real root cause, because it has no knowledge of the other devices connected to Router 1. This may lead to false positives and an incorrect analysis of the problem. We may even receive traps from other devices connected to Router 1 but without knowing the relationships, root cause will be a manual exercise which can sometimes be time consuming.
However, if EMC Smarts was able to discover Routers 1, 2 and 3 and populated the ‘codebook’ accordingly, it’s true intelligence would come into play because it knows about the neighbouring devices. Once Router 1 becomes unresponsive, it will poll Routers 2 and 3 to confirm they’re reachable and that the interfaces to Router 1 are down, which is then a safe assumption that Router 1 is down. In this case, only the root cause event is sent to ITSM for diagnoses and action. The more we manage, the more effective the correlation can be.
The IT Service
Management Platform
services capabilities
What is the IT Service
Management (ITSM) Platform?
As part of our Global Services
Operating Architecture, the ITSM
platform is used to support our
processes and people in delivering
services to your business.
The platform provides call management functionality, supported by Service-now.com, giving you all the advantages of the latest version of ITIL and Web 2.0-style delivery, together with a hosted, integrated service portal.
How the ITSM platform helps us
deliver services to you
We chose a software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor, Service-now.com, as our ITIL-based service delivery platform of choice, to realise the following benefits:
• SaaS multi-tenancy on a single database with multidimensional segmentation enables us to operate different regions, countries, clients and service models from the same platform, and leverage common services while supporting custom and local services.
• Multitenancy and configurability enable us to: create operating models where you use our systems via a portal for your own and co-delivered services with Dimension Data; and provide you access to our toolsets, including RIM, in a blended operating model.
• The SaaS Web client interface is suitable for global application access over the Internet, Web and a number of other channels like Web-services application programmable interfaces (APIs).
‘ the ITSM platform
is used to
support
our processes
and
people
in
delivering services
to your business
.’
• SaaS technology typically supports open interfaces, which is the case for Service-now.com. This enables us to integrate your service desk to ours for efficiency purposes and ease-of-use.
• The technology allows upgrades and extensions without causing system downtime.
• The vendor provides extensive security.
services capabilities | The IT Service Management Platform
• We’ve also extended this tool in the following ways:
– Event management from the RIM toolset is managed in Service-now. com. Therefore operators work on service requests, incidents and events on the same platform. This also allows location independence from the RIM monitoring toolset.
– Service level management, a key component in a managed service offering, has been custom developed according to our service catalogue and supported for RIM services as well as response/restore services.
– The RIM single sign-on from the Service-now.com portal to the back-end is seamlessly integrated, making operations and diagnosis very efficient.
– Mobile dashboards have been custom developed to access Service-now.com Web services with a rich user interface. – Integration with our BizTalk B2B
platform allows for secure and managed integration to client service desks and partner service desks for operational efficiency.
The figure below depicts the operations of our ITSM platform.
The central database and Web servers are hosted in North America from where they may be accessed by all our regions:
Single IT Service management platform – Worldwide hosted at Navisite, Boston Multi-tenanted > regionalisation and client customisation as needed
RIM Platform • Instance per GSC • Multi-tenanted per client
ITSM Overview • Web 2.0, ITIL V2/V3 • SaaS
• Single high availability instance • Multi-tenanted
• Zero downtime in upgrade • Single portal for all services
London Frankfurt Johannesburg Melbourne Sydney Wellington Boston Singapore Bangalore
services capabilities | The IT Service Management Platform
The ITSM mobile dashboard
In terms of the service interface, we’ve introduced an innovative mobile dashboard, which may be accessed not only by you, but also by our Service Managers and Field Engineers.
The mobile application itself, developed on the Apple iPhone and iPad, and the Android operating system, is purely a rendering engine. The actual definition of reports, the types of data that we
Important facts and statistics
ITSM statistics
present, the definition of service level agreement compliance (service delivery metric) and environment availability (service health) are all fully configurable in ITSM. This allows us to provide reports that are fully customised to your needs – through the same mobile dashboard application. Screen shots of the mobile dashboard and service interface appear below: 18,250 active users 1,500,000 transactions per day 400,000 new tickets per month 300,000 distinct locations 6,000,000 assets 35,000 concurrent running SLAs
services capabilities | The IT Service Management Platform
Frequently asked questions
How is data sovereignty ensured?
Within ITSM, there are data separation domains that define and extract event and persistent data (master data and ticketing data) between them. This separation is on a company level and can further be broken down to a user level, based on permission sets that grant data visibility and functionality. This allows for multiple companies to exist on the same shared platform with no overlap into each other’s data.
This separation is a core feature of the product and tightly bundled in the security components of ITSM that drive functionality. Through controls on a user group level, separation of data can further be abstracted between users, for example: self-service users versus users who are promoted to a higher visibility access level, such as service desk agents who have visibility over a greater scale of data than self-service users.
How do you handle redundancy/
disaster recovery?
There’s inherent resilience built into the ITSM platform through the data centres that host the production environments. There are two current production environments for ITSM – one in London that services every region except Australia; and a second data centre in Australia that services Australia. The redundancy capabilities offered span the full scope of each respective environment from both hardware and software/database domains.
For further information visit: www.dimensiondata.com CS / DDMS-1412 / 11/13 © Copyright Dimension Data 2013
