Cloud Management - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 110

A major part of this phase is the service desk, or customer support, which is directly
responsible for problem or issue management and the fulfillment of customer requests and
complaints, especially focusing on customer satisfaction. Specific to an IT environment,
there are application management and technical support teams, while for the overall orga-
nization there is the administration support team.
Continual Service Improvement As the name suggests, this is aimed at service improve-
ment. It exists throughout the life cycle of the service and works with the other four phases
to align the services available to the business needs of the organization (if internal) or the
business needs of the customer. This phase actively seeks improvement opportunities and
positive change.
The phases of the ITIL framework connect to each other with continual improvement
serving as an overseer for quality, which becomes evident after multiple trips through a
service's life cycle. With each iteration through the life cycle, positive changes and improve-
ments are documented and then implemented based on the evaluation and feedback from
previous stages. Further improvements to the processes and resources will enable the orga-
nization to implement its service offerings efficiently and effectively, which in turn provides
value to the customers and the organization itself.
The Microsoft Operations Framework for life cycle management tries to simplify this
process into four stages and can be applicable even to organizations that are not service
oriented. The life cycle is made up of four actions: Plan, Deliver, Operate, Manage. So in
application, there are three continual stages, to plan and develop, then deliver or launch, and
then operate. Management encompasses the other three stage to ensure proper execution
and continuous improvement.
Scheduling Maintenance Windows
When a cloud service is launched, there will be constant maintenance and improvements so
that it will meet or exceed expectations and keep the customers happy. And because a cus-
tomer will expect that the service will be online and meeting their needs, the service organi-
zation must enter into an agreement with the customer. Up-time ratings are defined by the
number of nines used in the percentage, from one nine to as many as seven (90 percent to
99.99999 percent). Seven nines equal only 0.605 seconds of downtime per year. You might
consider it overkill, but it is not entirely impossible with cloud computing, especially for service
providers running a large network of distributed data centers. For example, they can simply
mirror a service on separate hardware servers and do the maintenance there, and once it's
completed, they can transfer all traffic into those new and updated services.
In traditional IT services where services and applications can reside only on specific
hardware, maintenance windows are important, especially to the health of those servers.
The service would have to be done offline so the technical team can conduct maintenance
on either hardware or the applications and databases.