[debian-edu-commits] [Debian Wiki] Update of "DebianEdu/Documentation/en/ITIL/Support" by PetterReinholdtsen

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The "DebianEdu/Documentation/en/ITIL/Support" page has been changed by PetterReinholdtsen:
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/en/ITIL/Support?action=diff&rev1=25&rev2=26

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  As mentioned in the introduction, it is recommended to begin by establishing an office for centralized operations to allow you to manage tickets. The benefits of this come quickly and are visible, which is important for customer and user satisfaction.
  
- After the office is up and running with a sensible workflow for tickets (user requests and troubleshooting) you will move on to the biggest challenge for the organisation. As a rule, this is either change management or problem solving. Organisations with "cowboy" system administrators who come up with smart ideas and implement them without much testing, often begin with change management. For organisations suffering recurring outages, problem solving comes first.
+ Once the office is up and running with a sensible workflow for tickets (user requests and troubleshooting) you will move on to the biggest challenge for the organisation. As a rule, this is either change management or problem solving. Organisations with "cowboy" system administrators who come up with smart ideas and implement them without much testing, often begin with change management. For organisations suffering recurring outages, problem solving comes first.
  
  Whatever you choose to start with, a certain amount of configuration management will be necessary. Managing configuration is critical to delivering the software and services for the user. Software must work as expected. In order to make beneficial changes, one must know the configuration of the different programs.
  
@@ -14, +14 @@

  
  == Service Desk ==
  
- The Service Desk is where users submit questions or errors. At school, the ICT-contact often forwards operational events to the Service Desk. There may also be requests like setting up a new PC, or installing a program.
+ The Service Desk is where users ask questions or report problems. At school, the ICT-contact often forwards operational reports to the Service Desk. There may also be requests like setting up a new PC, or installing a program.
  
  At school the ICT contact is the link to the Service Desk. The ICT contact also responds to the most common questions. Some questions are too difficult to manage at each school and must be forwarded to the Service Desk. It is important to have good cooperation between the school ICT contact and Service Desk operators. Tasks that are too extensive or too difficult to solve locally should be passed to the Service Desk.
  
- Users may also get direct answers from an operator at the Service Desk. All operational enquiries go to the Service Desk. Enquiries will be assigned a case number. Anyone who has registered a case will receive an e-mail confirming that the inquiry has been received. During consideration of the case, those working with it at the Service Desk may send updated status to the user.
+ Users may also get direct answers from an operator at the Service Desk. All operational enquiries go to the Service Desk. Enquiries will be assigned a case number. Anyone who has registered a case will receive an e-mail confirming that the inquiry has been received. During consideration of the case, those working with it at the Service Desk may send status updates to the user.
  
- This way, users get one point of contact, and service desk operators get an overview of all of the cases. Operations can be expected to troubleshoot across all parts of the organisation. Periodically the team leader needs to go through all issues and solutions in order to prioritize debugging and to prevent re-occurrence of errors, in order to provide schools with a stable operating environment.
+ This way, users get one point of contact, and service desk operators get an overview of all of issues. Operations can be expected to troubleshoot across all parts of the organisation. Periodically the team leader needs to go through all issues and solutions in order to prioritize debugging and to prevent re-occurrence of errors, in order to provide schools with a stable operating environment.
  
- Incidents can be reported over the phone, fax, email or web form. Incidents that are more urgent must be prioritized. Incidents that need to be resolved quickly are usually reported by telephone. Less important events are usually reported via eg. email. A member of the support staff should be assigned to the incident and will need to ask the user questions to investigate the problem.
+ Incidents can be reported by phone, fax, email or web form. Incidents that are more urgent must be prioritized. Incidents that need to be resolved quickly are usually reported by telephone. Less important events are usually reported via e.g. email. A member of the support staff should be assigned to the incident and will need to ask the user questions to investigate the problem.
  
   * Remember to be an active listener, not a passive one.
  
- All enquiries should be logged, and an email confirmation should be sent. It is important that the user should feel safe, and information about what might be the problem should be communicated to them. When the enquiry arrives at the service desk, a brief description of the incident should be logged. The enquiry may be from the ICT contact at the school, or from someone with an agreement to use the service desk. The event logging should happen as soon as possible, and it should be assigned a case number. The user should get a confirmation by email copy that the matter has been received and assigned appropriate case number.
+ All enquiries should be logged, and an email confirmation should be sent. It is important that the user should feel safe, and information about what might be the problem should be communicated to them. When the enquiry arrives at the service desk, a brief description of the incident should be logged. The enquiry may be from the ICT contact at the school, or from someone with an agreement to use the service desk. The event logging should happen as soon as possible, and it should be assigned a case number. The user should get a confirmation by email copy that the matter has been received and assigned an appropriate case number.
  
- Previously, enquiries were written in paper logbooks. Today software is used to record the enquiries. In English, this is called "Request Tracker". It is crucial for operations to log enquiries. This is basically for error handling, user requests, and prioritization of the various incidents. Log entries are important to prevent recurring errors. Because operational events are periodically reviewed, an assessment of fixes and priorities can be made. The log also provides a basis for improving the service by debugging problem services and applications based on what users perceive as problematic.
+ Previously, enquiries were written in paper logbooks. Today software is used to record the enquiries in a "Request Tracker". It is crucial for operations to log enquiries. This is basically for error handling, user requests, and prioritization of the various incidents. Log entries are important to prevent recurring errors. Because operational events are periodically reviewed, an assessment of fixes and priorities can be made. The log also provides a basis for improving the service by debugging problem services and applications based on what users perceive as problematic.
  
- Thus the log of requests is a basic and necessary tool both for users and the service desk. There are several freely available systems for logging requests with good documentation <<!FootNote(RT Essentials: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtessentials/chapter/index.html
+ Thus the log of requests is a basic and necessary tool for both users and the service desk. There are several freely available systems for logging requests with good documentation <<!FootNote(RT Essentials: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtessentials/chapter/index.html
- )>>. Skolelinux Drift uses RT <<!FootNote(RT Essentials: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtessentials/chapter/index.html
+ )>>. Skolelinux Drift uses RT <<!FootNote(RT: Request Tracker: http://www.bestpractical.com/
  )>> to handle requests.
  
  One important thing when starting up support is not to get too tough a start. Do not try to achieve everything at once; bet rather on "quick wins" that keep the user informed, and aim for quick response times. It is also important to clarify who the service desk should forward events to, if they can not solve the issue themselves. The support desk must also check whether there will be disruptions for the user. This makes it quick and easy to give feedback.
  
- For the users it is important that incidents are dealt with. For the service office it is important that the incidents are handled correctly according to the service level agreement, and that work requested outside of what was agreed is handled between management at the school and the system administration organisation.
+ For users it is important that incidents are dealt with. For the service office it is important that the incidents are handled correctly according to the service level agreement, and that work requested beyond what was agreed to is handled between management at the school and the system administration organisation.
  
  === Tasks and roles ===
  
- We recommend to agree upon what duties the school's ICT contact has and what is the responsibilities are of those who work at the Service Desk. Schools often have little resources compared to what is common in municipal administrations or private companies. At the same time, schools usually have many more users and often more client machines than in use in the rest of the municipality.
+ We recommend getting agreement on what duties the school's ICT contact has and which responsibilities those who work at the Service Desk shall look after. Schools often have little resources compared to what is common in municipal administrations or private companies. At the same time, schools usually have many more users and often more client machines than are in use in the rest of the municipality.
  
- To distribute tasks roles must be in place. By having clearly established roles it is easier to distribute tasks and ascertain the working capacity necessary to resolve operational tasks. Operational experience in municipalities and professional organisations shows that these roles are common.
+ Tasks are distributed according to roles. By having clearly established roles it is easier to distribute tasks and ascertain the working capacity necessary to resolve operational tasks. Operational experience in municipalities and professional organisations shows that the following roles are common.
  
-  * ICT contact on each school This is often a teacher with ICT educational and/or technical background.
+  * ICT contact at each school This is often a teacher with ICT-teaching and/or technical background.
   * Operator(s) working in the central IT service. This is a person skilled in operations.
   * ICT coordinator who organises the educational use of IT, and contributes towards plans for developmental, operational and educational use. Often this is a teacher.
   * ICT responsible. This is usually the principal who is responsible for IT operations.
  
- Here is an overview of the various everyday tasks, some of which are contracted out by the municipalities.
+ There follows an overview of the various everyday tasks, some of which are contracted out by municipalities.
  
  ICT contact(s) tasks at each school:
  
   * Oversee the school's server room.
-  * To be the school's contact at the municipality - report errors and outages.
+  * Be the school's contact at the municipality - report errors and outages.
   * Perform simple maintenance tasks such as replacing mice and keyboards, upgrading thin clients, and simple patching.
-  * To be the school's superuser - to advise colleagues about: the user interface, e-mail, video projectors and relevant applications.
+  * Be the school's superuser - able to advise colleagues about: user interfaces, e-mail, video projectors and relevant applications.
   * Participate in ICT gatherings.
-  * Create and administrate local users.
+  * Create and administer local users.
   * Perform simple maintenance of printers.
   * Create and manage email accounts.
-  * Perform simple commands and operations under guidance of a ICT-tutor.
+  * Perform simple commands and operations under guidance of an ICT-tutor.
   * Facilitate the use of ICT in teaching.
  
  The operator's tasks:
  
-  * Receiving incidents and service requests.
+  * Receiving incident reports and service requests.
   * Mentor ICT contacts by telephone and e-mail.
-  * If agreed, visit the school for troubleshooting defects and malfunctions on computers, printers and servers.
+  * By arrangement, visit schools to troubleshoot defects and malfunctions on computers, printers and servers.
   * Backups.
   * Security software updates on the school's computers (servers and clients).
  
  ICT coordinator's duties:
  
-  * Assist school management and ICT contacts in expanding technical and pedagogical ICT plans.
+  * Assist school management and ICT contacts in developing technical and teaching plans for ICT.
-  * Ensure that the service desk and the management get a good selection of software.
+  * Provide the service desk and management with guidance when selecting software and similar.
-  * Ensure that the schools have appropriate ICT tools for teaching, and that computers and networks are appropriate for school subjects.
+  * Ensure that schools have appropriate ICT tools for teaching, and that computers and networks are appropriate for school subjects.
-  * Provide advice and guidance to operational services on what the technical and pedagogical ICT requirements of the school are.
+  * Provide advice and guidance to operational services on the technical and pedagogical requirements for ICT in schools.
  
- ICT-responsible duties (principal, headmaster, head of operational services)
+ ICT-responsible duties (principal, headmaster, head of operational services):
  
   * Make joint purchases of computer equipment and enter into joint agreements etc.
   * Develop competence plans.
-  * Provide the schools with courses in the educational use of ICT.
+  * Provide schools with courses in the educational use of ICT.
   * Operations course.
   * Negotiate contracts for operations.
-  * Ensure that the IT contact and the IT service have the necessary resources.
+  * Ensure that the ICT contact and the ICT service have the necessary resources.
  
- The advantage of an agreement for these tasks is that expectations on the individual are known, giving a good basis for planning and managing ICT services. Usually these ICT tasks are only done part-time by a teacher who also has teaching duties.
+ The advantage of settling in advance who does these tasks is that expectations on the individual are known, giving a good basis for planning and managing ICT services. Usually these ICT tasks are only done part-time by staff who also have teaching duties.
  
- A business would often have two staff members working full time, operating 100 standard client machines with 100 users. In schools there may be a 30% position in total, divided among several persons, operating 100 client computers used by 320 students and teachers.
+ A business might well have two staff members working full time to operate 100 standard client machines for 100 users. In schools there may be a 30% position in total, divided among several persons, operating 100 client computers used by 320 students and teachers.
  
- When the school has so few resources for operations, it is crucial to have good resource management. Making agreements for the tasks can make it easier to assess whether you need additional resources, or to reduce expectations of IT initiatives in schools with regards to the budget. By having a good overview of the ICT tasks in the school, if would be easier for IT administrators to ask for an increase in resources if necessary. There may be a need for increased resources to implement ICT-based exams, or a need for new equipment like whiteboards as teaching aids.
+ When schools have so few resources for operations, it is crucial to manage those resources well. Agreeing on who handles which tasks can make it easier to assess whether you need additional resources, or to reduce expectations of IT initiatives in schools due to budget constraints. An IT administrator with a good overview of the ICT tasks in the school is better able to ask for an increase in resources if necessary. There may be a need for increased resources to implement ICT-based exams, or a need for new equipment like digital whiteboards as teaching aids.
  
  === Expected time usage ===
  
@@ -101, +101 @@

  ||'''''Role'''''||'''''Operational responsibility'''''||'''''Time spend per school per week'''''||'''''Time spent in total for all schools'''''||
  ||Centralised operations staff||Monitoring, debugging and operation of 500 machines, for example, 10 schools with 3,200 students and teachers.||2-3 h(50 clients)||½ position(500 clients)||
  ||ICT contact at each school||Oversight of equipment, easy maintenance, and reporting of incidents and requests||3-4 h(50 clients)||1 position(10 schools / 500 clients)||
- ||Central ICT-coordinator||Assist in planning and implementation of educational and technical ICT work in the school.||1-2 h||½ position||
+ ||Central ICT-coordinator||Assist in planning and implementation of educational and technical ICT work in schools.||1-2 h||½ position||
- ||ICT manager (principal)||Make joint purchases, and ensure compliance with the service level agreement. Schedule updates, or develop solutions||1 h||¼ position||
+ ||ICT manager (principal)||Make joint purchases, and ensure compliance with the service level agreement. Schedule updates, or development of solutions||1 h||¼ position||
  ||'''Overall for a school'''||'''50 client machines (concurrent users)'''||'''6 - 10 h'''||||
- ||'''Overall for all schools'''||'''10 schools, 500 client machines (concurrent users)'''||||'''2 ¼ position'''||
+ ||'''Overall for all schools'''||'''10 schools, 500 client machines (concurrent users)'''||||'''2 ¼ positions'''||
  
  Experience shows that the scope of work of the ICT contact is affected by the number of concurrent users. The term "concurrent users" is new to many. To illustrate with an example: A school may have 250 students but not more than 50 computers. Then a maximum of 50 students can use computers at the same time. This is much less than the total 250 users who have an account on the system. It is these 50 logged in users that provide work for IT service. The other 200 people not logged in give little extra work.
  
- Therefore, it is common to calculate IT costs from the maximum number of concurrent users. Other calculation methods are also possible, for example when paying for proprietary software. But since Debian Edu has no license costs, the number of concurrent users is the most crucial figure for operating costs. To calculate costs from user accounts provide little or no meaning for a school.
+ Therefore, it is common to calculate IT costs from the maximum number of concurrent users. Other calculation methods are also possible, for example when paying for proprietary software. But since Debian Edu has no license costs, the number of concurrent users is the most crucial figure for operating costs. To calculate costs from user accounts provides little or no meaning for a school.
  
- For users of Debian Edu the cost difference to manage 100 or 250 user accounts is very small. There are a few exceptions. With 250 students instead of 100, some students may repeatedly forget their password. Therefore, it is wise to let the teacher responsible for the class give these students a new password.
+ For users of Debian Edu the cost difference to manage 100 or 250 user accounts is very small. There are a few exceptions. With 250 students instead of 100, some students may repeatedly forget their password. Therefore, it is wise to authorise the teacher responsible for the class to give these students new passwords.
  
- If the school has 50 client machines, the ICT contact needs less time on their operational tasks than if the school has 150 clients. With multiple clients, the overall time spent on the operation increases, but operating time per client machine goes down somewhat.
+ If the school has 50 client machines, the ICT contact needs less time on their operational tasks than if the school has 150 clients. With more clients, the overall time spent on operations increases, but operating time per client machine goes down a bit.
  
- Several municipalities have set aside 3-4 hours a week to the ICT contacts tasks at each school with 30-70 client machines. The Education Department in Oslo has set aside half a weekday, or a 30% position, to follow up 150 client machines. Experiences from other municipalities suggests that a 20% position is enough to solve the tasks of a local ICT contact when a school has 160 thin or diskless clients with Debian Edu.
+ Several municipalities have set aside 3-4 hours a week to the ICT contacts tasks at each school with 30-70 client machines. The Education Department in Oslo has set aside a day and a half per week, or a 30% position, to support 150 client machines. Experiences from other municipalities suggests that a 20% position is enough for the tasks of a local ICT contact when a school has 160 thin or diskless clients with Debian Edu.
  
- In addition there are associated costs of centralized operations, ICT management, and construction of the educational use of ICT tools in school subjects. One position is probably sufficient for the operation of 1000 client machines. When it comes to educational support, several principals have a 50-100% position in the school for this work. There may be a 10-20% position as an ICT contact and a 40-80% position as an educational support for the teachers. Many teachers perceive IT tools in schools to be something new. Some principals wish to give more backing to the educational side by making teacher more confident in using IT tools across the different subjects.
+ In addition there are costs associated with centralized operations, ICT management, and building up the educational use of ICT tools in school subjects. One position is probably sufficient for the operation of 1000 client machines. As regards educational support, several principals have a 50-100% position in the school for this work. There may be a 10-20% position as an ICT contact and a 40-80% position as an educational support for the teachers. Many teachers perceive IT tools in schools as something new. Some principals wish to give more backing to the educational side by making teachers more confident in using IT tools across the different subjects.
  
  === Check list ===
  
- We have sat up a list of tasks to set up a new service desk.
+ We now give a check-list of what's needed to get a new service office up and running.
  
-  * Arrange people in different roles like IT manager, IT contact in schools, central operations and IT coordinator for all schools. It is important to make a distinction between what is technical operations and maintenance, and what is pedagogical work.
+  * Arrange people in different roles like IT manager, IT contact in each school, central operations and IT coordinator for all schools. It is important to distinguish technical operations and maintenance from teaching work.
   * Establish the service desk such that every school has a service agreement regulating what is standard operating activities, and what is extra. It is imperative that ICT-responsible principals are a part of this process.
   * Establish a system for handling incoming requests (a request tracker). All enquiries by email need a case number. Almost all enquiries from users or IT contacts from schools also need a case number.
   * Ensure that ICT budget reflects the contribution necessary to ensure proper operation of school computer equipment and networks. The requirement today is that the ICT systems will be used for national and local tests with use of ICT tools with or without the Internet.
@@ -423, +423 @@

  
  Your operations department can create a copy of the Debian Edu archive on a central server. From here, all the software can quickly and smoothly be installed on other machines. The advantage is that your ICT service has a constant overview of the versions of the software they have made available to schools. This also prevents the installation of software that has not been reviewed by the Change Management.
  
- There may be considerable problems if you do not maintain the software archive and configurations. It might happen as well that one does mistakes with a configuration or software package. Then this gets rolled out to all machines. In addition, some schools may install insufficiently tested software or use beta releases in production. So one must have good processes and have someone to take responsibility for maintenance of the program archive and configurations.
+ There may be considerable problems if you do not maintain the software archive and configurations. It might happen as well that one makes mistakes with a configuration or software package. Then this gets rolled out to all machines. In addition, some schools may install insufficiently tested software or use beta releases in production. So one must have good processes and have someone to take responsibility for maintenance of the program archive and configurations.
  
  It may seem like one needs a lot of extra things in place in order to install and maintain the services and programs that are in use. However, if you skip the tools that provide management of upgrades, you give yourself a lot of extra work. The ICT service must spend a lot of time on manual installation on each machine. The danger of making mistakes increases. When things do not work you get disgruntled users, and much time is spent fixing problems.
  
@@ -464, +464 @@

  
  Release management fits directly into the core of the ICT services. It is about implementing appropriate security updates, changes in the services or upgrades of computer software. Requests for new releases may be due to operational problems or wishes for new software. An assessment on whether the change is necessary is done prior to committing the new release.
  
- If the change is straightforward one would make necessary changes in the configurations and make the application packages ready for deployment. This would be tested, and one would have in place backup solutions. When the changes are made, one should perhaps alter parts of the operational routines. It would be easy to see how change management affects all parts of the operational support.
+ If the change is straightforward one would make the necessary changes in the configurations and make the application packages ready for deployment. This would be tested, and one would have in place backup solutions. When the changes are made, one should perhaps alter parts of the operational routines. It would be easy to see how change management affects all parts of the operational support.
  
  == Tools for operational support ==