I am getting ready to take my exam to become a Certified Data Center Design Professional. The exam is focused on Data Center Management, Energy, Technical, Project, Practitioner.
It has been an interesting online educational journey, plus taking my years of experience, putting them together and finally get my certification.
What has been the most interesting to me is the transformation over the years. Where are data centers really going, will Corporate data centers become a thing of the past? Probably not, smaller scale, more virtual, and focused on core applicaitons, but not going away. They will become more hybrid in nature giving SaaS, PaaS and bursting to the cloud a bigger role in the organization.
What has been disappointing in the course as well as really life is the lack of focus on business continuity. How many data centers really don't have a solid and tested disaster recovery plan? A disaster recovery plan is a recovery plan, but what about the business continuity? How will the business function while the data center is offline? There needs to a plan in place to manage the risk of the data center, key application or data being unavailable.
I am excited to take this journey and the exam.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
About Me
- Scott Arnett
- Scott Arnett is an Information Technology & Security Professional Executive with over 30 years experience in IT. Scott has worked in various industries such as health care, insurance, manufacturing, broadcast, printing, and consulting and in enterprises ranging in size from $50M to $20B in revenue. Scott’s experience encompasses the following areas of specialization: Leadership, Strategy, Architecture, Business Partnership & Acumen, Process Management, Infrastructure and Security. With his broad understanding of technology and his ability to communicate successfully with both Executives and Technical Specialists, Scott has been consistently recognized as someone who not only can "Connect the Dots", but who can also create a workable solution. Scott is equally comfortable playing technical, project management/leadership and organizational leadership roles through experience gained throughout his career. Scott has previously acted in the role of CIO, CTO, and VP of IT, successfully built 9 data centers across the country, and is expert in understanding ITIL, PCI Compliance, SOX, HIPAA, FERPA, FRCP and COBIT.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
When IT Fails.....
There is a great book coming out in January that you should plan to purchase. From the trio authors that brought you Visible OPS book, they are coming out with another great masterpiece all IT professionals should read. When IT Fails: A Business Novel.
Here is a great link: http://h30458.www3.hp.com/us/us/ezine/ops-leaders/sep/a-novel-approach-to-it-excellence.html
Having worked with George Spafford for many years, and sharing stories, experiences and vision, this has a personal touch. Kevin, Gene and George are not just an author, analyst or research professional, they have real world experiences. This book brings forth some real wisdom brought about real world IT, sleeves up, in the trenches, making it happen. I have a great deal of respect for the trio of professionals.
A perfect time for the book to come out, because traditional IT silos are not working anymore in a services oriented IT operation. I think they really drive home much of what I have been talking about in this blog, and that is business partnership.
I love the novell approach to the book, and walking through scenarios and taking experiences and interactions with IT Leaders through many steps. Check out the link above, it is a great write up about the book.
Why do I bring this up? Not only do I refer and reference their other books. blogs, and information, but I take my hat off to them for a job well done. After they do their day job, they find time to work together and collaborate on information share that IT professionals can relate to and learn from.
A honor to know these folks.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
Here is a great link: http://h30458.www3.hp.com/us/us/ezine/ops-leaders/sep/a-novel-approach-to-it-excellence.html
Having worked with George Spafford for many years, and sharing stories, experiences and vision, this has a personal touch. Kevin, Gene and George are not just an author, analyst or research professional, they have real world experiences. This book brings forth some real wisdom brought about real world IT, sleeves up, in the trenches, making it happen. I have a great deal of respect for the trio of professionals.
A perfect time for the book to come out, because traditional IT silos are not working anymore in a services oriented IT operation. I think they really drive home much of what I have been talking about in this blog, and that is business partnership.
I love the novell approach to the book, and walking through scenarios and taking experiences and interactions with IT Leaders through many steps. Check out the link above, it is a great write up about the book.
Why do I bring this up? Not only do I refer and reference their other books. blogs, and information, but I take my hat off to them for a job well done. After they do their day job, they find time to work together and collaborate on information share that IT professionals can relate to and learn from.
A honor to know these folks.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
Monday, September 10, 2012
9/11 Prayer of Remembrance
Almighty God, the past
acts of 9/11 will be indelibly inscribed in our memories.
We looked with horror on the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
But we looked with honor on acts of courage by ordinary people
who sacrificed themselves to prevent further death and destruction.
We shed our tears in a common bond of grief for those we loved and lost.
We journeyed through a dark valley, but your light has led us to a place of hope.
You have turned our grief into determination.
We are resolved to do what is good, and right, and just.
Help us to remember what it means to be Americans—
a people endowed with abundant blessings.
Help us to cherish the freedoms we enjoy and inspire us to stand
with courage, united as one Nation in the midst of any adversity.
Lord, hear this prayer for our Nation. Amen.
Author: A Navy Chaplain
I fly my flag today to remember those we lost, honor those who fought, and stand strong as an American. May we never forget, and continue to fight evil.
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
We looked with horror on the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
But we looked with honor on acts of courage by ordinary people
who sacrificed themselves to prevent further death and destruction.
We shed our tears in a common bond of grief for those we loved and lost.
We journeyed through a dark valley, but your light has led us to a place of hope.
You have turned our grief into determination.
We are resolved to do what is good, and right, and just.
Help us to remember what it means to be Americans—
a people endowed with abundant blessings.
Help us to cherish the freedoms we enjoy and inspire us to stand
with courage, united as one Nation in the midst of any adversity.
Lord, hear this prayer for our Nation. Amen.
Author: A Navy Chaplain
I fly my flag today to remember those we lost, honor those who fought, and stand strong as an American. May we never forget, and continue to fight evil.
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
Problem Management
Talk IT - and everyone knows of the Service Desk or Help Desk (Incident Management), but very little focus is on Problem Management. Why is that?
Problem Management includes the activities required to diagnose the root cause of Incident Management and to determine the resolution to those problems. It is also responsible for ensuring that the resolution is implemented through the appropriate control procedures, especially Change Management and Release Management. This means it is more than just documenting the root cause, but requires action items.
Problem Management will also maintain information about problems and the appropriate workarounds and resolutions, so that the organization is able to reduce the number and impact of Incident Management over time. In this respect, Problem Management has a strong interface with Knowledge Management, and tools such as the Known Error Database will be used for both. Although Incident Management and Problem Management are separate processes, they are closely related and will typically use the same tools, and may use similar categorization, impact and priority coding systems. This will ensure effective communication when dealing with related incidents and problems.
As a IT Leader, I wanted to make sure that we found the root cause of an impact incident, tell me what the technology, process, people issues are. Root cause analysis is not just process, but it also points out technology failure, architecture design issues, and process break down. The problem management analysis has to take all these into account when reporting out the root cause. One more thing - have a dedicated staff person responsbile for Problem Management.
A couple of frustrating aspects of problem management - paralysis by analysis and spending hours on deep dive into a what I would call above the bar issues. I always remind folks that some problems or root cause don't need to take a significant effort - at times you can spend to much time, and you loose the value of the process. Be careful - keep it in perspective.
Ask the why, and ask the why did it happened again, and go till you get to a reasonable view of the process, people, technology. Fix that which you can and move on.
There is some great training out there from the ITIL vendors on problem management. Online courses - a good option.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
Problem Management: I say that you diagnose root causes
of incidents reported by the service desk; then, you arrange changes in the IT
infrastructure to prevent their recurrence. Make sense?
Problem Management will also maintain information about problems and the appropriate workarounds and resolutions, so that the organization is able to reduce the number and impact of Incident Management over time. In this respect, Problem Management has a strong interface with Knowledge Management, and tools such as the Known Error Database will be used for both. Although Incident Management and Problem Management are separate processes, they are closely related and will typically use the same tools, and may use similar categorization, impact and priority coding systems. This will ensure effective communication when dealing with related incidents and problems.
As a IT Leader, I wanted to make sure that we found the root cause of an impact incident, tell me what the technology, process, people issues are. Root cause analysis is not just process, but it also points out technology failure, architecture design issues, and process break down. The problem management analysis has to take all these into account when reporting out the root cause. One more thing - have a dedicated staff person responsbile for Problem Management.
A couple of frustrating aspects of problem management - paralysis by analysis and spending hours on deep dive into a what I would call above the bar issues. I always remind folks that some problems or root cause don't need to take a significant effort - at times you can spend to much time, and you loose the value of the process. Be careful - keep it in perspective.
Ask the why, and ask the why did it happened again, and go till you get to a reasonable view of the process, people, technology. Fix that which you can and move on.
There is some great training out there from the ITIL vendors on problem management. Online courses - a good option.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Internal Customer Debate
I always enjoy a good discussion about IT organizational design, success, failure and "best practice". I joined a conference call the other day, and the discussion was around everyone in the company is a customer of IT. I thought to myself - really?
Looking to fail? Make sure everyone in IT tells everyone outside of IT, “You’re my customer. My job is to exceed your expectations” (or, worse, “make you happy”). Does that take away focus from top business capability?
Employees outside of IT are not IT’s customers. They’re IT’s colleagues, with whom IT collaborates as equals if anything good is going to happen for the company as a whole. This really sets the stage for establishing business capability, IT enabling capability and working together to deliver that which really matters.
Legitimizing the idea of internal customers puts IT in a subservient position, where everyone in IT has to make their colleagues happy, whether doing so makes sense for the business or not, let alone whether it encourages the company’s actual customers to buy more products and services. Do you think this approach does not put IT at the table with business?
I brought this discussion up at one of the CIO round table events I attend on a regular basis. There was great discussion around both sides of this debate. Not having that customer service focus is not "ITIL", said one CIO. We are working to becoming a service based organization. I think you can have a service based approach to the business. Maintain the focus on what makes sense for the business - and on business capabilites.
One of the biggest comments I heard on the round table call was a CIO saying that it is essential for IT to be part of the business success, and to do that you need engagement, collaboration, and deliver as promised.
What do you think? I would love to hear from you.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
Looking to fail? Make sure everyone in IT tells everyone outside of IT, “You’re my customer. My job is to exceed your expectations” (or, worse, “make you happy”). Does that take away focus from top business capability?
Employees outside of IT are not IT’s customers. They’re IT’s colleagues, with whom IT collaborates as equals if anything good is going to happen for the company as a whole. This really sets the stage for establishing business capability, IT enabling capability and working together to deliver that which really matters.
Legitimizing the idea of internal customers puts IT in a subservient position, where everyone in IT has to make their colleagues happy, whether doing so makes sense for the business or not, let alone whether it encourages the company’s actual customers to buy more products and services. Do you think this approach does not put IT at the table with business?
I brought this discussion up at one of the CIO round table events I attend on a regular basis. There was great discussion around both sides of this debate. Not having that customer service focus is not "ITIL", said one CIO. We are working to becoming a service based organization. I think you can have a service based approach to the business. Maintain the focus on what makes sense for the business - and on business capabilites.
One of the biggest comments I heard on the round table call was a CIO saying that it is essential for IT to be part of the business success, and to do that you need engagement, collaboration, and deliver as promised.
What do you think? I would love to hear from you.
Keep it positive!
Scott Arnett
scott.arnett@charter.net
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