constraint on IT support

social and cultural
couldnt work on certain days

you wasnt allowed to work with women

types of constraints

social/culture: couldnt work on certain days, werent allowed to work with women,

legal: data protection act, freedom of information act;you calling a gp making them give you your own record,esteemed publications act,

 

financial: staying inside the budgets, determines the quality, level of service agreement and the support. online checking systems: checking you havent gone over the budget.

 

technological: incompatability layers: database that isnt sycronising with the server this would be an incompatability level that would be a problem for the IT support.

 

time: this is the most serious probelm for IT support, escalation: wich is where you have a tier 1 problem and need to send it on to a higher level this means you then have to wait for the manager to approve the escalation before the ticket is sent on because it takes longer to send it on and it uses more resourses so the manager makes sure it is worth escalating the problem on.

 

employee skills; IT support might not always know specific areas of what they are doing, for example they are working on vertual machines without training and are there fore might be doing this wrong, cpd:continuing professional development this means giving the IT support the training they need. this is  a constraint because maybe not every IT support technician have the needed training.

impact vs constraints

 

something that impacts on IT support can be both positive and negative but it shapes our options and the bussiness environment.

constraints is concerned with limiting our options in the way IT support works not it is mot always a bad thing.

cost constraints

one of the constaints is buying IT equiptment this si because you have to buy lots of various equptment to do specific tasks.

you have to buy the specific equiptment from the official and origional manufacturers becasue you have to make sure it is the right equptment for the tasks.

you might have to buy more expensive equiptment  to meet the criteria on the fault logs eg.

you might have to buy a tool kit, you might not be able to buy a normal tool kit you would have to buy a specific set of tools and they might have to be a certain size for specific bits of the computer system.

 

you might have to buy the software liceneses so that you can use specific softwar. you might have to buy lots of packs of software in big bundles so that you can buy them for all of the computers to make sure they have the correct software e.g if you were a college you would need to make sure all of the computers have the tight software on all of the computers, you wouldnt have a missing piece of software on one computer as the student would then suffer for it.you

 

you can have a system tracker to check the software is installed on all computers as you can sinstall the software on one computer and you can do it so that it then goes to all computer from a main computer.

time constraints

 

when employyess are off sick then you would need to get another employee to come in and cover them.

most network maintenance is done out of hours sot his means you would then have to do overtime to dot he network maintenance.

some staff only work certain days or weekends this can be a constraint becasue they could be off work  over the week and come back at the weekend and there could be a massive backlog of tickets and problems.

if employees record what work was carried out using a help desk system this takes up more of the technicians time as he is recording the problem, recording a problem usually takes longer than actually fixing the problem. most IT technicians use a ticketing service wich makes dealing with and fixing probelms easier and quicker.

 

issues that impact on IT support

for this exercise we had to work in pears and pick from the list below and diskcuss with partners

• security
• system downtime and disruption
• resource allocatoin
• prioritisation
• contractual requirments
• costs

i am working with nico cox and luke barnes and we chose to discuss resource allocation;

what resourse allocation?

 

Resource allocation is used to distribute available resources in an economical way. This allows the user to choose the resource location, making it easier to find and use resources.

It also refers to supplying designated software to areas that are in need of it. This saves the user from supplying software to areas that are irrelevant or do not require it.

For example, a desktop that regularly has faults with it’s sound system may require a full upgrade of soundboard, software and hardware (Speakers). Whereas a system with only faulty speakers would just have the offending item replaced. This ensures a minimum waste, therefore backing up the economical theory.

when allocating resourses you would keep track of frequency of software and hardware upgrades,

when you are using peripherals it would be helpful if you researched peripherals and found the correct peripheral based on the fault logs checking that it isnt a peripheral that has lots of recorded faults.

 

downtime and distribution
maintenance might need to be done and this is inconveniant for users,

you would have to pay your employees for the overtime they are doing whilst the maintenance is taking place.

check your server infostructure is it maintainable? is it supported?chedck that your web servises are supported. are you using the right versions of the software. check all of the serveers tested on a test server live, back-up and protoctype servers.
make sure the IT support team can all speak the appropriate language so that everyone can understand each other.
desktops have to be replaced every 3years, laptops have to be replaced every 2 years and operating systems have to be replaced every 4 years.

what to consider when buying a bussiness system.

• you should consider the cost of buying the basic unit eg. the motherboard.
• you should consider the warranty costs: how long have you got the system for.
• how much will the oeprating system/software licence including cost.
• what are the specifications for the system eg. how much RAM, does it need a graphics card, what specifications would a bussiness system need?
• what size is the system including the monitor- will it fit on the desk(its no good buying a computer you have no room for)
• is the hardware you chose upgradable and is ti compatable with the motherboard?
• do you get discount if you are buying the systems in bulk?
• is it a knowable manufacturer? is it well made?( if a manufacturer has a bad reputation then do not buy from them)