Remote Access vs Mobility

[ok_kao]

I am not sure where this topic went when i first posted it.

should remote access and mobility be considered one service? so far they are being considered as 2 separate service offereings in the catalogue.

any thoughts?

thanks
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Mike
Service Management Coordinator

[mnsmith]

No one on this forum can answer this question, apart from yourself.

However, here are a couple things to think about:
- what business function does mobility and remote access give you. If it's different, then you probably should have two services
- what are the SLAs for the two services? If they are different, then you probably should have two services

This may not be the help you wanted but hopefully it will get you thinking.

Mick
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Mick Smith
Change, Configuration and Release Manager

[UKVIKING]

Also

If you define a Remote access as a service .. how can you manage/monitor/track its availabilty

What is goign to be the defintion for the service
who are going to be the users...

There is two type of remote access

1 - the ability to connect to network equipment by network engineers via a dedicated admin connection/ VLAN

2 - the abiltity to work from home / out of office and use office applications - email / applications / etc

I gather you are talking about the latter

As to Mobility, are all your customers/users nailed/glued/chained to their work cubicle and they need a specific service to get away.... or are you talking about the ability to use specific tools - crackberrys, pda, laptops - using wireless networks / bluetooth within a corporate structure or as you are going down a street

I shudder the remarks of any ISO27K types on this
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John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[ok_kao]

[UKVIKING]

Mike

Crackberry is a twisted name for the Blackberry

As I have a crackberry and dealt with remote clients, i will give you some pointers

From the SD point of view, dealing with remtoe clients is difficult in incident resolution

Citrix and other thin clients and other remote applications service agreements are dependent on issues outside the control / management of the company / SD / outsource

If you use a Citrix connection, you have to depend on f/w ports being opened, monitored, managed. These f/w may be yours, a public ISP or private companys or all 3.

For ex: A user is having issue using the Citrix connection to a service called Duck.

Duck is up and running because it is inside the corporate environment
The duck portal is up - the environment used by citrix clients
the public external network that the user uses to connect to the Duck is having issues.

How can the SD fix the ISP problem
Should the SD fix it the ISP problem
How does this affect the SLA for Duck and the Remote service to it

It is available as other users can connect to it - but they dont use the same iSP that is having problems

So it is actually on the onus of the user to get his ISP to fix their problem.. if there actual is one. The ISP may have port restriction, b/w throttling etc on his IP / IP range V LAN because the connection is a personal connection vice business connection

you see where this is going

As for the blackberry/crackberry / mobile services, most companys outsource this to a major telco - here in the UK - BT, Voda, etc. The telco provides the network service for the balckberry, RIM has a network, the company has a pipeline from their email services using a MTA (Message transfer Agent) that makes sure all mail to accounts are sent to the RIM/ blacckberry service based on the phone number of each of the

At what level do you determine the service and what would be the SLA

you have the service (telco)
you have the service - (RIM) Blackberry
you have the service - phone as well
and you have your email service and the MTA service to the Blackberry

You then have to figure out what u can control, what SLAs the telco and rim . blackberry says that they will provide

supporting that is a nightmare

how can you troubleshoot this from a SD point of view.
The service that is provided is a boolean one
it is on or off
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John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[Alobos]

We support an organization with 6K + users. Everyone sooner or later gets a BB device.

I don't believe supporting this is a nightmare as long as the supporting contract vehicles exists. Yes, we always depend on many variables; in this case RIM, The Telco, your own BES/Exchange (which this is really the only thing you can fully control); if RIM is down, no service; if TELCO is having issues, no service; however, these are rare ocassions and not the norm; and if they actually do go down, usually gets resolved pretty quick; otherwise RIM would not have that big of a market penetration.

As long as this exception are noted, understood by the user and the support from the 'variables' (contract vehicles) which we do; we can escalate pretty much anything right to RIM Engineers or TELCO engineers; I think any user is willing to buy into it. Which system out there is bullet proof and 100% reliable?

The same applies for Citrix; it is understood by the client that an end-user may user different means of connection, which somebody with good common sense will not fully support.

Just my two cents... or what's the equivalent in UK?
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ITIL Foundations

[Diarmid]

tuppence
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"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718