IT Organization: Building A Worldclass Infrastructure [Paperback]

Harris Kern (Author), Stuart D. Galup (Author), Guy Nemiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0130222984 | ISBN-13: 978-0130222985 | Edition: 1

It is painfully clear that few companies are achieving their goals for client/server reliability, availability, and serviceability. It is becoming equally clear that the problems are not technical, but organizational. How does one structure an IT organization that can achieve today's business goals using today's tools and architectures? This book takes on the challenge, and offers realistic, specific answers based on the experiences of more than 40 leading companies. You'll learn exactly what not to do, which lessons to draw lessons from the success of the traditional data center, and most importantly, how to design for the 21st century paradigm of "any data, anywhere, anytime." Learn what it really means to treat your network like you treat your data center; to organize your enterprise around mission-critical support instead of specific technologies; to maintain both centralized control and decentralized operations; to establish standards without imposing rigidity, and to bring discipline without bureaucracy. The book is concise, but the diagnoses are specific -- and so are the solutions.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

PrefaceStructure, Not Technology

This book brings an urgent message for any Information Technology professional who is responsible for planning, implementing, managing, and supporting client/server (or networked) computing environments. If you want to survive in the networked, client/server world, you must stop, analyze, reorganize and prioritize your infrastructure now.

We spent two years analyzing 40, cross industry Fortune 1000 companies. We were engaged to assist IT organizations in their quest for reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) with client/server environments. This book is based on these case studies.

We found that organizations everywhere have serious latent infrastructure issues. Too often IT managers deal only with the symptoms of their problems by blaming technology, the complexity, or the architecture of client/server environments. The fact is that all of these companies have infrastructure issues that inhibit their ability to have RAS in client/server environments.

All of the companies we analyzed are committed to client/server computing and the transformation to the new paradigm (i.e., any data, anywhere, anytime) which is becoming more prevalent every minute in Internet time. IT organizations must get their acts together to support their business requirements, but the terrifying fact is that IT organizations aren't prepared for the onslaught of the networked world because of the organizational problems we highlight.

The first section highlights the issues and problems of networked computing we found in our travels around the world. This section highlights what not to do.

The second section tells you how to look at the past for answers to the problems in today's environments. This section also shows you how to build that elusive world-class infrastructure.

The third section deals with how to structure your IT organization for the twenty-first century and how to give it a competitive advantage in the "dot comming" world.

And last, but so very important, are the questions we are asked most frequently by IT professionals during our travels.

This book is different than any other book we've written and any other books in the marketplace on IT organization structures because of the 40 case studies. This book is about the non-technical issues that IT organizations need to address to succeed in a client/server environment. This book is about basics-how to structure an organization so that it works. Through case studies and recommendations, we'll show you how to set up procedures, policies, and metrics to make sure the organization is effective.

From the Back Cover

2229H-4

Organizing IT for excellence in 21st century distributed environments

Few organizations are achieving their goals for reliability, availability, and serviceability in distributed environments—and the obstacles aren't technical, they're organizational. How does one structure an IT organization to succeed with today's tools and architectures? IT Organization: Building a World-Class Infrastructure delivers realistic, specific answers that draw upon the experiences of more than 40 leading companies. You'll discover how to:

• Design your organization to deliver "any data, anywhere, anytime"
• Combine mainframe-class discipline with 21st century flexibility
• Treat your network like you treat your data center
• Organize around business-critical support functions instead of trendy technologies
• Establish standards without imposing rigidity -- and achieve discipline without bureaucracy
• Overcome the myths that prevent IT organizations from succeeding

Harris Kern and his colleagues have built a worldwide reputation for evaluating IT organizations and identifying solutions -- fast. This concise, to-the-point book will help you do the same. Here are the right questions to ask, specific "people and process" techniques that work, sample SLAs and internal support agreements -- everything you need to make change happen, now!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (February 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130222984
• ISBN-13: 978-0130222985
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #828,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some valuable insights and some glaring problems, May 16, 2001

By 

Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IT Organization: Building A Worldclass Infrastructure (Paperback)

I had heard good things about this book from both colleagues and clients. I finally got a copy recently as a reference for peer reviewing an assessment of a proposed IT organizational design for a large Middle East oil company. This was one of the references I used to verify and validate the assessment findings and recommendations. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of the book as I see them:

* Strengths: There is a wealth of great ideas. I especially like the way the authors group system administration and DBA functions, and I fully concur with a previous reviewer that this is an excellent practice. I also like the way the authors never lose sight of the fact that IT needs to be organized in both a cost-effective manner and structured to provide the best possible service in the form of reliability, availability and support. In fact I compiled a large list of excellent ideas and best practices after combing through this book.

* Weaknesses: It's unanimous - the table of contents bears no relationship to the actual contents of this book. I blame the publisher for that, not the authors. Not that the authors are blameless. I found no coherent structure to the book. The list of gems I compiled from this book was the result of an arduous process because they are scattered throughout in seemingly random order. However, the biggest flaw I found is that the authors seem to be presenting a point of view based on their experience, with no real traceability to the rich body of knowledge that has been developed. For example the IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF), which is an international professional organization devoted to promoting standards and best practices in IT service management has a model to which an IT organizational structure can be benchmarked. The ITSMF uses standards and methods from the IT Infrastructure Library Series, which were developed by the British Government (and are available from Amazon), which align service and application delivery and support to IT organization. This "standard" was not mentioned once in the book, which I consider to be a glaring omission.

* On Balance: This book has flaws, some small and some large. It also has some excellent ideas and certainly contains a wealth of best practices. Despite the weaknesses I mentioned, the organizational structure proposed by the authors is better than what I have seen in practice at numerous clients, some of which are very large corporations. Also, this book does step up to the plate and address organizational structure head-on. Most of the books I have read are more focused on IT value to the business. While these are important, they all seem to sidestep any recommendations for how an IT organization should be structured. So, this book has a lot of value in that respect.

* Recommendation: Read this book for the ideas. However, do not read it in a vacuum. Compare and contrast the recommendations made with the large body of knowledge on service management and the associated recommendations for organizing IT to support the models that have been internationally adopted.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars IT Generaliations, September 16, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: IT Organization: Building A Worldclass Infrastructure (Paperback)

The book has some publishing flaws. The index does not refer to any thing in the book - look up an item, go to the referenced page and try to find anything evenly remotely close to the index item - you can't.

However, the general information is OK. I have been in the consulting industry for sometime. This is the general approach that is standard for IT consultants. However, there are many more issues regarding web infrastructure that are missing - critical issues that are not even addressed or mentioned. Technical issues such as the real metrics and general structure for RAS and very high concurrency systems, or the differences between OLTP and DSS or Business Intelligence are not even hinted at.

It would be more helpful to the new IT manager if there were case studies and some concrete examples and measures.

If you are brand new to IT, then this book is helpful. But for a real professional - I'm not really sure.

I see this text as more beginners guide to IT than as something truely usefull for the seasoned professional.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but some excellent concepts make it worthwhile, January 11, 2001

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: IT Organization: Building A Worldclass Infrastructure (Paperback)

This book has some flaws, such as the table of contents that reminds me of my first c program with pointers going off into the ozone. I managed to eventually become proficient in c. By looking past the book's flaws I managed to discover some valuable concepts and ideas for getting a handle on the thorny problems of aligning IT with business requirements.

One of the most valuable concepts in the book is an IT organization that is defined by technology layers as opposed to products. For example, a compelling arguement is made for organizing the systems administration function as a single group without regard to what brand of system is being administered. The same argurment applies to organizing DBAs, network administrators, etc. in the same manner.

This is a powerful concept that has a lot going for it. For example, in the traditional organization system administration is performed by a number of groups, each focusing on NT, UNIX, etc. This promotes a disjointed and non-repeatable set of processes - if there are processes at all. This, in turn, leads to an IT organization that has no clear internal communications, a cacophony of wildly different processes and methods, and multiple agendas. It reinforces the business side's common complaint that IT of out-of-control, with no unified vision, as well as another often heard complaint that IT provides conflicting advice and are their own worst enemy.

Contrast the above with the organizational model that is proposed in this book: all functions are grouped and held together by a common set of processes and procedures. One easy-to-spot advantage of this type of organization is that service delivery becomes easier. Problems such as synchronizing batch processing (essential to data warehousing), aligned maintenance windows and uniform approaches to problem management become manageable because everyone is on the same team.

Another advantage is a leveling of process maturity. Mainframe administration processes are lot more mature than those employed by your typical NT administrator, who would benefit greatly by "discovering" what was probably in place before he or she was born. And the business - the real reason we IT professionals exist at all - will benefit from the improved and reliable delivery of services and support.

There are gaps in some of the processes and organizational paradigms, as pointed out by other reviewers. These will require some thought on the reader's part to work through and fill. On the whole, however, I found the book to be a valuable source of concepts and ideas. The flaws and gaps are offset by some iteas that I though were excellent. Because I personally gained a much deeper understanding of how to align IT to better meet business needs I gave the book 4 stars (only because I cannot award it 3.5). In spite of the flaws and gaps I do highly recommend this book and hope that potential readers will look beyond the warts and find the enlightening information buried between the covers.