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Preventing scheduled changes to CIs from impacting business services


This use case describes how to schedule changes to CI and ensure that it does not impact business services.

Scenario

The Finance department at Calbro Services processes payroll checks every Thursday. Allen Allbrook, the configuration administrator, wants to make sure that the payroll server is not taken down for maintenance on Thursdays. He sets a blackout to set these key services as unavailable for maintenance on any Thursday.

The payroll server is having performance issues and needs more memory. When Mary Mann, the change coordinator, schedules the change request, she sees that the payroll server is unavailable on Thursday. To prevent conflicts, she creates another unavailable time segment, on Monday instead of Thursday.

The Calbro business process has predefined that this type of change request requires standard approvals to move the project forward.

Workflow

The following table describes the typical steps involved in this user scenario:

Console

User

Action

Reference

Change Management console

Change coordinator

  • On the Change Management console, the change coordinator creates a new change request. 
  • On the Change form, the change coordinator selects the Server Hard Drive template.
  • The change coordinator enters the required information to finish creating the change request.

Change Management console

Change coordinator

The change coordinator creates an unavailability blackout schedule to fix the payroll server: 

  • On the Change Management console, the change coordinator searches for the payroll server CI. 
  • From the CI form, the change coordinator accesses blackout schedules. 
  • The Change coordinator adds a business time segment. She specifies the server CI to be unavailable on Tuesday. 
  • The change coordinator moves the change request to the Implementation Approval phase.

Change Management console

Change coordinator

  • The change coordinator relates the CI to the change request: 
  • On the Change form, the change coordinator creates a relationship between the change request and the payroll server CI. The Change coordinator specifies the Relationship Type as Upgrades
  • The change coordinator creates an unavailability relationship. 
  • In the Configuration Item Unavailability dialog box, the change coordinator specifies the unavailability type (for example, Scheduled Full) and the scheduled dates.

Change Management console

Change coordinator

  • The change coordinator searches for available times to schedule the change request: 
  • On the Change form, the change coordinator uses the Schedule Assist tool to search for available times. The change coordinator views the times when the server CI is unavailable. The change coordinator finds the next available time, based on the duration and available start time. 
  • The change coordinator creates a schedule time segment.

Change Management console

Change coordinator

  • On the Change form, the change coordinator views the calendar. 
  • The change coordinator defines the risk level of the change request.

Asset Management console

Configuration administrator

  • On the Asset Management console, the configuration administrator searches for the server CI. 
  • On the CI form, the configuration administrator opens the blackout schedule. 
  • The configuration administrator adds a business time segment.
  • The configuration administrator specifies the server CI to be Unavailable.
  • The configuration administrator sets up a weekly recurring duration for Thursdays.

Change Management Support console

Task implementer

  • On the Change Management Support console, the task implementer searches for assigned tasks. 
  • The task implementer performs each of the three Upgrade Server Hard Drive tasks and records the work performed.

Result

User is aware of when the CI is unavailable.

Benefit

Proper scheduling of the CI unavailability, ensures that the user plans for this eventuality.

 

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