Availability Guide for Problem Management

Preventing Unplanned Outages
Availability Guide for Problem Management–125509
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Requirements for Successful Problem Prevention
Requirements for Successful Problem Prevention
Generally, organizations that do not have established problem-reporting, problem-
escalation, and problem-recovery procedures have a higher rate of errors, increased
recovery times, and lower levels of user or customer satisfaction. They might also
experience an increased number of occurrences of the same problem. Establishing these
procedures in your organization can help you:
•
Prevent problems from escalating into unplanned outages
•
Ensure that all identified problems are reported, recorded, assigned a priority, and
resolved
•
Determine how quickly problems are resolved and whether procedures need to be
improved
•
Identify recurring problems and either eliminate them or resolve them more quickly
Being able to predict, prevent, and prepare for problems that may escalate into
unplanned outages depends upon having the following procedures and processes
implemented in your operations management organization:
•
Detailed, step-by-step procedures
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Well-trained staff
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Well-designed applications
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System-setup documentation
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Availability of super-group capabilities
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Disaster-recovery planning
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Automated recovery procedures
Detailed, Step-by-Step Procedures
Accurate, up-to-date, and well-tested procedures, whether for routine or problem-
recovery tasks, are an essential part of any operations environment. Publish your
standard procedures and make them readily available for operations and support staff.
Recovery procedures should cover possible failures, such as
•
Hardware—processors, disks, power supplies, communications lines, batteries
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Applications—corrupted database, application errors
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Environmental—air conditioning, power, site disaster
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Security—breach, lockout
You can use process flow diagrams to describe procedures. A process flow diagram can
include files, commands, and hardware used. The Flow Map product can help you
develop procedure flow diagrams (see Section 9, “Problem Management Tools”).
Procedures Checklist
When establishing procedures for your system environment, consider the following:
•
Review the guidelines for problem reporting.