Infrastructure and Platform Management
Definition
"The practice of overseeing the infrastructure and platforms used by an organization."
The practice requires:
- Establishing an infrastructure and platform management approach
- Ensuring infrastructure and platform solutions meet organizational needs
Key Terms
IT infrastructure: "all the hardware, software, networks, and facilities required to develop, test, deliver, monitor, manage, and support IT services"
Reliability: "the ability of a product, service, or other CI to perform its intended function for a specified time period"
Maintainability: "the ease with which a service or other entity can be repaired or modified"
Observability: "organization's ability to understand the internal state of an IT system based on the data it generates"
Processes
Management of the Organization's Approach
- Analyze organization's strategy, resources, and portfolios
- Develop and agree infrastructure and platform management approach
- Develop guidelines for different product types
- Communicate approach and guidelines to stakeholders
- Review and adjust approach and guidelines
Infrastructure Solutions Development and Implementation
- Review and prioritize software development tasks
- Design the infrastructure solution
- Source/develop/configure components
- Build/configure the infrastructure solution
- Support implementation
- Review development and implementation
Infrastructure Maintenance
- Perform maintenance tasks
IT Systems Review and Improvement
- IT system review
- IT system improvement planning
- IT systems improvement initiation and control
Key Metrics
| Metric | Focus |
|---|---|
| Satisfaction with infrastructure/platform management | Performance indicator |
| Alignment with strategy and architecture | Performance indicator |
| Deviations from strategy/architecture roadmap | Performance indicator |
| Benefits, costs, and risks of management approach | Performance indicator |
| Stakeholder satisfaction with solutions | Performance indicator |
| Infrastructure incidents | Performance indicator |
| Constraints from infrastructure/platform solutions | Performance indicator |
| Deviations from agreed management approach | Performance indicator |
Key Roles
- Infrastructure specialist
Recommendations for Success
- Apply service management principles
- Leverage automation
- Simplify for customer experience
- Get the funding right
Software Tools
- Analysis and reporting tools, CMS tools
- Collaboration and communication tools
- Enterprise architecture management tools
- External professional content libraries
- Knowledge and document management tools
- Learning Management System (LMS)
- CI/CD tools
- Monitoring and event management tools
- Orchestration and integration platforms
- Remote administration tools
- Solution design and development tools
- Workflow and task management tools