Methodology & Processes

Our Support Methodology

Castle Computer Services employ the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) approach to IT Service Management and Support.

ITIL is documented best practice for the delivery of IT Service Management. It has been developed by the Office of Government Commerce and is rapidly becoming the worldwide de facto standard.

ITIL is concerned with identifying the IT services that businesses actually require and ensuring that IT Service Providers concentrate resource on delivering those services. The IT Service Provider should exist only to underpin the business requirements and provide the services required by the business.

The key aims of this approach are:

• To align IT services with the current and future needs of the business and its customers
• To improve the quality of the IT services delivered
• To reduce the long term cost of service provision

Our Support Processes

Incident Management

The Support Departments at Castle Computer Services consist primarily of two specialist teams – First Line Support and Second Line Support. All incidents are assessed by First Line Support who, in most cases, will provide the answer to your query. Any incidents remaining will be referred to the appropriate Second Line Support Team for further investigation, and from there, if necessary, a site visit may be arranged or the incident escalated to software authors or hardware manufacturers.

Problem Management

Whereas Incident Management is concerned with restoring normal service to the end user as quickly as possible, Problem Management is concerned with identifying the underlying causes of incidents and thereby reducing the likelihood of repeat incidents.

At Castle Computer Services we monitor incidents to establish if there are any underlying trends that need to be investigated or addressed in order to try and reduce the number of future incidents and therefore reduce disruption to your business.

Service Level Management

Service Level Management is concerned with identifying the services that are required by the business and ensuring that these services are provided. As an IT Service Provider we need to ensure that we work in partnership with you to establish which services you require, both now and in the future.

We have a standard Service Level Agreement and are also happy to discuss enhanced Service Level Agreements if these are required.

As part of the Service Level Management process we also hold Service Review Meetings. This gives us the opportunity to discuss the service you have received, suggestions for improvement, and any issues for the future.

Enhanced Services

Change and Release Management

It is important that Changes to your system are managed effectively, using standardised procedures, in order to ensure that they give maximum benefit to the business with minimum impact.

We can help develop these procedures with you, and also give advice to you about the potential impact of planned and potential future changes.

We can help with the packaging and rollout of releases, ensuring that there is little or no impact on the business. Where we are involved in Release Rollouts we will also ensure that the relevant people (for example the Service Desk) are aware of these releases and therefore in a position to help quickly should any issues arise.

Configuration Management

The aim of Configuration Management is to ensure that IT resources are identified and controlled, and the relationship between resources is known.

Castle Computer Services can help with this in a number of ways. We can audit the existing resources, producing network schematic diagrams which identify the existing resources and identify, for example what software and operating systems are installed on each PC and Server. We can also audit licences to ensure that all software is correctly licensed.

IT Financial Management

It is important for your business that IT costs are budgeted, accounted for correctly, and controlled.

By discussing your future requirements with us, we can ensure that budgets are in place for your future IT requirements, and by forward planning we can ensure that we can obtain the best possible prices for you when purchases are required.

We can also offer advice about developing charging models to help you account for IT spend and, if desired, introduce internal IT charging policies within your organisation.

Capacity Management

Capacity Management aims to ensure that the current and future IT needs of the business are met in a cost effective manner. This involves ensuring that existing IT resources are tuned to work in the most efficient manner, and also ensuring that IT resource is purchased with the potential future requirements of the business in mind.

Castle Computer Services can help with the iterative processes involved with Capacity Management, such as analysis, monitoring, implementation of enhancements, and tuning.

When purchasing IT resources we can also help you plan for the future, by, for example, advising on potential future upgrade paths. This will help ensure that you invest in products with a long term future.

Availability Management

Availability Management ensures that the business knows what services it needs from IT and that IT concentrate on providing those services. It is important to ensure that the services required by the business are available when needed by the business. There is no point in providing additional services that are not needed or required by the business. Castle Computer Services can help you identify which services your business requires, along with the required availability for each, and to ensure that the correct level of support is in place for each service.

IT Service Continuity Management

IT Service Continuity Management is concerned with identifying the risks to the business of IT failure. These risks range from an individual PC not working, through to entire business failure. Once the risks have been identified, any steps possible should be taken to reduce these risks. You need to then identify the appropriate disaster recovery policy for each IT Service:

1. Do nothing
2. Paper based backup
3. Reciprocal agreement with another company
4. Low (cold start) backup
5. Intermediate (warm start) backup
6. Immediate (hot start) backup

We can help identify the potential business impact of IT failure and help put disaster recovery policies in place.