Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for IT specialists. In this issue:
• A day in the life of Santa Claus, Senior Comms Specialist
• Tech View: What's ITIL about?
• B & M staff member profile: Paul Smith, Technical Manager
• B & M ProTech
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A day in the life of Santa Claus, Senior Comms Specialist
Senior Comms Specialist Santa Claus explains how keeping up with new technologies helps him improve project delivery
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"...developing his broad band"
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Santa Claus has been working in the communications sector since, as he puts it, "the year dot". He is now on a long-term contract for a major global logistics company, where he is responsible for receiving and processing messages from younger customers and assuring delivery of projects on time and on budget.
Santa's busiest period tends to be around Christmas. As he explained, "I'm often up all night just before Christmas to assure delivery as it is essential that packets are received in real time". Santa explained that he deploys an Electronic Link Forwarding (ELF) protocol to ensure that packets are delivered across the organisation's Wide Area Network, including deliveries to customers in areas of remote access. Items are stored in a world-class data warehouse, which forms part of the network hub and packets are delivered in black boxes, although some are in white boxes for transparency.
Once a year, Santa is responsible for an off-line upload of all packets to the Server Live Enterprise Information Global Highway (SLEIGH). This is a sensitive project, as Santa says, "We have to take particular care to achieve accurate load-balancing on the SLEIGH to avoid the whole thing falling over!". However, this is not the most taxing area of Santa's work: he has to ensure that packets are delivered without being suppressed by intrusion detection devices - particularly for those operating in a home environment.
But what does Santa enjoy doing outside work? He explains that once the Christmas rush is over, he enjoys putting his feet up with a glass of vintage USB port in front of a cosy firewall, developing his broad band. He also enjoys tending to his pet reindeer, Juniper, Raptor, Sniffer, Strobe and Swift, which he enters into races in his home country, Lapland. He explained, "When those guys get going, they really can fly!"
If you have skills like Santa's then please get in touch via people@bmeurope.com.
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What's ITIL about?
Paul Smith, B & M's Technical Manager gives looks at some of the options for certification in ITIL V3
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Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a methodology for managing IT infrastructure, development and operations. It has its origins in IBM's publication 'A Management System for Information Systems' published in the 1980s and was later developed by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), ending up under the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
Since this time the methodology has been adopted internationally and has undergone two major revisions with version 3 being published in 2005. The main change in this latest iteration is that while V2 was designed to provide a framework for the process lifecycle and alignment of IT to the business, V3 is also focused on the management of the lifecycle of the services provided by IT, and the importance of creating business value - not just executing processes.
According to the official ITIL website, the benefits of employing the methodology include:
- Reduced costs
- Improved IT services through the use of proven best practice processes
- Improved customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery
- Standards and guidance
- Improved productivity
- Improved use of skills and experience
- Improved delivery of third party services through the specification of ITIL or ISO 2000 as the standard for service delivery in services procurement.
Both versions 2 and 3 include a foundation certificate which covers entry level concepts. In my opinion, the most useful of the core certificates are at the Practitioner (V2) and Intermediate (V3) levels. These latter two qualifications of 10 sub-certificates can be taken together to achieve ITIL Service Manager or ITIL Expert certification. V3 of ITIL also includes the new high-level qualification, ITIL Master.
Statistics from 2004 show that 72% of ITIL take-up was in the UK and North America, but given that V3 is the first version to be published in any language other than English, it is hardly surprising that penetration is highest in English-speaking countries. At first glance, the fact that 58,000 certificates have been issued so far sounds like good news for the industry, until you consider that approximately 90% are only entry-level Foundation Certificates.
Many customers are now adopting ITIL and requiring these additional skills. Those of us who take certification seriously hope that as the value of the standard increases, a greater proportion of higher grade certificates will be attained over the coming year.
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Real People, Real Skills - B & M's Paul Smith
This month we find out about Technical Manager, Paul Smith
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Following a course in Computer Studies at Hatfield Polytechnic, Paul started work in the north of England with DEC/VAX equipment, providing computer support to staff and students at a college of further education. Here, he got to grips with the more physical aspects of the job such as laying out cable and occasionally drilling holes in walls.
About two years later he left for the south to work at a research laboratory where he moved into the world of IBM mainframes. Paul quickly realised that he was one of the few technicians working in IT who actually had a relevant qualification. Everyone else he met appeared to be a biologist, mathematician, ecologist and, in one case, an ex-plumber!
Subsequently he worked as a freelance Systems Programmer, designing and setting up mainframe computer systems for a variety of clients throughout Europe and in Australia, predominantly working with MVS, RACF and Assembler.
Paul joined B & M in 1997 as Technical Manager, tasked with designing and installing a new Windows-based computer network. Paul is now responsible for advising B & M on technical developments across all IT platforms, providing technical resources to the company and for maintaining and upgrading computer systems and networks.
Paul also has an active interest in the music business. He is a director of a professional music organisation, works as a live sound engineer and studio recording engineer. He has worked with a variety of professional and amateur musicians, poets and voice-over artists.
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B & M ProTech
Total project delivery
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B & M ProTech delivers technical projects tailored to meet each customer's ICT needs. We work closely with customers to agree whether the best solution is to utilise external resources that are managed in-house, or to reduce risk by engaging B & M to manage the project team on the customer's behalf via a professional project manager. Whichever form of management is appropriate, B & M ProTech delivers multi-disciplined teams with consistently high levels of technical knowledge and expertise who work to pre-agreed levels of service.
All technical projects are delivered in compliance with our best practice standards.
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B & M Europe Limited
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B & M has specialised in delivering skilled ICT specialists to meet the needs of leading organisations throughout Europe since 1992. We focus exclusively on providing technical services, consultancy and support for z/OS, UNIX and Linux enterprise systems, including third-party systems software, open systems and networking connectivity. We add real value for HR and IT professionals by taking the time to understand their needs and applying best practice methods to deliver results. To find out more about our approach to providing the best skills for each business, go to B & M Services. B & M Europe Limited
Whitehouse Farm, Silchester Road, Tadley, RG26 3PY, United Kingdom
Tel +44 (0) 118 981 1880
Fax +44 (0) 118 981 1881
Registered in England and Wales
Company No. 02696668
VAT No. GB 591718218 Expert Technical Resourcing for Enterprise Systems
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