A few years ago, a study by a major international consultancy (I don't remember which one, and it's not relevant) stated that data center personnel could take up to 24 hours to locate a server among the hundreds or thousands they have.
It's true that times change and technology evolves, but sometimes we should consider whether it has evolved as much as it should or if we are adopting the best technology available to us.
Over the years, we have taken the liberty of trying to understand the work processes that our clients have in their data centers, getting to know the personnel from different departments, how they interact, communicate, and transfer information, where it's stored, who safeguards the information, and who ensures its integrity and updates, and so on.
The work system of a data center can be likened to an assembly line, where one department needs new infrastructure, another department decides which hardware to use, another determines the network and IPs that the application services will use, and finally, another team decides the location in the room.
So, if the information or instructions that need to be communicated from the first department to the second department are not accurate, in a timely manner, and effectively, the error spreads. In the end, we have a very real situation that occurs in data centers: the technician who has to connect the communication cable faces a high degree of uncertainty about which actual port to connect to on the server or switch.
Finally, the old trick of trial and error is often used, a phone call to the server's responsible person is made, and real-time verification is performed to see if the cable being connected provides the expected service or not.
In our experience, this happens in about 80% of communication connections, data provided by many clients who felt they could improve their operations.
How can this be improved?
It's both simple and complex at the same time, aligning all departments under a process-oriented and integrated work approach that ensures that each step in the process provides the correct and complete information so that the next team can perform their task correctly and without uncertainties.
The foundation of this pyramid is total control over the information of the assets to be worked on, not just one piece of data, but everything needed for the process.
Standardizing names is also very important. Different departments cannot use different names for the same object. For example, we see that a piece of equipment has a label with one name, but someone changed the name in a database. The result is that when someone looks for the equipment they need to work on, they won't find it, and calls and rework will begin.
At Bjumper, we believe in simplicity. The simpler, the better. That's why we work to introduce work processes supported by simple technology to ensure that the work process is fulfilled, that the information is always up to date and, therefore, valid for planning jobs. Last but not least, everything has a unique name or identifier that eliminates doubts or uncertainties in job execution.
The most challenging part is changing people's work methodology because we tend to get used to doing things a certain way, and change is difficult. That's why we support the trend of using simple web and mobile applications for this type of work. These apps, which we use in our daily lives for shopping, banking transactions, and other leisure activities, help us make the leap to using technology for a much more efficient operation.
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