CUSTOMER SERVICES Help Desk Support Services System Monitoring Remote Data Backup Managed Services Hosting Outsourcing
Copyright Notice This document and its contents are the property of CIBER UK Limited and should not be reproduced without the prior permission of CIBER UK Limited. 2
Contents 1 Welcome to Customer Services... 4 2 Support & Helpdesk Services... 6 3 CIBER Support Packages... 9 4 Managed Services... 14 5 Hosting... 18 6 Data Protection and Cloud Backup... 22 7 I T Outsourcing (ITO)... 23 8 CIBER Worldwide... 24 3
1 Welcome to Customer Services CIBER has been providing Information Technology solutions for 30 years and we fully appreciate how critical it is to ensure the smooth, day to day operation of our customers systems. That s why CIBER offers a complete range of support, managed and hosted Business Continuity Services to customers. As organisations become increasingly dependent on the use of IT to support all areas of their operations the IT landscape becomes ever more complex, with more products to contend with, more integration issues, more sophisticated communication needs and greater security considerations. All of this puts greater pressures on senior management and internal IT staff within our customer organisations as they try to ensure that their systems are not only meeting the company s ever changing needs but that they are up to date, compliant, available and secure, whilst delivering a consistent operational performance to all members of staff, wherever they may be. Within this landscape, many organisations are examining how they can lower costs, reduce risk, yet improve flexibility and scalability. Outsourcing services, hosting options, and cloud based computing all present opportunities for them to achieve these objectives. As a leading global provider of IT solutions and services, CIBER help its customers take advantage of all of these options and provide a complete range of service options to help them manage and support their systems more effectively in this modern landscape. Outsourcing services, hosting options, and cloud based computing all present opportunities for customers to lower costs, reduce risk, yet improve flexibility and scalability across their IT landscape. 4
CIBER Service Portfolio We have designed a range of services to meet almost every need. These span helpdesk services, proactive systems monitoring and management, hosting, Software as a Service (SAAS) and cloud computing from our own data centres, and complete IT Outsourcing services though CIBER s global ITO operations. Meeting your specific needs There is rarely such thing as a standard customer and most installations include a high degree of customisation, even when built on standard packaged software. CIBER builds a good knowledge of the customer s business, its people and the customised solution, to provide an effective support service. Proactive and pre-emptive All companies today rely on their IT systems and downtime can have a major impact on business performance. Reactive break/fix services are no longer enough for many organisations and proactive monitoring and management is essential to resolve problems before they affect the users or the business. Managed, Hosted or completely Outsourced Some organisations want to keep their systems in-house and simply require a back up to their own IT resource, but many are now looking to outsource some, or all, of the IT functions. SAAS and Cloud computing are growing rapidly and innovations in communications, hardware and virtualisation technology make this an attractive solution for many companies who prefer to focus on their core business and leave IT to the experts. Flexible Service Agreements Our aim is also to be flexible and if there are aspects of support or other services not covered in this guide, we are very happy to discuss individual requirements and provide a tailor-made service to customers. We will work with you to identify the profile of services which is most appropriate to your installation and provide you with a comprehensive support capability to ensure that you continue to maximise the benefits of your IT system at all times. 5
2 Support & Helpdesk Services Depth of Expertise Many CIBER customers have relatively complex implementations, often with multiple customised applications and integration to other software or data sources. Supporting these systems requires not only application knowledge and technical skills but also an understanding of the organisation s business processes and customisations. To deliver this service CIBER has teams of specialists with application, technical, development and service management skills. These teams are all UK based and through our staff development and recruitment programmes, we ensure that in all areas, we employ IT professionals of the highest calibre. Key Benefits Single point of contact via multiple channels: telephone, email and web Escalation to relevant CIBER specialists: Technical, Application, Development Escalation to third party providers (e.g. Microsoft / Sage / SAP) Common Knowledge Base Priority based SLA (Service Level Agreement) with automatic monitoring and escalation The CIBER helpdesk follows ITIL best practice for incident and problem management. With a single point of contact for all incidents, we determine the nature of the problem or query and assign the incident to the team with the appropriate skills. We can support your hardware infrastructure, database and applications, providing a seamless service and eliminating the potential for problems to fall between service providers. For those customers with their own IT expertise we can provide more tailored backup in specific areas. To provide this breadth of service, we have a number of specialist teams, supported by customer relationship management (CAM) and service delivery management (SDM) roles and backed by our extensive use of systems to provide a co-ordinated, responsive and high level service. A single point of contact for all incidents, the CIBER Help Desk diagnoses the nature of the query, assigns it to the team with the appropriate skills and co-ordinates a resolution 6
Single Point of Contact Our virtual team of support specialists is connected through integrated helpdesk and VOIP telephone systems across our private network. Through a single telephone number, email address or through our web portal, you can contact any of our staff in any location. We will determine the appropriate team to respond to your problem with automatic escalation through our helpdesk systems Application Support Our large team of application support specialists provide services across a range of industry leading packages from Microsoft, Sage and other authors as well as CIBER s own software solutions. This team provides both a helpdesk service and on-site support where appropriate. Technical Support Our specialists in Microsoft server based software, databases, networking and associated hardware provides a range of technical support, monitoring, database tuning and upgrade services. Development Support For customers using CIBER s own ISV developed software or customer specific development, our development teams can provide support services to identify and resolve problems. Customer Account Management CIBER provides a seamless service to support your hardware, infrastructure, database and applications At CIBER we pride ourselves on building long term relationships with our customers. All customers are assigned to a Customer Account Manager whose key role is to develop and manage this relationship. 7
Service Delivery Management For some customers, it may be appropriate to include the services of a Service Delivery Manager (SDM) in their support plan. The SDM will manage the transition phase from project to support before go live and will then act as a point of escalation and communication carrying out regular onsite service reviews. On Line Services To complement the telephone service our customers can also connect directly into our helpdesk system via the internet to log incidents, add or review incident notes or check the status of outstanding incidents. Hours of Cover CIBER helpdesk provides a standard support service from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. GMT excluding English public holidays. An extended 24 x 7 x 365 service is also available. Microsoft Support CIBER has been an established Gold Partner for Microsoft since 2000. CIBER has a Partner Advantage contract with Microsoft. This is the highest level of support provided by Microsoft to partners and allows CIBER to place incidents with Microsoft on behalf of its customers and obtain advice, and fixes to application errors with priority escalation for Dynamics products. Sage Support CIBER has been a Sage partner since 1988 and worked with all versions of Sage Enterprise Software from its early Chameleon business suite o the current day Sage Line 500 and Sage 1000. During that time it has been responsible for the implementation and support of over 300 major Sage installations and has a large and experienced Sage team supporting some of the largest Sage customers in the UK. 8
3 CIBER Support Packages CIBER s packaged approach enables us to configure a customer service agreement to deliver the combination of services that each individual customer needs. A support package may comprise some or all of the following activities: Service Initiation Most CIBER projects incorporate a range of standard products but they are often customised to meet individual customer requirements. Customers may also use the same software for very different applications and will have different support requirements and priorities as a result. Service initiation encompasses the handover of knowledge and development code from CIBER s project team to the support teams, service definition and preparation and service launch with the customer. During this process we:- Appoint a Service Delivery Manager who will oversee the transition from project to support and carry out subsequent service reviews. Train support staff to familiarise them with the customised software prior to each release moving into support. Carry out a handover of customised software code into development support prior to each release moving into support. Document support processes with the customer in an Operating Level Agreement (OLA) Launch the support service with the Customer to ensure lines of communication, responsibilities, SLAs and other terms of reference are clear. This process ensures that we can provide an excellent service from day one with a good working relationship and clear lines of responsibility. The CIBER Service Initiation process clearly defines the scope of services together with SLAs, responsibilities, lines of communication and other terms of reference 9
Help Desk Service Incident, problem and service management are delivered through the Helpdesk Service in which CIBER will:- Provide 2 nd and 3 rd line helpdesk support Provide the Customer with access to CIBER's helpdesk systems via the CIBER customer portal Respond to and progress all incidents placed with the CIBER helpdesk. Manage escalation to resolver groups or software authors as necessary. Work with other service providers to resolve issues where the cause of the problem is unclear or the responsible party is unable to provide a resolution without CIBER s assistance. Carry out regular service reviews at a frequency agreed with the customer 1. Standard Software Support Standard software support covers non-customised software for which CIBER will:- Provide 2 nd and 3 rd line support on the Software Replicate and use all reasonable endeavours to provide resolutions to Software problems. Diagnose and replicate any defects related to the Software. Escalate incidents where necessary to Microsoft under the CIBER Partner Advantage support contract. Escalate other non-microsoft incidents where necessary to the software author. Use all reasonable endeavours to procure hot fixes and service packs from Microsoft or other software authors. Test hot fixes and service packs within CIBER s Customer test environment before issuing them to the Customer. The CIBER Helpdesk provides access to full incident, problem and service management for customers 1 Time allocated to these reviews will be deducted from the Enhanced Service Credits 2 This service support applies to Dynamics CRM and SharePoint only 10
Customised Software Support Customised software support is for customisations and bespoke code developed by CIBER as part of a project for which CIBER will:- Maintain a copy of all customised source code within a controlled environment Provide 2nd and 3rd line support on the Customised Software Use all reasonable endeavours to replicate and provide resolutions to Customised Software problems. Use all reasonable endeavours to diagnose, replicate and correct any defects related to the Customised Software. Test fixes within CIBER's Customer test environment before issuing them to the Customer Test the Customised Software against standard hot fixes and service packs within CIBER s Customer test environment before issuing them to the Customer 3. SQL Server Database Support SQL Server Database Support is for any installation with at least one SQL Server database. The management tuning and performance of the database is always crucial to the operation of any system. CIBER will:- Provide 2nd and 3rd line support on SQL Server. Investigate performance issues and recommend maintenance or tuning actions to address them. Use all reasonable endeavours to diagnose and resolve errors related to the SQL Server software or advice the Customer if other action is required to resolve them e.g. data archiving, hardware or operating system changes. Escalate incidents where necessary to Microsoft under the CIBER Partner Advantage support contract. Use all reasonable endeavours to obtain hot fixes and service packs from Microsoft Test hot fixes and service packs within CIBER s Customer test environment before issuing them to the Customer N.B. For customers who purchase the CIBER remote monitoring services management package, SQL server database support is included. 3 Dynamics CRM and SharePoint products only 11
Operating System Support CIBER provides support for the following operating systems:- Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 Windows Server 2003 / 2008 Hyper-V Citrix UNIX (AIX, HPUX, SCO, UNIXWARE, Linux) N.B. For customers who purchase the CIBER remote monitoring services management package, operating system support is included. Hardware Maintenance The majority of customer organisations have infrastructure components from multiple hardware vendors. CIBER does not directly provide hardware maintenance but works with a number of maintenance partners, including all of the major hardware manufacturers. We then provide our customers with a single point of contact, triage potential hardware problems and manage the escalation to the appropriate maintenance provider to dispatch an engineer where necessary. Enhanced Service Credits CIBER Enhanced Service Credits are prepaid hours of service at a reduced hourly rate. They provide complimentary services that enhance the overall support service to the customer but are not covered by the standard product support charges. These hours may be allocated to a range of services including:- The CIBER Helpdesk responds to all customer incidents managing their escalation to resolver groups or primary software authors as necessary Service Reviews Investigation of issues where the cause is unclear and is found not to relate to the Supported Software 12
Working with the Customer or with third parties to endeavour to resolve operating system, hardware or network related issues Assistance in the restoration of application and / or database to working state following hardware or other failure not due to failure of the Supported Software. Application of hot fixes and service packs to the production environment if requested to do so by the Customer Any actions identified through remote systems monitoring e.g. adding or re-building database indexes will be deducted from service credits. On site call out Remote Consultancy: namely telephone access to CIBER consultants for ad hoc advice not covered by the Support Services 13
4 Managed Services Systems and Application Monitoring Most organizations of any size have complex computing environments with multiple applications running on a multiple servers and databases. Many of these applications are mission critical and even those that are not may result in significant disruption if they fail. Effective management requires monitoring of the hardware and software in the environment, keeping track of everything from application availability to disk utilization. Administrators must also have the knowledge and ability to respond intelligently to the information that monitoring them produces. Whenever possible, this response should avoid incidents by addressing underlying problems, pro-actively, before something fails. Without tools to automate this process, monitoring is a difficult, and time consuming task and is therefore rarely carried out consistently. In practice, it is often users who report errors before system administrators are aware that something has failed. CIBER uses Microsoft s System Centre Operations Manager tools to proactively monitor and manage its own data centre infrastructure and applications including all hardware, operating systems, databases and applications. By remotely connecting to customers in-house, premise based systems, we can bring the benefit of best practice monitoring and management to customers who do not have the capability to do this themselves or who want to focus their own IT resource on delivering new functionality to their business. CIBER offers a range of Managed Services which can be tailored to meet customer requirements as follows:- CIBER can bring best practice system monitoring and management to customers who do not have the capability to do this themselves 14
Monitoring and Advice CIBER monitors remotely and advises the customer s own IT team if action is required. The action is then carried out by the customer. For example, CPU% utilisation on the database server is rising due to fragmented indexes. CIBER recommends rebuilding indexes and updating statistics and this action is then completed by the customer. Monitoring and Administration CIBER monitors remotely and advises the customer s own IT team if action is required. The customer then instructs CIBER to carry out the action following internal approval. This is the same as the above example, but having agreed that the action is necessary, CIBER will carry it out for the customer. Monitoring and Management CIBER monitors remotely and carries out the necessary management tasks. With prior approval from the customer CIBER can affect the necessary action, in this case, rebuilding the indexes, only requiring us to inform the customer if it will result in user downtime. Avoiding unforeseen downtime A simple, but common, example of the benefit of Systems and Application Monitoring is where CPU % utilisation on a database server is slowly increasing. This may not initially impact on performance but if the trend continues unaddressed, the server will begin to hit 100% utilisation and severe performance degradation could result. Without monitoring in place, that trend will not be identified until users report application performance problems and the application may become unusable. A critical incident is raised and administrators or support staff begin investigating the cause of the slowdown. With little information, other than the system is slow they have to check potential causes manually, including network, hardware, application and database, eventually identifying the database as the most likely cause. They must then investigate why the database is slow, without the benefit of any historical information, and then take the necessary action to resolve the problem. During this time a critical system may be unavailable to users resulting in loss of business to the organisation. Regular monitoring highlights this trend before it impacts on user performance. Historical data and knowledge base tools are available to help identify the cause, as well as potential corrective actions to resolve the problem. This ensures that the problem is identified and corrected before it affects the business. 15
Microsoft Systems Centre and Management Packs Microsoft Systems Centre Operations Manager (SCOM) maintains a data repository of all system components including Servers, Operating Systems, Databases and Applications. The management console provides a consolidated view of all of these components in a single interface together with reporting and a command shell. This enables the status and health of the whole system to be monitored and managed centrally by providing:- Computer and Application health displayed in one central view for all components. Critical alerts allowing drill down to problem analysis and knowledge base for rapid resolution. Warnings showing recommended actions to prevent problems developing into critical incidents. Management Packs contain the specific monitors, rules, views, knowledge and reports for each component. All or specific individual components can be monitored and managed by combining Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager and the appropriate management packs. Management Packs, Critical Alerts and Warnings are immediately visible and accessible via the Management Console Management packs are available for all Microsoft operating systems, databases and applications including Dynamics CRM, SharePoint and Dynamics AX. Many hardware and software vendors also provide management packs including HP, IBM and SAP. CIBER also develop management packs to monitor products where the author may not provide a pack and for custom developed solutions. 16
In addition to providing error alerts and warnings, each management pack also monitors the status health and performance of the key services and indicators specific to the component or application it is monitoring. It also provides knowledge base and management tools. This example of the SQL Server management pack shows a summary of the capability and scope that this gives. Sage Managed Services While Sage does not provide management packs for its applications, CIBER have combined our Sage and Microsoft expertise to develop a management pack monitoring all of the key components and services within Sage 1000 and Line 500 environments. This allows us to offer proactive monitoring and management services to our Sage customers. Key Benefits of CIBER Managed Services Our investment in the Microsoft System Centre toolset and our highly skilled staff CIBER deliver SCOM monitoring as a service from our hosted environment providing best practice system management and proactive monitoring at a fraction of the cost of building this capability in house. The SQL Server Management Pack illustrates the power of SCOM as a management tool The key benefits that this brings to our customers include:- Improved System Availability and reduced downtime Improved System Performance The Business can focus on core operations IT staff can focus on business improvement and development with less time spent managing existing systems 17
5 Hosting Infrastructure hosting has been available for many years with servers hosted in secure data centres but service levels have largely focused on hardware availability, ensuring that the servers are up and running with minimum downtime and most infrastructure hosting providers have little or no knowledge of the applications running on those servers, other than standard email or office applications. The advent of Cloud Computing has also brought access to applications over the internet, hosted on shared platforms but whilst this provides simple and rapid access to applications such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM or SharePoint, users are typically limited to standard functionality with very little capacity to customise the application to their needs. The majority of organisations nowadays are looking for something more. They need applications that are customised to meet their specific requirements and it is the reliability and performance of these critical applications that is crucial to their business performance. The availability of the underlying infrastructure is an expected pre-requisite. When combined with CIBER consultancy, support and monitoring services, our application hosting delivers the benefits of cloud computing with applications customised to meet our customers specific needs, managed and supported with a focus on the performance and availability of the applications, all from a single supplier. CIBER provides hosted and managed applications from its primary UK data centre in Highbridge (Somerset) with disaster backup available from our secondary data centre in Bilbao (Spain). Further CIBER data centres are located in the USA (Staten Island, Edison NJ, and Phoenix) and Oslo (Norway) providing extensive options for our international customers. Within the CIBER UK data centre, we have a large server farm running Windows 2008 and Hyper-V and top of the range EMC SANs (storage area networks) from which we CIBER can combine consultancy, support and monitoring services, together with hosting, to deliver the benefits of cloud computing with applications customised to meet customers specific needs 18
can allocate storage as a service. Utilising Microsoft virtualisation technology on dedicated physical servers, the server farm is designed as a cost effective solution providing customers with rapid provisioning of the state of the art resilient infrastructure for private cloud applications. This environment is fully managed by CIBER using Microsoft System Centre toolset. CIBER s Data Centre high availability, high Performance and highly secure Purpose built Tier III+ data centre and cable landing station In operation as submarine station since 2001 Data centre facilities built out in 2007 Undergone SAS-70 Type II, CFR 21 Part 11, and SAP audits 4,800 sq. ft. dedicated room Concrete slab construction Power Mains street power provided via Western Power ring Dual power switching gear Two (2) 2.5MVA Diesel generators In-room capacity for 3 rd generator Prewired connector for external generator Six (6) 400KVA UPS banks n+1 each feed Installed in 2 fire-barrier separated rooms Thorough maintenance and testing programme including on-site load generation bank Diversely fed A+B power per rack Since opening in 2001, power has never dropped to the racks Overhead cabling to simplify maintenance and inspection Hot and Cold Isle design Cooling designed for 130% of sustained max load Each rack has diverse fed full power (A+B) +3.6KVA / rack design with ability to grow to 7KVA Operated by CIBER s Global Managed Service Team Fire Detection and Suppression Each room in the facility is physically isolated by fire barriers within the building VESDA detection at each rack and each HVAC inlet 2 nd level laser smoke detection at the ceiling Heat detection at various points within the suite Inergen Gas suppression on: Data suite Network room Battery rooms LV switch room Dry-pipe dual zone pre-action water backup One of the UK s strongest fire detection and suppression systems 19
Physical Security Controlled facility access through remote control main gate Integrated with central ticket system to gain gate access 360 degree CCTV monitored on-site and 2 remote locations On-site security Card proximity readers to gain facility access and move between building sections Biometric access to CIBER suite Digital video recording from within suite of all access points Resilient Connectivity Geo-diverse connectivity to multiple carriers VSNL Diverse routed fibre to Stratford and Docklands Additional fibre run to Cornwall Diverse routed transatlantic fibre to USA Diverse routed fibre to Western Europe, Spain, Portugal On-net fibre to 260 points on the globe from one carrier Cable and Wireless fibre BT fibre Connectivity between Data Centres Gigabit Internet available in the facility today Multiple fibre rings to connect the data centres Diversely routed fibre connectivity between Data centres Secondary backup fibre CIBER managed MPLS network between all facilities 20
Storage on demand Availability CIBER provides storage as a service, eliminating upfront capital investments Capacity on demand service provides flexibility to address both growth and short-term project needs EMC Best in class storage for reliability Proven track record of performance over last decade All connections made via resilient (dual) fibre Multi-tier storage available: Tier 1 15K FC drives for performance and reliability Tier 2 9,600K FC drives for cost efficiency Tier 3 Archival Spin-down drives VTL (replicated to DR site) available for off-site storage 21
6 Data Protection and Cloud Backup All customer data hosted by CIBER is protected using Microsoft Data Protection Manager with the option of daily offsite backup to Iron Mountain. This provides both secure and flexible backup and recovery within our own data centre(s) and the added security of offsite storage via the cloud to the world's leading provider of information management services for data protection and recovery. Through our partnership with Microsoft and Iron Mountain, CIBER can also offer the benefits of Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) and cloud backup for critical data to customers with on-site systems. CIBER install a data protection / gateway server on your site and work with you to configure DPM to meet your backup needs. DPM then backs up your data automatically to the on site server and securely stores critical data offsite at Iron Mountain s Data Centre. The benefits of this solution are:- Dramatically reduces the time to backup data Simple restore down to file level Flexible backup retention period Automated offsite data protection for critical data with flexible retention, and restore. Removes the labour intensive procedures and cost of managing tapes and secondary storage When combined with our system monitoring service this provides an automatic and secure backup solution remotely monitored by CIBER to ensure that your critical data is always backed up and secure. The Data Protection and Cloud Backup service provides automated off-site backup to Iron Mountain's Data Centre 22
7 I T Outsourcing (ITO) For organisations looking to outsource their entire IT operations CIBER s ITO division can provide full IT Outsourcing on a global basis with data centres in the USA, UK and Europe and follow the sun services from over 800 dedicated staff. CIBER offers numerous information technology outsourcing (ITO) services, such as the following: Help Desk Services Desk Side Support Data Centre Operations Networks, Systems and Applications Monitoring CIBER ITO has been ranked among the top ten global outsourcing vendors, according to The Black Book of Outsourcing, a customer experience survey analysing more than 4,000 outsourcing vendors around the world. The Black Book of Outsourcing survey, conducted annually by Brown-Wilson Group, a Clearwater, Fla.-based research firm and consultancy, aims to identify the 50 best-managed global outsourcing vendors as well as identify rankings for specific capabilities and within vertical industries. CIBER was ranked #10 among Best Managed Outsourcing Vendors globally and #1 in Infrastructure for Mid-Tier Enterprise Wide Traditional Infrastructure Outsourcing. CIBER s IT Outsourcing division has been growing and expanding dramatically over the last 5 years. CIBER delivers a robust set of mature offerings that span the entire spectrum of infrastructure and IT operations services. CIBER s ITIL and ITSM compliant processes, our investments in tools and people, and our broad geographic footprint enable quality and global delivery on a 24 x 7 basis. Our clients realize the benefits of our cost-effective enterprise-level services combined with our very flexible and close-to-the-customer relationship management and governance strategies. Our services minimize your risks, maximize your flexibility, and drive ROI improvements throughout your entire organization. 23
8 CIBER Worldwide CIBER is a leading global provider of IT solutions and services. The company is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:CBR) with annual revenues in excess of $1bn. Our 8,000 employees serve customers across the globe from over 70 offices in 19 countries. Supporting the complete life-cycle of an IT solution CIBER designs, develops, implements and supports solutions based upon market leading applications and technology from leading vendors providing a full range of services to help customers manage all aspects of the life cycle 24
For further information: Marketing Department CIBER UK 2 Watling Drive Hinckley Leicestershire LE10 3EY Tel: +44 870 0000 204 Fax: +44 870 0000 205 Email: enquiry@ciber-uk.com www.ciber.co.uk 25