DS03 Process Description

DS03: Performance & Capacity Management

Description

Controls

KGI

KPI

CSF

Maturity Levels

1. Description

Data collection, analysis and reporting on resource performance, application sizing and workload demand.

2. Control Objectives

Availability and Performance Requirements - identify business needs regarding availability and performance of information services and convert into availability terms and requirements.
Availability Plan: ensure the establishment of an availability plan to achieve, monitor and control the availability of information services,
Monitoring and Reporting - continuously monitor the performance of information technology resources and report exceptions in a timely and comprehensive manner,
Modeling Tools - use appropriate modeling tools to produce a model of the current system which has been calibrated and adjusted against actual workload and is accurate within recommended load levels. Modeling tools should be used to assist with the prediction of capacity, configuration reliability, performance and availability requirements. In depth technical investigations should be conducted on systems hardware and might include forecasts concerning future technologies.
Proactive Performance Management - forecast capability to enable problems to be corrected before they affect system performance. Analysis system failures and irregularities pertaining to frequency, degree of impact and amount of damage,
Workload Forecasting - prepare workload forecasts to identify trends and to provide information needed for the capacity plan,
Capacity Management of Resources - review hardware performance and capacity to ensure that cost-justifiable capacity always exists to process the agreed workloads and to provide the required performance quality and quantity prescribed in service level agreements. The capacity plan should cover multiple scenarios.
Resources Availability and Scheduling - acquisition of required capacity, taking into account aspects such as resilience, contingency, workloads and storage plans,

3. Key Goal Indicators

Number of end-business processes suffering interruptions or outages caused by inadequate IT capacity and performance
Number of critical business processes not covered by a defined service availability plan
Percent of critical IT resources with adequate capacity and performance capability, taking account of peak loads

4. Key Performance Indicators

Number of down-time incidents caused by insufficient capacity or processing performance
Percent of capacity remaining at normal and peak loads
Time taken to resolve capacity problems
Percent of unplanned upgrades compared with total number of upgrades
Frequency of capacity adjustments to meet changing demands

5. Critical Success Factors

The performance and capacity implications of IT service requirements for all critical business processes are clearly understood
Performance requirements are included in all IT development and maintenance projects
Capacity and performance issues are dealt with at all appropriate stages in the system acquisition and deployment methodology
The technology infrastructure is regularly reviewed to take advantage of cost/performance ratios and enable the acquisition of resources providing maximum performance capability at the lowest price
Skills and tools are available to analyse current and forecasted capacity
Current and projected capacity and usage information is made available to users and IT management in an understandable and usable form

6. Service Maturity Variations

0 Non-existent	Management has not recognised that key business processes may require high levels of performance from IT or that the overall business need for IT services may exceed capacity. There is no capacity planning process in place.
1 (Initial/Ad Hoc)	Performance and capacity management is reactive and sporadic. Users often have to devise work-arounds for performance and capacity constraints. There is very little appreciation of the IT service needs by the owners of the business processes. IT management is aware of the need for performance and capacity management, but the action taken is usually reactive or incomplete. The planning process is informal.
2 (Repeatable but Intuitive)	Business management is aware of the impact of not managing performance and capacity. For critical areas, performance needs are generally catered for, based on assessment of individual systems and the knowledge of support and project teams. Some individual tools may be used to diagnose performance and capacity problems, but the consistency of results is dependent on the expertise of key individuals. There is no overall assessment of the IT infrastructure’s performance capability or consideration of peak and worst-case loading situations. Availability problems are likely to occur in an unexpected and random fashion and take considerable time to diagnose and correct.
3 (Defined Process)	Performance and capacity requirements are defined as steps to be addressed at all stages of the systems acquisition and deployment methodology. There are defined service level requirements and metrics that can be used to measure operational performance. It is possible to model and forecast future performance requirements. Reports can be produced giving performance statistics. Problems are still likely to occur and be time consuming to correct. Despite published service levels, end users will occasionally feel sceptical about the service capability.
4 (Managed and Measurable)	Processes and tools are available to measure system usage and compare it to defined service levels. Up-to-date information is available, giving standardised performance statistics and alerting incidents such as insufficient capacity or throughput. Incidents caused by capacity and performance failures are dealt with according to defined and standardised procedures. Automated tools are used to monitor specific resources such as disk storage, network servers and network gateways. There is some attempt to report performance statistics in business process terms, so that end users can understand IT service levels. Users feel generally satisfied with current service capability and are demanding new and improved availability levels.
5 Optimized	The performance and capacity plans are fully synchronised with the business forecasts and the operational plans and objectives. The IT infrastructure is subject to regular reviews to ensure that optimum capacity is achieved at the lowest possible cost. Advances in technology are closely monitored to take advantage of improved product performance. The metrics for measuring IT performance have been finetuned to focus on key areas and are translated into KGIs, KPIs and CFSs for all critical business processes. Tools for monitoring critical IT resources have been standardised, wherever possible, across platforms and linked to a single organisation-wide incident management system. Monitoring tools increasingly can detect and automatically correct performance problems, e.g., allocating increased storage space or re-routing network traffic. Trends are detected showing imminent performance problems caused by increased business volumes, enabling planning and avoidance of unexpected incidents. Users expect 24x7x365 availability.