Windows Azure Hybrid Cloud

9 Monitoring and Management for Successful Operations

IN THIS CHAPTER:

• Embracing change
• Unified monitoring
• Key management considerations

CHANGE IS THE NEW NORMAL

Working as a team lead of infrastructure in a live datacenter environment was an eye-opening experience. One of the first major lessons I learned was that it didn't matter how great the infrastructure runs if the business units and application owners it exists for are not part of the plan. Although I considered those servers my babies, I was not really their parent — I was just entrusted with them. I had to formulate a close relationship with the application teams and businesses they developed for in order to ensure the infrastructure my team was building and maintaining was in line with their needs and with the overall objectives of the corporation.

To that end, we implemented service delivery plans, which were basically binders documenting the application, the supporting infrastructure, and the overall plan for its well-being currently and in the future. This included SLAs, backup schedules, maintenance agreements, and so on. We met with application owners at least once per month to review, revise, and discuss. The IT department also decided to embark upon Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) training and implementation of some governance, such as change management. ITIL has received much attention and adoption over the past few decades; but as you know, the industry is undergoing a major overhaul. ...