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Publication Date: May 10, 2001

Research Brief

Sustainable Infrastructures: A Framework for Software

Support ServicesAbstract: This Research Brief focuses on trends that are driving the market for high-availabilityservice offerings, a framework that defines effective software support services and recommendations for software publishers and their service organization.

By Bob Igou

Key Business Issues

What steps do emerging professional services need to take to be successful?

What are the business models, resource requirements, and go-to-market strategies andinvestments required to take advantage of these opportunities?

Recommendationss Service providers need to address the needs that midmarket organizations have for

high-availability solutions and services that scale down to the size of their applicationinfrastructure and affordability level.

s Service providers need to acknowledge the concept of services interoperability andapply it to high-availability and mission-critical service offerings.

s Software vendors need to consider the framework for software support services so thatthe product and service combination results in the best possible customer experience.

Causes of Downtime for the IT Infrastructure

Hardware failures account for one quarter of all unplanned down time, software for about another quarter, and the network for slightlymore than one fifth of unplanned down time. Human error was reported as the cause for just over 15 percent of all unplanned down time.Environmental factors, such as natural disasters, account for the remaining 14 percent.

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2 Sustainable Infrastructures: A Framework for Software Support Services

©2001 Gartner, Inc. May 10, 2001

IntroductionThere is increasing d ema nd for high-availability and mission-critical serviceofferings in ord er to sup por t IT infrastru cture. This Research Brief focuses ontrend s that are d riving this ma rket, a framew ork that d efines effectivesoftwa re sup port services and recommend ations for service provid ers. These

recommend ations apply to all organizations in the software p rodu ctcompan y, not just th e service organ ization.

Business Trends

Demand Drivers for High-Availability ServicesGartner Dataqu est research reveals that a nu mber of factors are driving thedema nd for high-availability and mission-critical services. First, e-businessinitiatives have created an un bound ed, nonstop bu siness, and by exposingcritical business pr ocesses on the Intern et the need for high-availabilityapp lication en vironments h as increased. For some companies, the Internet-

based solution is the bu siness, and withou t it there is no bu siness. Thedefinition of mission-critical is simp lified to includ e any thing th at can block the ability to do business. Gartner Dataquest r esearch sh ows th at IT decision-makers are classifying more applications as mission-critical than in previousyears. This year, more respond ents considered the top four systems to bemission-critical than in last year's sur vey. Compar ing surv eys across the tw oyears, more than half of the systems have closed th e gap between ha ving itoper ationa l and consid ering it mission-critical. Also, the imp ortan ce of highava ilability increases in d irect correlation w ith comp letion of e-businessinitiatives.

Packaged softwa re ap plications, such as customer relationship man agement

softwar e, have enabled sma ller organ izations to op erate a comp lexapp lication environm ent that w as previously within the reach of only largeorganizations w ith extensive app lication d evelopm ent staffs. High-availability services are paralleling the evolution from the mainframecompu ter to smaller d istributed comp uting environm ents. Although the costof comp uter hard wa re fell, the cost of services associated w ith its supp ort d idnot fall proportionally, and prod uct margins were squeezed . As morepow erful application environments reach the midm arket organizations, theexpense of high-availability services mu st be scaled dow n to m eet the buy ingcapabilities of this mar ket.

New Entrants in the High-Availability MarketSurv eys of IT decision makers th at identify the comp onents of a mission-critical environment indicate that the list of components has expan ded toinclud e the entire infrastructure stack. Previously, the infrastructure stack wa s defined as the har dw are, softwar e (server-side and desktop) andnetw ork layers. Storage devices, operations mon itoring an d man agementsystems, and telecommu nications systems ar e the latest entrants, along withthe Linu x operating system, which was n ot pr eviously seen in the m ission-critical arena.

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4 Sustainable Infrastructures: A Framework for Software Support Services

For More Information. . .In the United States: +1-203-316-1111In Europe, the Midd le East and Africa: +44-1784-488819In Asia/ Pacific: +61-7-3405-2582In Japan: +81-3-3481-3670Gartner Interactive http:/ / www.gartner.comReproduction of this publication in any form without p rior written p ermission is forbidden. The information containedherein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy,completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in theinformation contained herein or for interpretation thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of thesematerials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.©2001 Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. 97844

s Automated diagnosis — When a problem occurs with software, the firstline of sup port shou ld be autom ated d iagnosis by matching thesymptoms w ith know n bu gs and resolving them through network-basedpatch d elivery.

s Single-click support engagement — Engaging the approp riate sup portresource needs to be invoked in a consistent, convenient and read ily

obvious mann er, such as icons for sup port or hard war e buttons on thekeyboard.

s Highly complete knowledge base — Internet-accessible knowledge basesfor find ing solutions need to cover all previously d iscovered p roblems.Problems previously reported bu t not captured represent lost costsavings for the vend or and decreased pr odu ctivity for the softwar e user.

s Problem-resolving help desk staff — Once the softwar e problem requ ireshu man interaction, it demand s staffs that ha ve prod uct expertise,custom er interaction skills and th e skills to isolate the cau se of a problemand provide a solution.

The avenu es to create high availability in the softwar e environmen tencompass all aspects of this framework to achieve pr odu ct robustnessthrou gh elimination of problems in the design, deployment and use of theprod uct and rap id resolution of problems.

This research is part of a broad er article consisting of a n um ber of contemporaneously p rod uced pieces. See ITSV-WW-DP-0045 for an ov erviewof the article and links to related p ieces.