Creating a Plan for Putting Your Directory Service into Production

   

Creating a Plan for Putting Your Directory Service into Production

A good plan for putting your directory service into production covers a lot of ground. Unless the scope and audience for your directory service are extremely small, you should develop a detailed, written plan before putting your directory service into production. Everyone who will be involved in or directly affected by the rollout should participate in creating and reviewing the plan.

A good plan for putting your directory service into production includes five major parts :

  1. A list of resources needed for the rollout

  2. A set of prerequisite tasks that must be completed before the rollout

  3. A detailed rollout plan that indicates what needs to be done, the order in which you will do it, and who will be responsible for completing each task

  4. Criteria used to measure the success of the service

  5. A publicity and marketing plan

These five parts of the overall plan are discussed in detail in the sections that follow.

List the Resources Needed for the Rollout

One key to a successful rollout is to make sure that all the necessary pieces are in place before you bring up any services. Some of the resources you need to line up include

  • Directory service software, including appropriate licenses, support contracts, and any necessary documentation. Refer to Chapter 13, Evaluating Directory Products, for more information on selecting directory software.

  • Hardware, operating system software, and third-party software that will be used to deploy and manage your servers.

  • Other infrastructure elements, such as network connections, physical space for servers, uninterruptible power supplies , and systems to enforce physical security of your most important servers.

  • Directory management tools to meet the needs of those who manage the directory service. A combination of off-the-shelf products and custom tools developed in-house is usually needed.

  • Administrative staff who are responsible for the day-to-day care and feeding of the service. Their duties include supporting people who use the service, monitoring the service, performing backups , and being on call to respond to and fix problems.

Depending on the specifics of your own environment and the goals for your deployment, you may need additional resources. Create a checklist of all the required resources, and assign a responsible person to ensure that each resource is obtained before you expect the rollout to begin.

Create a List of Prerequisite Tasks

You should do several things before you start installing servers and rolling out your service. These prerequisite tasks include the following:

  • Create a directory service test bed that you can use to simulate server load, try out new versions of directory software, experiment with directory or application design changes, and so on. Ideally, this test bed should be completely separate from your production service (that is, located on a different part of the network, or using different server and client hardware). Sometimes hardware used in the piloting stage is used to create such a test bed.

  • Obtain the data you will use to populate your directory. This task may be difficult and time-consuming if the data comes from a source outside your immediate control. If you need to merge data from more than one source, obtaining the data and preparing it for use in your directory service will be even more time-consuming . Hopefully you worked out the procedures for this process during your directory service pilot; if not, now is the time to do so.

  • Obtain permission to publish the data in your service. For example, you may need to ask your Legal department to sign off on your plan for putting end- user or customer information in the directory service.

  • Coordinate the deployment of the directory applications that will use your directory service. Presumably these applications will be put into production shortly after your directory service is. Alternatively, they may already be in production, but the plan is to change them to use your service instead of a proprietary directory service or database. Either way, you will need to coordinate with the people who run the directory-enabled applications. Your own group may be responsible for some of the applications, of course.

  • Develop a complete set of well-documented, well- understood procedures for monitoring the directory service (see Chapter 19, Monitoring, for more information).

  • Develop a plan for performing backups, as well as a disaster recovery plan (see Chapter 17, Backups and Disaster Recovery, for more information).

  • Educate important stakeholders who are involved or interested in the directory services project and prepare them for the rollout. Important stakeholders might include your Human Resources staff, Telecom staff, Legal department, and so on. By informing these other groups in advance of your rollout, you avoid surprising them and can tell them whom they should contact if any problems or concerns arise.

  • Conduct appropriate training for support staff who will help directory users.

  • Conduct appropriate training for system administrators who will troubleshoot and resolve directory- related problems (see Chapter 20, Troubleshooting, for more information).

  • Create all necessary end-user documentation and online help.

  • Publicize the service.

Again, depending on your environment and your design, you may need to do additional things before beginning your production rollout. Create a checklist of all the prerequisite tasks and assign a person to be responsible for each task. Consider dependencies among the different tasks and make sure that you prioritize your efforts accordingly .

Create a Detailed Rollout Plan

Create a detailed rollout plan that indicates what needs to be done, the order in which everything must be done, and who is responsible for completing each task. This plan should include the following information:

  • A list of the people directly involved in the production directory service rollout, along with their primary tasks.

  • A list of the people indirectly involved in the rollout. This list should include people responsible for directory-enabled applications, Help Desk staff, and so on.

  • A series of tasks for bringing up directory servers. This part of the plan should include the order in which you will bring up the servers, as well as the person responsible for installing each one. For example, you might bring up one master server first, and then a second master, followed by three local replicas, followed later by seven remote replicas.

  • A series of tasks associated with bringing each directory-enabled application online. Do not plan to bring up all applications at once. A phased approach is safer and more likely to succeed.

  • A plan for ramping up the use of the service. If possible, gradually increase the service load by enabling more users and more directory-enabled applications. By doing so, you can more readily observe the system behavior and make appropriate adjustments before the service becomes overloaded.

  • A plan for distributing documentation to administrators, and then to end users.

  • A plan for training end users and administrators.

  • Strategies for dealing with problems that might arise, such as unanticipated software or hardware bugs . Typically such strategies are documented in the form of an escalation plan that lists whom should be notified about which kinds of problems, and what procedures will be used if critical problems are not resolved quickly. Be sure to gather the support contract information for your software and hardware vendors .

Depending on the scope of your service, there may be anywhere from a few to dozens of people involved in the production rollout. In either case, make sure that each person involved helps create the detailed rollout plan and that each person understands her role.

Develop Criteria for Success

While you're lining up all the resources you need, tackling prerequisite tasks, and developing your detailed rollout plan, you should also create a document that lists criteria you can use to measure the success of your directory service rollout.

If you already have goals for your directory service (as discussed in Chapter 6, Defining Your Directory Needs), use them to formulate criteria by which you can objectively evaluate the success of your production service. Don't be overly ambitious; it is probably sufficient just to jot down a few things you hope to accomplish. Here are some simple examples of production goals:

  • To support your most important directory-enabled application without causing any unplanned service outages

  • To respond to all directory-related questions from users within 24 hours of receiving them

  • To handle 100,000 searches per hour on your busiest server with no errors and an average response time of one second or less

  • To teach every administrative assistant in your organization how to use a new phone book application powered by your directory service

  • To get 50 percent of the people you trained on the phone book application to use it to change an employee's entry within the first month of your production service

It is best to keep your success criteria simple. Share the criteria with the other members of your deployment team so that everyone is aware of the big picture. Make sure that all the criteria are measurable; it is important to know whether you're meeting your targets.

Create a Publicity and Marketing Plan

Before you begin your production rollout, develop a publicity and marketing plan for your new directory service. Your two major goals in this area should be to make people aware of the new service and to encourage them to use it.

Publicity can take many forms. For a directory service aimed at people inside your organization, a few well-crafted articles for the company electronic newsletter or postings to appropriate discussion groups may be all you need. If your organization holds brown-bag meetings or any other type of training sessions on computing topics, sign up to lead a session or two to promote your new service and educate people about it. For a directory service aimed at people outside your organization, publicity and marketing will likely be handled directly through a Web site or by paper or electronic newsletters sent to partner companies.

Some topics you may want to cover when spreading the word about your directory service include

  • The basics of directory services and LDAP

  • Quick-start information on how to use the service

  • How your directory service is being used now

  • How you expect usage to grow in the future

  • What a great new online service your team has created and how people benefit from it

  • The extensive design and piloting work that was done by your team to prepare for a smooth production rollout

  • All the help your directory services team had from other groups inside and outside your organization (don't forget to say thanks!)

It is important to tailor your publicity and marketing efforts to meet the needs of the intended audience. In practice, this means that you may need to develop separate materials for end users, directory application developers, system administrators, executives, and so on.

If possible, enlist the marketing people who work for your organization to help draft your publicity plan and create appropriate materials. Also consider whether you're willing to serve as a reference customer for any of your directory software suppliers. By doing so, you may be able to generate some external publicity about your organization and foster a better relationship with the supplier.

In summary, the deployment of a production-quality LDAP directory service is a major milestone. Make sure that people know about it. There is nothing wrong with congratulating yourself and your team on a job well done while simultaneously raising awareness about your new service!

   


Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services
Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672323168
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 242

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net