Benefits of Documentation


Some of the benefits of documentation are immediate and tangible, whereas others can be harder to pin down. The process of putting the information down on paper encourages a level of analysis and review of the topic at hand that helps to clarify the goals and contents of the document. This process should also encourage teamwork and collaboration within the organization, as well as interdepartmental exchange of ideas.

For example, an Exchange Server maintenance document written by the Exchange administrator might be reviewed by the marketing manager who is concerned about the company's ability to send out emails to the existing and potential client base. The CIO should review the document as well to make sure that the maintenance process meets her concerns, such as meeting an aggressive service-level agreement (SLA).

Consequently, documentation that has specific goals, is well organized and complete, and goes through a review or approval process should contribute to the overall professionalism of the organization and its knowledge base. The following sections examine some of the other benefits of professional documentation in the Windows Server 2003 environment.

Knowledge Management

Quite simply, the right documentation allows an organization to better organize and manage its data and intellectual property. Rather than having the company's policies and procedures in a dozen places, such as individual files for each department or worst of all, in the minds of many individuals, consolidating this information into logical groupings can be beneficial.

A design document that details the decisions made pertaining to a Windows Server 2003 migration can consolidate and summarize the key discussions and decisions, as well as budgetary concerns, timing issues, and the like. And there will be one document to turn to if questions emerge at a later date.

Similarly, if a service-level agreement is created and posted where it can be accessed by any interested parties, it should be very clear what the network users can expect from the Windows Server 2003 infrastructure in terms of uptime or prescheduled downtimes.

A document that describes the specific configuration details of a certain server or type of server might prove very valuable to a manager in another company office when making a purchasing decision. The documents also must be readily available so that they can be found when needed, especially in the case of disaster recovery documents. Also, it's handy to have them available in a number of formats, such as hard copy, in the appropriate place on the network and even via an intranet.

Tip

Place documentation in various locations where it is easily accessible for authorized users, such as on the intranet, in SharePoint Portal Server, in Windows SharePoint Services, in a public folder, or in hard-copy format.


By simply having these documents available and centralizing them, an organization can more easily determine the effects of changes to the environment and track those changes. Part of the knowledge-management process needs to be change management so that, while the information is available to everyone, only authorized individuals can make changes to the documents.

Financial Benefits

Proper Windows Server 2003 documentation can be time consuming and adds to infrastructure and project costs. It is often difficult to justify the expense of project documentation. However, when looking at documents, such as in maintenance or disaster recovery scenarios, it is easy to determine that creating this documentation makes financial sense. For example, in an organization where downtime can cost thousands of dollars per minute, the return on investment (ROI) on disaster recovery and maintenance documentation is easy to calculate. Likewise, in a company that is growing rapidly and adding staff and new servers on a regular basis, tested documentation on server builds and administration training can also have immediate and visible benefits.

Well-thought-out and professional design and planning documentation should help the organization avoid costly mistakes in the implementation or migration process, such as buying too many server licenses or purchasing too many servers.

Baselining with Document Comparisons

Baselining is a process of recording the state of a Windows Server 2003 system so that any changes in its performance can be identified at a later date. Baselining also pertains to the overall network performance, including WAN links, but in those cases it may require special software and tools (such as sniffers) to record the information.

A Windows Server 2003 system baseline document records the state of the server after it is implemented in a production environment and can include statistics such as memory utilization, paging, disk subsystem throughput, and more. This information then allows the administrator or appropriate IT resource to determine how the system is performing in comparison to initial operation.

Using Documentation for Troubleshooting Purposes

Troubleshooting documentation is helpful both in terms of the processes that the company recommends for resolving technical issues, as well as documenting the results of actual troubleshooting challenges. Often, companies have database and trouble-ticket processes in place to record the time a request was made for assistance, the process followed, and the results. This information should then be available to the appropriate support staff so they know the appropriate resolution if the problem comes up again.

Organizations may also choose to document troubleshooting methodologies to use as training aids and also to ensure that specific steps are taken as a standard practice for quality of service to the user community.




Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Unleashed(c) R2 Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Unleashed (R2 Edition)
ISBN: 0672328984
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 499

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