Wednesday 6 February 2013:

"Understanding Infrastructure Configurations In an Enterprise"

- Configuration management isn't just for software!

Presentation lead by CMSG Committee Member David Cuthbertson, at BCS HQ, London.

It is not easy to understand the end-to-end impact of changes in technical infrastructure comprising data centres, networks, servers, storage, virtualization, applications, firewalls, etc. Each technical team typically develops their own approach and systems for managing their knowledge of infrastructure - often creating large numbers of spreadsheets! It's good practice to have a baseline before considering a change task, but how do you get a baseline across multiple locations and technologies?

Robert Cowham and David Cuthbertson (both CMSG committee members) will show how configuration management principles can reduce the workload and effort maintaining infrastructure documentation. Ideal for those either directly involved in IT infrastructure, or interested in the areas where it impacts their own work.

Areas to be covered:

• Data centres, networks, inventory, cabling, hardware and virtual build configurations.
• Mapping dependencies between physical infrastructure, hardware, applications and services and the supporting diagramming needs.
• Supporting change process needs for projects, operations and risk management.

The session will be about 75 minutes with time for questions and discussion. With networking afterwards as part of the normal BCS CMSG hospitality. Booking necessary, here.