Unit 13 - Assignment 1 - IT troubleshooting and repair PDF

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Unit 13 – IT Troubleshooting and Repair – Assignment 1 Muhammad Ali - 930185 Task 1 Security In an organisation like Furchester College it is vital having a number of security policies put in place, as it proves to be crucial to the college’s security. One security policy that Furchester College has in place and is mentioned in their Service Level Agreement which states that “all login and admin management is tracked, and password requests must be logged with your line manager”. This policy was put in place to ensure that all passwords kept were kept safe and secure. Other organisations also use different security policies, for example, in a customer support company, a security policy that they may have in their Service Level Agreement could be that “the administrator has disabled certain privileges for users”, for example users cannot download any files from the internet, unless they have gained permission from the administrator. This is to prevent any details of customers being exposed or deleted in case the downloaded file contains a virus. This is just another example of a security policy that may be issued in a Service Level Agreement.

Costs Like every business, Furchester College has a budget assigned to each department. The IT department is likely to be given a budget of around £100,000 a year. In the Service Level Agreement, the budget that is given will be used by the IT department to purchase any equipment that is used, like PCs, web servers, software, repair tools etc. It is crucial that the IT depart of Furchester College have the best possible equipment available to them, as this will directly affect how long it takes to resolve any hardware or software problems and will help the IT technicians to resolve any problems that occur quickly, if the IT department buys the right repair tools. If not and there is a problem that occurs with the PCs, for example, and it turns out that the IT department did not install the right software, it will cause a detrimental effect to all the users. Another issue that may occur if they spend all of their budget but do not spend it efficiently enough, for example if they buy too many PCs, when they should have bought better repair tools, it can cause an issue when it comes to the troubleshooting and repair process, they will find out that they do not have enough of the budget left to purchase better tools, should they find that their current equipment is not efficient when fixing any issues.

System downtime Systems downtime is when a computer or an IT system is not operational, offline, or unavailable. Some of the issues that system downtime can cause are hardware errors or even simple maintenance taking place. These issue(s) can be prevented if members of the IT staff have been following the correct procedures and policies, which are stated in the Service Level Agreement. System downtime can be harmful to Furchester College as it can result in them suffering a huge loss. For example, if the servers were to fail, this could potentially lead to members of staff in the college losing all of their data if none of it were backed up. If it were the case, that some of the Servers were down within the college and the IT technicians were called in to fix the issue, in order for them to perform maintenance they will need the systems to be down, but before they do this, they would always require approval from senior management so that they can go ahead with the maintenance. This will make sure that everyone in the college is aware that the computer systems at the company would be going down for a certain period of time.

Unit 13 – IT Troubleshooting and Repair – Assignment 1 Muhammad Ali - 930185 Disruption Disruptions are something that can be expected in a work environment like Furchester College. So for this certain procedures are put in place in order to fix any problem caused by disruptions and to try and minimise the impact that these disruptions can have on the organisation, these can be found on the college’s Service Level Agreement. For example, if a disruption occurs that affects the servers at the office, then the necessary procedure would be to back up all data so that no information gets corrupted or lost. The negative impact that the College can face if they do not have procedures like these put in place, then disruptions occur, therefore it can lead to a very big problem.

Resource allocation At Furchester College many resources such as printers, PCs, email servers etc. are needed to be correctly issued to the departments that require them. Specific resources must be placed in the allocated laces that need the resource, for example, the PCs will be allocated in the Computing department etc. This can be issued on the Service Level Agreement for the college. These resources also need to be maintained over a certain period of time, so regular checks and if a resource has a fault, it must be repaired. However, if too much money is spent on a single resource this will directly affect how much money can be invested into other resources. This can lead to the college not having enough money to spend on other key resources they need.

Prioritisation Everything at Furchester College needs to be prioritised so this means that all of the tasks that need to be completed are done so efficiently and does not take up too much time. In the SLA, there are 4 priority levels that are mentioned when it comes to resolving an issue and how it affects each and every person, within the college. Priorities 1 and 2 have the same impact, which would be that a minimal number of staff are affected by an issue. Priorities 3 and 4 have the same impact, which is that a moderate number of staff are affected and/or not able to do their job properly. Priority 5 is that the issue will have a massive impact on the college, which large number of staff are affected and/or acutely disadvantaged in some way. So, some examples of these would be that the problem that is the most serious, or is causing the most disruption at the office, is top priority so it is Priority level 5, then the second most important problem would be Priority level 4 and so on. If Prioritisation were not put in place, and there was a problem with the servers for example at the college, it could result in some of the less important jobs may be pushed further down the list, especially if more important ones keep appearing, meaning that they may end up not being completed. The benefit of prioritisation is that it allows the staff to know the order that jobs need to be done and that no time is wasted.

Unit 13 – IT Troubleshooting and Repair – Assignment 1 Muhammad Ali - 930185 Task 2 - Part A Priority 1 In the college’s Service Level Agreement it states that “Priority 1 incidents which have a college wide impact, should be treated as Major incidents”, this ensures that if a P1 incident occurs, then the staff would make sure that customers and senior ICT managers are informed. One example of a Priority 1 fault is a service is at risk owing to a threat or potential event e.g., virus alert, server failure, which will impact the security. Another example could be that a key service has failed or is degraded that could affect 20 or more users. As this is Priority Level 1 there are response and resolution times, which are listed in the Service Level Agreement, which go according to the priority of the incident. These are the following: Maximum response time, response target, maximum resolution time and finally resolution target. As stated on Furchester College’s Service Level Agreement the maximum response time for P1 is 15 minutes, the response target for P1 is 90%, the maximum resolution time for P1 is 4 hours and the resolution target is 90%. The urgency level for Priority 1 would be high, which would mean that the situation is critical and should be resolved quickly.

Priority 2 Priority 2 is where a major component of the college’s staff ability to operate is affected. This could mean that some aspects of the college can continue, but moving on, the problem can escalate to be a major problem. One example of a Priority 2 fault mentioned in Furchester College’s Service Level Agreement is if a “Web services has failed or is degraded, which affects only a single user rather than 20. Another example of a Priority level 2 is if a moderate number of staff are affected by a certain issue, say with email servers being down, so the staff at the college cannot email anyone. As with Priority Level 1 there are also response and resolution times (Maximum response time, response target, maximum resolution time and finally resolution target) for Priority 2 as well. For P2 the maximum response time for P2 is 1 hour, the response target is 90%, the maximum resolution time is 1 day, and the resolution target is 85%. The urgency level for P2 is that college deadlines are at risk, but the problem can be solved before it escalates any further.

Priority 3 Priority 3 is where an issue occurs in a part of the college, which is not necessary to resolve, but soon that small problem can escalate to impact the major parts of the college. One example of a Priority 3 fault which is mentioned in the college’s Service Level Agreement is that a “non-key service has failed or degraded impacting multiple locations or users”. Another example of a Priority level 3 is that a minimal number of staff are affected and/or able to deliver an acceptable service but this requires extra effort. As with Priority 1 and 2 mentioned previously there are also response and resolution times for Priority 3 (Maximum response time, response target, maximum resolution time and finally resolution target). The maximum response time for P3 is 4 hours, the response target is 80%, the maximum resolution time for P3 is 2 days and the resolution target for P3 is 75%. The urgency level for Priority 3 is Medium.

Unit 13 – IT Troubleshooting and Repair – Assignment 1 Muhammad Ali - 930185 Priority 4 Priority 4 is where there is a problem within a department but there are clear alternatives that you can do if that certain problem arises. For example, if the email servers are down for one user, the alternative would be to contact the person they were going to email via telephone/mobile. One example of a Priority 4 fault mentioned in the Furchester College Service Level Agreement is that a “non-key service has degraded, which impacts a single user”. Another example of a Priority 4 fault could be that if a member of staff cannot save any files on OneDrive, because the site does not work, then this can be resolved, as the staff member can copy the files onto a pen drive, in which it can be safe and when the site works again, the files can be uploaded onto OneDrive. As with the Priorities mentioned previously from Priority 1 to 3, there are also response and resolution times for Priority 4 faults as well (Maximum response time, response target, maximum resolution time and finally resolution target). The maximum response time for Priority 4 faults is 1 day, the response target for P4 is 80%. The maximum resolution time is 5 days and the resolution target for Priority 4 faults is 75%. The impact of Priority 4 faults is low, and the urgency is medium.

Priority 5 Priority 5 are faults which can cause minimal to no damage and are addressed when time permits or on a later date than the other 4 Priorities. One example of a Priority 5 fault that is mentioned in college’s Service Level Agreement is that “a non-key service has failed or is degraded affecting a single user”. Another example of a priority 5 fault is that a printer is not working, but it is only affecting one user, this problem can be resolved by the user connecting to another printer, until their own printer is repaired, but in a massive college like Furchester College, this would not cause a massive issue. As with all the previous Priorities mentioned throughout this whole task, there response times and resolution times for Priority 5 as well (Maximum response time, response target, maximum resolution time and finally resolution target). The maximum response time for Priority 5 faults is 2 days, the response target is 80%. The maximum resolution time for Priority 5 faults is 10 days and finally the resolution target for Priority 5 faults is 75%. The impact of Priority 5 faults is low, and the urgency of Priority 5 faults is also low.

Task 2 - Part B Copyright The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, is the current UK copyright law. It gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works the right to control the ways in which their material may be used. Normally the individual or collective who authored the work will exclusively own the rights. This impacts the troubleshooting ability of the organisation by making their own troubleshooting organisation they must ensure that they make their own unique company name. if they copy any other company’s name or logo, they could get prosecuted and the impact that will have on the company will be detrimental, as you could also end up paying a fine as well. And when creating your own company name/logo as by the Copyright Law you are always protected and that will stay unique to you. You can always mark your work by using the copyright symbol ©.

Unit 13 – IT Troubleshooting and Repair – Assignment 1 Muhammad Ali - 930185 Employment Law The Employment Rights Act 1996 is governed by the United Kingdom Act of Parliament, to systemise existing law on individual rights in UK Labour Law. Some of the main features of the current employment law is that every employee should get at least minimum wage, the hours of how long they are working for, that there should be no discrimination towards them, they are aware of health and safety law, they get holiday entitlements, basic training etc. The impact that this may have on the troubleshooting ability of an organisation, is that when troubleshooting is if the technicians require to open up a PC to solve the issue, then it should be the organisation’s responsibility to ensure that they are fully aware of the health and safety law, as mentioned as one of points on the Employment Law. So, the technicians must be aware of the risks, because if the technicians get electric shock or break something, it will be the company’s fault.

Health and Safety Health and safety in the workplace is governed by the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) which sets out the general duties that employers have towards their employees and towards members of the public. The employers of the workplace must ensure that each and every one member of the workplace is aware of Health and Safety and should be taught how to nullify the risks of getting hurt and how to solve them as well. Technicians should be given adequate training in what is required by the legislation and in how to protect themselves and fellow workers from harm. The impact that this may have on the troubleshooting ability of an organisation, is that the technicians that do troubleshooting need to learn the safe handling of equipment, to avoid back injuries while lifting or carrying heavy objects. So, this must be covered by the company when going through the Health and Safety laws with them.

Data Protection Act The Data Protection Act 2018 controls how your personal information is used by organisations, businesses, or the government. Everyone responsible for using personal data has to follow strict rules called 'data protection principles'. They must make sure the information is: used fairly, lawfully, and transparently. The impact that this has on the troubleshooting ability of an organisation is that when the technicians use the process of troubleshooting to resolve an issue on the PC, they must ensure that no personal information if the company is lost, as this could prove to be detrimental to the company, having to redo all of the sales made in the year, for example, which would be hard to calculate. So, they must ensure that the Technicians are fully aware of the Data Protection Act 2018 and all it is contents.

Unit 13 – IT Troubleshooting and Repair – Assignment 1 Muhammad Ali - 930185 Task 2 - Part C I will now mention some points of how Trend Analysis can be used to minimise of faults and incidents in the future. A trend is a craze that becomes popular for a short period, until there is another trend. Trend analysis is the widespread practice of collecting information and attempting to spot a pattern. In some fields of study, the term "trend analysis" has more formally defined meanings. The first way Trend Analysis can be used to minimise faults in the future, is to use error estimates. To decrease error levels, managers put in place error estimates into any forecasting data obtained. Error estimates show between minimum and maximum error ranges. These estimates are based on fluctuations in past performance and averages based on past data. Errors in forecasting become even more so likely when forecasting for a single item, such as a product, versus a group of items or products. These error estimates can help minimise faults in the future because it will give the IT technicians the idea of how certain issues always occur and to stop them from always occurring, they would have to find an end solution to stop the trend. The second way Trend Analysis can be used to minimise faults in the future is that trends are very easy to catch on, this means that a solution can be found before the trend becomes even more widespread. In management trend analysis it is most important for an organisation to predict the future outcome to the organisation. It gives the idea what will happen in the future. If the organisation will not track their cost or data, then they would lose money because it will help them to trade their money for profit. The third way Trend Analysis can be used to minimise faults in the future is that there should be records that are kept of all the problems that have occurred to customers, as this is vital for the success. This is because if a customer rang the company for a problem the company have dealt and encountered before they will know what to do, because of the records of previously resolved issues. However, if the company did not keep record of the problems, they have already encountered then they will have to start again, and the trend of the same problem will continue to escalate. This will take time and money and keep people on the phone longer and this is bad because people always want the best service.

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