Issue Escalation, Change Request, and Migration Processes

This article summarizes information for co-managed systems related to issue escalation, the change request process, and the migration of a system from ITS-Managed to co-managed.

Issue escalation

Issue Escalation refers to situations when an issue has been identified with a server that needs to be escalated to EI-TPS for additional triage or troubleshooting.  Examples may include issues that appear to impact the hosting platform, storage platform, or network.

Steps:

• Customer identifies an issue with their hosted system that they believe may be caused by some element of the hosting platform.
• Customer should first check the Help Desk Alert Page to ensure there is not a wider issue that has already been identified that may be impacting multiple hosted systems.  If there is an issue identified, it means that the team is aware of the issue and is actively working on a fix.  We respectfully request that you continue to monitor the page until it is updated with a problem resolution.
• If there is not an active issue being addressed, customers are encouraged to  open a help desk ticket providing as much detail as possible related to the issue.
• EI-TPS staff will take ownership of the ticket and investigate.  If a problem is identified in an element of the hosting platform, EI-TPS will work to fix the issue and will resolve the ticket.  If no immediate issue is found with the hosting platform, the EI-TPS staff may ask for additional clarifying information, reassign the ticket as appropriate if there appears to be an outside system impacting the issue, or recommend that the customer contact either their application vendor or a Specialized Application Services admin for additional support options.  This is done at the discretion of the EI-TPS staff.
• Ticket will be resolved or reassigned as the case warrants.

Change Request Process

Change Request means the process for requesting features of the service for which the customer does not currently have direct access, such as VM snapshot creation and rollback, DR restoration, and hardware configuration changes such as adding disk, CPU, memory, etc.  All requests for configuration changes or service items related to co-managed servers should be managed via a help desk ticket.

Steps:

• Customer identifies a need for change in resources or needs a service item such as a snapshot or rollback performed, that they cannot directly do themselves at this time.
• Customer opens a help desk ticket providing as much detail as possible, including server name, and detailed information as to the nature of the request.  A single ticket can be submitted for changes of the same nature that affect multiple systems, provided that detail is included in the ticket description.
• EI-TPS staff take ownership of the ticket and fulfill the request.  If there are questions or items that need additional clarity, the EI-TPS staff will work with the requestor to resolve these discrepancies.
• Ticket will be resolved and closed

ITS-Managed to Co-Managed Migration Process

This section covers the high level process for migrating a system from ITS-Managed to co-managed.

Steps:

• Customer identifies a desire to move a system of group of systems to the co-managed service.
• Customer notes this request via contact with a director of EI-SAS (Tom Neese), EI-CAS (Steve Troester), or EI-TPS (Dave Kelly).  Alternatively, customers can open a help desk ticket noting this request, and one of the directors will reach out directly to you to facilitate discussion.
• Customer and EI Directors work together to schedule discussion about timing, logistics, and other facets of the change.
• EI Systems Administrators prepare the systems for migration to co-managed service.
  • This may require several steps, including some that require customer input.  A Systems Administrator or Director will help coordinate this process and provide more detail, as it may differ slightly from system to system.
• Upon completion, the system is considered to be co-managed, and application management and other facets of the service are solely the responsibility of the customer.