Availability Management Level 2 Role

This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to manage the availability of inter-operating IT/technology systems, services and assets supporting an organisation, both during current operation, and in support of future needs and demands. 

 

Availability management is concerned with ensuring the reliability, maintainability, serviceability, resilience and security of individual IT/technology systems, services and assets and the effectiveness of their combined operation. It consists of both proactive and reactive management of availability. Availability targets are normally contained within Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and actual achievement against these forms an integral part of service reviews. 

 

Proactive management of the availability of IT/technology systems, services and assets supports service level requirements and ensure that potential issues can be dealt with before they interrupt availability. Thus, availability management activities may initiate changes to the IT/technology infrastructure to increase its stability and tolerance to faults. This is distinct from the definition of service level agreements, which sets the standards to be achieved and the retrospective review of IT/technology performance against these standards. 

 

Reactive management availability involves responding to incidents, problems and other events which may result in the unavailability of IT/technology systems, services and assets. 

 

Note: For each role it is necessary to subsume the knowledge and understanding statements from the role immediately below. 

You must be able to: 

 

Carry out routine availability management activities, under supervision 

 

P1 Correctly follow the procedures, tools and techniques that apply to availability management and their deliverables, under supervision

P2 Comply with any relevant legislation, regulations and external standards relating to availability management activities and their deliverables in own area of accountability 

P3 Comply with all change control mechanisms that apply to availability management and support activities, under supervision 

P4 Operate with reference to all relevant infrastructure architecture, designs, configurations and standards, under supervision and in line with procedures

P5 Assist others in the routine monitoring of the availability of IT/technology systems, services and assets, under supervision 

  

Gather and document information for the effective monitoring of availability management activities, under supervision

 

P6 Collate all relevant information relating to the availability targets for IT/technology systems, services and assets, under supervision, in order to inform action 

P7 Gather all relevant information relating to availability from service level management activities, under supervision, in order to inform action 

P8 Gather all relevant information relating to incidents, problems, changes and other events that may impact the availability of IT/technology systems, services and assets, under supervision 

P9  Accurately and completely document availability targets or IT/technology systems, services and assets, under supervision

Carry out routine availability management activities, under supervision 

 

K1 Use and apply the procedures, tools and techniques that apply to availability management activities and their deliverables 

K2 Operate with reference to: 

K2.1 organisational standards relating to availability management activities and their deliverables 

K2.2 infrastructure architecture, designs, configurations and standards 

K2.3 professional and ethical standards integrity and confidentiality during availability management activities 

K2.4 service levels 

K3 Comply with all relevant change control mechanisms during availability management activities 

K4 The role of availability management in: 

K4.1 supporting business operations and IT/technology service strategy 

K4.2 in service delivery/operations 

K5 What is meant by availability management and availability levels/categories 

K6 What is the relationship between availability management activities, the service lifecycle and the service catalogue and/or portfolio 

K7 What are the: 

K7.1 objectives of availability management 

K7.2 potential implications of IT/technology systems, services and assets being unavailable to customers 

K8 The fact that: 

K8.1 customer satisfaction levels with IT/technology is heavily influenced by the availability of the services that they require  

K8.2 particular individual IT/technology systems, services and assets may have differing availability requirements and targets associated with them 

K8.3 there are differing levels and categories of availability types       the availability levels of IT/technology services depend on the reliability of infrastructure products, services and equipment external providers of availability management services exist customers of IT/technology systems, services and assets, who rely on their availability, may be internal or external to the organisation