System Management and Support

Understand system support, management and associated tools.

Live system management: configuring systems to support users and applications and secure the system, providing technical support to users, managing users, creating accounts, allocating passwords and setting access levels, monitoring of usage and identification of misuse, fault-finding, use of fault recording database, updating solutions to faults, setting up and running backup and restore procedures.

Security procedures: antivirus scans, firewall configuration o access control, configuring security policies o managing security patches and updates, management of software, centralised software rollout and updates, license management.

Drive management: imaging, drive mapping, network management, protocol and IP (internet protocol) address management.

System maintenance and disaster recovery: contingency planning to deal with major problems, strategic long-term planning of hardware and software developments, e.g. operating system upgrades, server hardware updating or expansion, formulating and updating a network code of practice, supervision and management of network staff, advising senior management, legal and ethical considerations.

Tools: servers and virtual PCs, cloud storage, mobile devices, laptops, desktops, bring your own device (BYOD), performance monitoring and management tools, provision of user desktop computing by various means, including server virtualisation with thin client computing and web-based applications, managing user support requests.

Assessment Criteria

• 1.1

  Explain the different activities involved in system management and support.

• 1.2

  Explain the tools that assist system management and support activities

Be able to plan the infrastructure for a system.

Management and support procedures: working with users to develop procedures for the management and support of systems, creating a code of practice, developing support request reporting and escalation procedures, installation and setup of support request database, agreeing a service level agreement, developing contingency plans, user support documentation, creation of security policies, access control and traffic management expectations.

User desktop interface: working with clients to develop a standard user desktop environment for installation on user PCs, including selection of operating system, applications, versions and settings to create desktop disk image, testing of the desktop image, defining user groups, user rights and security policies.

System planning: typical system requirements, taking into account client requirements and growth of the system, defining disk space requirements, quotas, drive mappings, network design, IP addressing, subnetting, backup procedures.

Assessment Criteria

• 2.1

  Produce a plan for managing and supporting a system to meet organisational requirements.

• 2.2

  Improve the plan in response to feedback.

Be able to implement and carry out system management and support activities.

Support activities: helpdesk and technical support, fault logging and management, communicating with users o routine support and repair tasks, analysis of support data to identify problem areas and trends, account management (user account creation passwords resets), setting and adjusting access and permissions, storage areas and limits.

Implementation activities: system configuration, (adjusting settings on server and client machines, usage monitoring, bandwidth, bottlenecks, storage, use of peripherals), software management, (patches, upgrades, security updates, new application rollout, software removal), device configuration (firewalls, routers, wireless access points, joining a mobile device to a network, disk configuration, creating network shared drives, creating user system disk images, setting permissions on folders, backup and restore.

System testing/optimisation: firewalls and access control rules, latest patches and known vulnerabilities, device hardening as required, management of system permissions, auditing the access rights of users.

Traffic optimisation: checking performance, under load, throughput and speed, identifying the contention (bottleneck) points and how these might be managed.

Assessment Criteria

• 3.1

  Implement a system to meet organisational requirements.

• 3.2

  Test the system to ensure it meets organisational requirements.

• 3.3

  Carry out system management and support activities and produce user and maintenance documentation.