Outsourcing Configuration Management: Where Service Providers Fit

Computerworld - Rather than face the problems of managing distributed desktops, many IT organizations outsource some functions, such as help desk or hardware break/fix assistance. But does outsourcing all elements of configuration management make sense? "We've seen very few clients who have been successful [with outsourcing everything]. The monitoring, the remote control, that makes sense. But outsourcers can't solve the politics around eliminating complexity," says Ronni Colville, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
"The political model ... is often the obstacle to getting things done, but it's usually easier for an outsider to get through those issues," counters Al Wasserberger, chairman and CEO of service provider Spirian Technologies Inc. in Chicago.
Among IT professionals, outsourcing some tasks is common, but some managers are willing to outsource more of the configuration management process than others. "We outsource in the larger sites the deployment of machines because the process is very straightforward. We don't outsource the packaging and imaging because we find that to be strategic," says Matthew Krieger, associate director of global network architecture services at The Reader's Digest Association Inc. in Pleasantville, N.Y.
Telecommunications provider Telstra Corp. takes a similar approach. "We have outsourced the day-to-day operations of the distribution, [but] we've kept the technology component inside Telstra. We thought that was too important to let that go to someone else," says Andrew Knight, national manager of infrastructure technology at the Melbourne, Australia-based telecommunications company.
In contrast, financial services company Putnam Lovell NBF in San Francisco outsources almost everything to Spirian Technologies. Putnam Lovell Chief Technology Officer Rodric O'Connor says he needed configuration management to improve stability and migrate to Windows 2000, but he couldn't justify the staff to administer a system for the firm's 150 employees and 25 applications. The arrangement includes off-loading the time-consuming application packaging process. "One nice thing about outsourcing is that you can establish [a service-level agreement] as to how long it will take to get a package back," he says. Spirian creates the application installation packages, sends them to distribution servers co-located in Putnam's four regional offices, and remotely manages those desktops.
Putnam's IT staff retains control over the actual deployment, triggering the distribution through a Web-based console. It also designs the baseline desktop configurations and application installation procedures that Spirian packages. O'Connor says outsourcing cut the time to deploy new machines by two-thirds and halved the desktop support workload. Internal preparation work was critical to success. "We had to define our processes," O'Connor says. "There was quite a bit of work on ourside in determining what we wanted."

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