Don't want to rewrite the book on runbook
June 21, 2010 11:10 AM Subscribe
Our company needs to create an application-level "runbook". We are an enterprise-level IT organization with no formalized documentation structure.
At the moment we are looking at building a custom runbook using SQL Server as a backend and Microsoft Access as a front-end, but the amount of time in doing this is immense. Is there a retail product that is set for us?
In brief, we are spending countless manhours determining the fields we need in our runbook, how to store it in SQL, how to build a front-end for it, etc. Our company would prefer some enterprise-level application that already has the database built, the fields selected from either Microsoft or ITIL based runbook documentation, and then we can spend our time actually documenting our systems rather than spending all this time on the documentation metadata.
A Google has shown nothing from any vendor with which I'm familiar, so I'm not sure how much to trust the products. What are there, and bonus points for you having actually worked with the system you mention.
Thank you!
In brief, we are spending countless manhours determining the fields we need in our runbook, how to store it in SQL, how to build a front-end for it, etc. Our company would prefer some enterprise-level application that already has the database built, the fields selected from either Microsoft or ITIL based runbook documentation, and then we can spend our time actually documenting our systems rather than spending all this time on the documentation metadata.
A Google has shown nothing from any vendor with which I'm familiar, so I'm not sure how much to trust the products. What are there, and bonus points for you having actually worked with the system you mention.
Thank you!
Apologies if this isn't helpful,but have you ever considered using a wiki? At my last several positions as sysadmin, I maintained full site and system documentation via a wiki (MediaWiki on apache, specifically). The most difficult part was coming up with the structure for the ToC, but that was able to evolve organically and things could be shifted and re-referenced elsewhere with minimal effort.
There's also loads of useful extensions to help with management of data.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 12:20 PM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
There's also loads of useful extensions to help with management of data.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 12:20 PM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Currently we are looking for all types of documentation, including customer contact information, scheduled job time, etc. So more than just a "downtime runbook".
And we need this to be fielded information on which we can report. We have too much ad-hoc formatted documentation, and we now need something we can merge on a database level with hardware-level automated data gathering. We need very structured data entry, which is not where a Wiki excels (unless there are mods that I am unaware of...)
A consultant would not be out of the question if said consultant had an out-of-the-box solution that could be quickly customized for our needs. This project has a very aggressive timeline measured in days, not weeks or months. So if a consultant had a tool that we could implement and then work with them on that would probably be suitable; if it's one of the longer "come in, evaluate your business" type things, we have already contracted with one leading national company, and that project ended up costing lots of money and not producing the results we needed.
posted by arniec at 12:32 PM on June 21, 2010
And we need this to be fielded information on which we can report. We have too much ad-hoc formatted documentation, and we now need something we can merge on a database level with hardware-level automated data gathering. We need very structured data entry, which is not where a Wiki excels (unless there are mods that I am unaware of...)
A consultant would not be out of the question if said consultant had an out-of-the-box solution that could be quickly customized for our needs. This project has a very aggressive timeline measured in days, not weeks or months. So if a consultant had a tool that we could implement and then work with them on that would probably be suitable; if it's one of the longer "come in, evaluate your business" type things, we have already contracted with one leading national company, and that project ended up costing lots of money and not producing the results we needed.
posted by arniec at 12:32 PM on June 21, 2010
BMC Atrium Orchestrator (used to be called BMC RunBook Automation)
Its a complex beast. You'd need at least days to get one process in there I would think, let alone an entire departments worth.
posted by Admira at 2:58 PM on June 21, 2010
Its a complex beast. You'd need at least days to get one process in there I would think, let alone an entire departments worth.
posted by Admira at 2:58 PM on June 21, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
On the other hand, you might be served by having a good, solid ITIL consultancy work with you. They'll be able to bootstrap you up, as they'll have a lot of runbooks in the can, and they'll have a lot of experience tailoring them to your local reality.
DISCLAIMER: While not my area, my company does a lot of ITIL consulting.
posted by kjs3 at 12:15 PM on June 21, 2010