Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT:
IT Ascent, Inc.
voice 800.620.5060
fax 415.321.1010
info@itascent.com
www.itascent.com
National Bank Implements Database Management Systems Best Practices
Charlotte – IT Ascent is utilizing Carnegie Mellon's Database Management System Capability Maturity Model (DBMS-CMM) in a major national bank located primarily on the East Coast. IT Ascent (ITA), headquartered in San Francisco, was brought in to manage the project. The goal is to bring industry Best Practices to their DBMS environment in order to have quantifiable quality process standards for measuring and improving the activities of their current DBA teams.
Known for its CMM methodologies, Carnegie Mellon has modules for everything from information security to human resources. The Software Engineering Institute created methodologies to help organizations have a real process around how they develop software applications, thereby allowing companies to reduce risk and prove predictability of how applications will function, come in on budget, under time, and meet other metrics.
While implementing CMM methodologies as an enterprise would be helpful, a solution structured specifically to a DBA team would be able to reap far more benefits than a general solution.
“It’s groundbreaking to use this existing methodology for this particular type of DBMS environment,” says Henry Choi, who is managing the project for ITA. “This project represents the first time the CMM industry standards have been applied to database administration. A team implementing Database Management System Best Practices (DBMSBP) could meet and exceed any metrics and expectations, and become the most process-driven, risk-adverse, DBA team in existence.”
Choi described how one of ITA’s employees activities coincided with the needs of a major banking company. This employee had been coauthoring a DBMS-CMM document with Carnegie Mellon for several years, and was approaching the final version.
Around the same time, a major national bank asked ITA to dictate best practices standards for their database environment, in order to improve process, reduce risk, meet service level agreements, and reduce downtime. They had been experiencing consistent problems in their DB applications, which were built on an Oracle 9i RAC, and wanted ITA to step in and perform an Environmental Assessment.
ITA studied the environment through interviews with database administrators (DBAs) and various groups that support and work with them, as well as a systems audit of current environment and native best practices. The challenge was not in managing one particular application, but the environment’s unusual “heterogeneous” nature. Four distinct database management systems (DBMS) – Oracle, Sybase, DB2, and SQL Server – were all being managed in one group.
By incorporating best practices from the four major DBMSs, as well as native best practices within the end client and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) methodology, ITA has generated a digital artifact to establish standards for the implementation, deployment and the subsequent enforcement of best practices for Database Administrators with designated DBA teams.
ITA has now completed the first phase of Best Practices documentation with the client. This artifact includes a report of the current state of the particular DBA group assessed, a systems audit report using the Ecora tool, Best Practices standards based upon DBMS vendor recommended standards, CMM methodology from Carnegie Mellon, and the native best practices utilized by the bank. The next step is to create a roadmap for incremental process improvements based on the generated Best Practices document.
While the roadmap is specific to the client, the new Best Practices documentation will soon be available to the public domain through Carnegie Mellon.
This will help other clients. However, according to Choi, “The trick is to implement [the Best Practices]. Ultimately, you’ll be a safer driver if someone teaches you than just giving you a car and a manual.” This will involve putting together a process improvement plan, training DBAs on CMM, and doing assessments for the client. “Not only have we helped create this document, but we can help this company, and many others, carry it through.”
ABOUT IT Ascent - IT Ascent is a premier IT consulting company with a flexible “person, team, project” approach that allows them to connect experienced consultants with positions at our more than 40 Fortune-ranked clients in the financial service, life science, technology and public sectors.
