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Roles and Responsibilities
The following sections detail the various roles and responsibilities of IT personnel and support services typically included in the WCPA guide.
Internet Engineering
Internet engineering is the group responsible for operating the company's Internet access. In a large company, it's typical to have multiple, geographically separate routes from internal networks to the Internet, both for load sharing and reliability. Internet engineering is responsible for the principal external servers in the "demilitarized zone" (DMZ). The DMZ is that portion of the network that sits behind the first firewall but outside the main internal networks.
These are some typical responsibilities of Internet engineering:
Determining requirements for Internet connectivity
Contracting for ISP (Internet service provider) services
Installing and maintaining external web, FTP, and email servers
Installing and maintaining external DNS and other directory servers
Monitoring ISP performance and service-level agreements
Security Engineering
Security is a specialized topic that's called out separately in the WCPA. Typical responsibilities of security engineering include the following:
Designing and maintaining firewall complex, possibly in conjunction with Internet engineering
Working with Internet engineering to ensure security of all external servers
Working with network engineering to ensure security of all internal networks
Working with WebTone engineering to provide secure access through the firewall
Designing and implementing methods for remote user authentication and data encryption
Network Engineering
Typical responsibilities of network engineering include the following:
Determining internal networking requirements for WANs and LANs
Contracting with Telcos for WAN services
Installing and maintaining WAN and LAN routers, switches, and hubs
Determining impact of new applications on the network
WebTone Engineering
Here are some typical responsibilities of WebTone engineering (an internal engineering group):
Working with Internet engineering to hand off incoming and outgoing web, FTP, and email traffic
Installing and maintaining internal DNS and other directory services
Providing internal web server hosting
Designing and maintaining a network of internal proxy cache servers at strategic points on the corporate intranet
Technical Services
Typical responsibilities of technical services might consist of the following:
Determining physical location of all server equipment
Installing network connections and power
Installing hardware, including third-party equipment
Conducting preventive maintenance diagnostics on all equipment
Partitioning the disks during OS installation
Configuring OS-specific parameters
Applying any OS patches required
Assisting database administration with DBMS installations
Installing any unbundled software products, such as tape management, disk mirroring, etc.
Installing all required data center utilities
Configuring and maintaining system security
Monitoring system performance and capacity (CPU, memory, disk, network)
Managing backup tape integrity and storage
Providing on-call support, 24x7 or as specified
Performing disaster-recovery drills
Establishing end-of-life plans to deactivate servers and applications
Providing online availability statistics
Providing system tuning for peak performance
Performing capacity planning
Establishing network connections to LAN and WAN, including ISP (Internet service provider) connections
Providing and maintaining network databases such as DNS, LDAP, NIS, NFS, primary domain controller (NT), backup domain controller (NT)
Performing security audits; monitoring security access
Establishing user accounts and system (root) accounts
Monitoring all daily processing
Starting/restarting production jobs and applications
Scheduling all online and batch processing
Evaluating, developing, and implementing utilities and tools to support servers and applications in the production environment
Hardware Support
Typical responsibilities of hardware support include the following:
Supporting and resolving all hardware problems
Handling all preventive maintenance within the data center for mission-critical servers
Applications Support
These are some typical responsibilities of applications support:
Providing second-level application support as required
Working with technical services and database administration to resolve complex application problems