The Standards and Procedures Manual has been constructed to define the STANDARDS used to perform functions within the data processing environment and to define the PROCEDURES to follow when performing these functions.

B. Definition

Standards are used to define the quality of an operation, while procedures are used to instruct personnel on how best to perform the operation. Many times, procedures are used to insure that all information needed to support an operation has been supplied and that personnel have been notified of a pending operation. This task is accomplished through authorization signatures, or routing information to specified personnel.

1. Examples of Use

a.) When a new application is constructed, Operations personnel are informed of the application’s need for scheduling and data processing resources. If the operations staff was not informed, then required resources may not be available to support the applications needs. The Standards and Procedures Manual provides application development personnel with guidelines on how to order data processing resources and to instruct operations personnel on application scheduling requirements.

b.) When a mission critical business application suffers an error condition, and Operations personnel do not know how to interpret error messages (because they were not documented in a Job Runbook), then it would not be possible to intelligently perform restoration and recovery operations for the application.

C. Mission

Data processing standards are formulated from legal and regulatory requirements that are both industry and business based. Once the standards that a company has to adhere to are formulated, procedures are established to guide personnel through the process of achieving tasks -- while insuring that regulatory and business requirements are met. Standards and procedures are also constructed to improve operating performance and to reduce personnel efforts associated with performing functional responsibilities.

The Standards and Procedures Manual has been constructed to provide personnel with instructions and guidelines that will assist them in performing their functional responsibilities.

D. Functional areas

The Standards and Procedures Manual was originally constructed during a transition period. During that period, the sections of this manual were formulated based on the Systems Management and Controls (SMC) deemed best to be used to safeguard the data processing environment. These System Management and Controls disciplines are:

1. Inventory Management;

2. Configuration Management;

3. Capacity Management;

4. Performance Management;

5. Service Level Management;

6. Batch Management;

7. On-Line Management;

8. Recovery Management;

9. Problem Management; and,

10. Change Management.

The remaining sections of the Standards and Procedures Manual are devoted to describing the above SMC disciplines. The chapters of the Standards and Procedures Manual correspond to the numbers provided above.

E. Organizational Structure.

The Systems Management and Controls disciplines are divided into the following organizational structure:

Figure 1: Systems Management and Controls (SMC) organizational structure

The branches of this organization chart represent related disciplines. Batch and On-Line Management relate to the process of migrating applications to the production environment; Service Level Management involves - Inventory, Configuration, Capacity and Performance Management, while Recovery Management encompasses EDP Security and Vital Records Management, Problem and Change Management are responsible for identifying problems and impletmenting alterations to correct identified flaws.

F. Objectives

The process of developing and migrating applications to the production data processing environment is illustrated below.

Figure 2: Overview of SMC Disciplines

From the above illustration, it is easy to see that defining Standards and Procedures is essential for safeguarding mission critical business applications, since the data processing environment is so complex. Usually, end goals and deliverables are defined and then standards and procedures created to insure that regulatory and business requirements are met. Once formalized, these standards and procedures are defined in the Standards and Procedures Manual.

G. Scope

It has been decided that the Standards and Procedures Manual (S&P) will reside on a Local Area Network (LAN) file and that the Microsoft Word for Windows product will be used to create and maintain the S&P Manual.

By following this methodology, it is possible to allow the general public to view the Standards and Procedures on-line (Read Only access). Personnel responsible for maintaining S&P Manual sections will be allowed to update their sections on-line (Read/Write access).

Figure 3: Standards and Procedures LAN Repository

The above illustrates how the S&P Manual resides on the LAN. It also describes how the S&P Manual is read by the general public and updated by section maintainers.

H. Maintaining the Standards and Procedures Manual

The Master Document facility of Microsoft Word for Windows constructs and maintains the format for the Standards and Procedures Manual. Based on OLE 2.0 (Object Linking and Embedding - allows for the insertion of various manual sections through concatenation), the Master Document allows for the insertion of sub-documents in a predefined order (like chapters of a book).

The Master Document generates the Table of Contents, List of Figures and Index sections of the S&P Manual automatically (provided Word guidelines are followed).

Figure 4: Maintaining the Standards and Procedures Manual

By following this methodology, each section of the S&P Manual will be maintained by the person(s) responsible for supporting the SMC discipline, or functional area, described within the S&P Manual. Periodically, a new hardcopy printout of the S&P Manual will be created, but normally the S&P Manual will be viewed on-line.

I. Contents of the S&P Manual's sections

The S&P Manual's sections are all constructed to address the following topics:

Figure 5: Contents of the S&P Manual's Sections

By requiring that the above topics be addressed (as a minimum requirement) within the Standards and Procedures Manual, it is guaranteed that sufficient information will be provided to supply personnel with adequate procedures to follow for achieving company standards.

Additional information regarding S&P Manual topics is provided as needed to fully define functions and procedures.

II. Standards and Procedures Manual Contents

The remaining sections of this manual are devoted to the Systems Management and Control (SMC) disciplines used to define the Standards of quality associated with Technology Operations and the Procedures used to achieve those goals.