LANs to WANs: The Complete Management Guide

Along with a well-qualified staff and accurate record-keeping, conducting in-house maintenance requires an inventory of parts, tools, and test equipment.

16.4.1 Spares Inventory

A vital element in any in-house maintenance program is having appropriate types and quantities of components for both spares kits and general inventory. Spares kits are for the provision of on-site replacement for failed components, and their contents are derived both from the user’s experience with hardware problems and any mandatory spares requirements of a vendor service contract. Nevertheless, the following are ways to contain inventory costs:

• Only order spares that cannot be readily purchased within the timeframe dictated by system or network uptime requirements. For example, if NICs can be bought on-line from a reliable local source for next-day delivery, there may be no need to stock them as spares.

• Centralize spares, where possible, so that they can be made available to neighboring locations on short notice. This lets a single spare unit cover a wider area. Alternatively, an account with an overnight courier lets a single spare unit cover locations nationwide.

• Avoid purchasing any equipment that uses hard-to-find or outdated components, or components that are hard to repair, whenever possible.

• Have a disaster recovery plan in place that allows faulty systems, lines, and services provider networks to be bypassed when they fail. This will allow mission-critical operations to continue until the fault can be repaired or replaced.

Rather than try to keep pace with new products and technologies, many organizations implement in-house maintenance only for the installed base of older products, where the cost savings can be greatest. Not only are the older technologies stable and the need for continuous training eliminated, but spare parts may be acquired in the used equipment market or from other third-party sources at very reasonable prices.

16.4.2 Test Equipment

Test equipment also should be available at each location. A basic starter approach might include the following items, some of which are bundled into the same device:

• Breakout box;

• Tone generator;

• Portable decibel meter;

• Bit error-rate tester;

• Data line monitor or protocol analyzer;

• Power meter with graphical output;

• Volt-ohm meter;

• Time-domain reflectometer.

Large maintenance organizations might keep all test equipment in a central location. Technicians sign out equipment from the pool, as they need it. To account for all test equipment, a standard nomenclature is applied for describing the performance of each item and how it is tuned. All items are bar-coded for easy identification and for tracking the movement of items in and out of the pool. Some companies have even set up a reservation system to schedule the use of equipment in advance. If a technician knows a specific oscilloscope will be needed a month from now to do scheduled maintenance, for example, that item can be reserved to be sure it is available when needed.

Information about the movement of equipment in and out of the pool can be tracked in an asset management database. The operations manager has on-line access to the database so information on daily equipment usage can be obtained. This information can be used to determine whether new equipment should be added to the pool to keep up with demand. It can also be used to charge back equipment costs to appropriate departments, workgroups, or projects.

16.4.3 Service and Repair Documentation

In-house technical staff should be equipped with a full reference library of product-specific information regarding all aspects of system operation and service. Generally, the vendor or manufacturer provides a series of manuals documenting system architecture, operation, procedures for installation and service, and other technical and procedural information. Many vendors supply this information on CD-ROM, which can substantially shorten lookup time and, consequently, speed up the fault isolation and restoration process. Supplementary information may be available on the vendor’s secure Web site.

It is very important that arrangements be made to receive all updates and revisions as they are issued to the vendor’s field engineering staff. Some vendors provide this as a value-added service at charge extra. On a quarterly basis, the vendor provides the most up-to-date technical product information on maintaining system or network efficiency and reliability. Written by engineers and field service personnel, with an emphasis on how to more effectively operate and manage the vendor’s products, this information might take the form of technical bulletins, product application notes, software release notes, user guides, and field bulletins.

Other sources of technical reference information, software bug fixes and upgrades, and troubleshooting advice include user forums on such services as America Online and newsgroups on Usenet and other news feeds. Many vendors have set up private chat rooms that are available on their Web sites, making it easier for customers to discuss problems and solutions with each other. This self-help mechanism benefits the vendor in that it helps contain support costs. Vendors have extended the self-help concept to allow customers to configure their own products, select features and options, and then test them for validity before submitting their order on-line.