CERN has outsourced the Desktop Support services to a company for many years. The Computing Helpdesk formed part of this contract and from 2005 the Helpdesk has become the entry point for most IT support lines covering all kinds of computing-related requests. This contract will end on 31 December.

The IT Service Desk and new contract

IT management is currently reviewing how the IT Department will deliver services. This was defined as a priority in the Program of Work. This review initially considered emerging best practices as defined in the commonly adopted Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and process implementation, which are essential for Service Level Management. As a first step it was decided that in the new Computing Support contract, which will replace the Desktop Support contract, the old Computing Helpdesk will be changed into the IT Service Desk. The aim of the new Service Desk is to be user-oriented and fully integrated with the service delivery processes of the department.

To put this new contract in place, IT has consulted with representatives from all CERN departments and launched a market survey and call for tender. Benefiting from new procurement procedures, it was possible to base the adjudication on a best-value-for-money basis. The result was presented to the Finance Committee in September and the new contract has been officially awarded to SERCO UK.

This new contract will start on 1 January 2010 and includes some major changes, for example:
• A detailed Service Level Agreement (SLA) has been drawn up between CERN and the contractor to describe all of the services required and the service level expected. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and related penalties have also been defined.
• Specific sub-SLAs for "service extensions", i.e. for services and tasks not included in the standard SLA, can be added to the general SLA.
• As is the case today, in order to measure performance and ensure compliance with the SLA, a "ticket" will be generated in a well defined incident and request tracking tool for all queries submitted to the Service Desk. However, unlike today, the contractor will take responsibility for the correct closure of this ticket, regardless of whether it is dealt with by the Service Desk or passed onto other IT services.

SLAs, OLAs and benefit for users

The SLA for the new contract defines the service level that the contractor will deliver to CERN. When a request cannot be treated by the contractor, for example, because it is outside the SLA scope, it will be escalated to a service external to the contract.

However, there are currently no SLAs defining the end-to-end service level that CERN IT delivers. This issue has often been raised by users who are not informed of the expected time before their request will be answered.

To resolve this issue and improve service, the IT management together with service managers will work on Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) for all IT services and support lines. These will define the service delivery between IT groups, and/or between IT groups and the Service Desk.

This is a real cultural change and will be a major task during 2010. These OLAs will be implemented service after service and will be made available to users as they are ready. Users will be able to track the situation with respect to their ticket and will have a sole entry point for any queries about their requests: the IT Service Desk.

New tools

Another important point raised by IT management's global review of services was to ensure that "techniques, tools and processes are applied consistently". With this aim, the forthcoming changes concern the Request Tracking and Change Management processes and tools.

For the new contract start, IT is actively working on a new tool for request tracking, which will be used by the contractor (Service Desk) and all IT support lines. This tool will replace the current system, i.e. the Problem Request Management System (PRMS) application, a CERN-written application based on the BMC Remedy AR Request system.

The choice of solution was made after analysing the broad requirements and checking the options available in the market and open-source community. A commercial solution has been selected from BMC Remedy and it is a full suite of various ITIL compliant tools. The first key components are a request tracking tool (also referred to as Service Desk application) and a Service Level Management system. The suite also includes a Knowledge Management system that will be used to maintain a knowledge database/FAQ, available to service providers and end users.

The new system will be based on a service catalogue defined by the IT management. This tool also gives the possibility to measure performance of both the contractor (as defined by the KPIs in the SLA) and the IT Department (based on the OLAs) via the Service Level Management system. The tool will allow users to check the progress of their requests and enable them to provide feedback.

The priority today is the request tracking tool, where significant work is still required to configure the tool according to our requirements. The aim is to have this new tool in production during the first few months of 2010. The new tool will introduce changes for the end users too, for example, changing the way that request submission will be made to the Service Desk. Thorough testing and an information campaign will be done before it is put into production.

Useful links

CNL articles on the previous contract (Desktop Support and Helpdesk): http://cern.ch/cnlart/2004/002/7 and http://cern.ch/cnlart/2005/001/6