Inte rnatio nal Jo urnal o f Sc ie ntific & Eng inee ring Re se arc h, Vo lume 3, Issue 2, February -2012 1

ISS N 2229-5518

DSS Framework for IT Infrastructure Technical

Support

Desabandhu.P, Dr. E.Sathiyamoorthy

Abs tractDecision support system is a vital process w hich eradicates the distance betw een an actor (human) and a system w hile making d e cisions in any kind of area. Each and every DSS is made by handling interactions betw een human intelligence and computational int elligence. The b asic idea behind the imp lementation of DSS f or any f ield is to improve the business process eff ectively using the exact decisions. We h ave f ocused on the DSS f or IT technical support. Aim of this paper is to build a DSS f ramew ork f or IT tec hnical support. We describe a DSS using the basic components integrated along w ith the technical DSS components. We use a technical support tool as initial component f or the process. Finally, the p aper proposed a DSS f rame w ork to develop a DSS to make dec isions in the area of IT Technical support.

Inde x TermsComputational intelligence, Decision support system, DSS components, DSS f ramew ork, Handling interactions, Human int elligence, Technical support.

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1 INTRODUCTION

The maj or challenge in IT w or ld is to make appropr iate decisions at r ight time and within the time limit. At these stages, the decision makers depend on the effective decision making system w hich guides to continue which ever activity they follow . At this point of view , the impor tance of decision support systems ar e very high to withstand with the business demands. So, DSS can be defined as a technology or a system pr ovided w ith var ious independent models which ar e doma in specific to accompany the decision maker to make decisions as early as possible. Her e, the section elaborates the general concepts of DSS and how it has been integr ated with technical support activities. Now adays, the collabor ation betw een DSS technologies and artificial intelligent techniques has pr oduced another type of DSS technologies [7]. Many technologies have been found to assist the DSS. Mainly, data mining is w idely used w ith DSS for many pr oblem specific and domain specific.
Technical support is an important pr ocess in the ar ea of IT infr astr uctur e which may be in any type of or ganization. Technology infr astr uctur e and technical support is an important element which dir ectly or indir ectly pr ovides r eputation to the or ganization. Mainta ining technical support involves lot of activities like, attending calls, har dwar e service, software installation and maintenance, pr oduct buying, vendor association, technology gr owth. Most of the pr oblems are unfortunate r isks. It is an uncertainty which can happen at any time of a day. So, pr oviding technical support is a huge challenge because improper support can harm the image of the particular or ganization.
In this paper , w e discuss about the DSS and its
approaches and finally w e explain the pr oposed
fr amewor k. This paper has 6 sections, the second section is a discussion about decision support system, thir d section is about technical support, four th section is about the roles of technology and finally the pr oposed framew or k and conclusion.

2 DEC ISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

A decision support system (DSS) has many definitions, but it has lar gely consider ed that they ar e built to assist decision pr ocess and help to identify and r esolve pr oblems [2]. It’s a one among the classification of the information systems which help the decision makers to r elay on the knowledgeable decisions. Yes, the DSS pr ovides a var iety of knowledge to encounter the decision pr oblem. DSS is r elated with intelligent system, artificial intelligence, exper t system and management information system. These technologies ar e all together used to cr eate a new DSS technology. Mor eover , DSS is said to be a conceptualized it is w ell defined w ith its limit and boundary [4]. Development of DSS has a number of generic stages [2] they ar e, Data gather ing, Data storage, access and mining, Data analysis and Data r eporting.
A DSS must be convenient, por table, and easy to understand. It should use human intelligence and computational intelligence to make up a valuable decision. Decisions ar e made based on the input w hich the user supplies into the system i.e. the information should be most r ealistic and pr oblem specific.

3 TECHNIC AL SUPPORT

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Technical support comprises of two types, har dware support and softwar e support. Technical support involves lot of issues which ar e or iented w ith technology impact. The scenario is, in an industry or or ganization an IT infr astr uctur e department exists to install and maintain the softwar e and hardwar e w hich ar e used in the pr oduction. Their duty is to monitor the calls r equested by the end user s of same or ganization. Separ ate employees called as service engineers log on with the calls on end users place. The manger or the person in char ge minds all the activities r egar ding calls support, softwar e up gradation, vendor communication, netw ork administration etc. The main focuses of Technical support ar e:

3.1 Services

As discussed alr eady, the engineers ar e allocated to the
ser vice ar eas to pr ovide the maximum amount of successful suppor t either for har dwar e issues or software issues.

3.2 Infra stru ctu re management

Day to day the technology gets updated in all ar ea. In the ar ea of infr astr uctur e management the product development companies shows rapid gr owth in advancements of servers, mainframes, blades and hardwar e engineering. So, the decision maker or in char ge of these activities follows and supports his or ganization with updated facilities.

3.3 Vendor Communication

Each and every pr oduct is r eceived thr ough a vendor . So it is the duty of the in char ge to have the best communication per iodically to maintain the warr anty and license status.

3.4 Network administration

The maj or r ole of IT technical support is to pr ovide a good networ k facility. Most of the IT pr oj ects ar e developed using the netw or k to communicate and update the r epository which may be located at the other side of f the wor ld.
Impr oper management of Infr astr uctur e and technical
support w ill lead to a bad situat ion for r eturn of investment.

4 ROLES OF TECHNOLOGY

Technology is a key pr ocessor in all existing business ar eas. Mainly, technology plays a maj or r ole in information technology [8]. And even it is said to be as a gr eat challenge because it is very difficult to change and adapt as of sudden change in business mar ket. Besides that, today’s IT technical support has str ong link with
customer service. In this kind of situation the technology and new techniques ar e adopted to incr ease more pr oductivity and support. In spite of the suppor t, the technology also collabor ates with the DSS to make new type of DSS technology. Technology is always a vital component of the technical support. In his paper , the technology factor is consider ed as an important component to form a model base to the decision support system. It extends the support activity with good training and explor ing.

5 PRO POSED D SS FR AM EWORK

Our proposed DSS has some very important featur ed components like technical support tool, database of the tool, knowledge discovery and shar ing, vendor support, know ledge base, model base, technology, and exter nal models. These components ar e very basic and important which maximizes the efficient of the system.

5.1 Tool/Application suppo rt

Accor ding to our system, the tool is used to r ecor d the details of the support pr ovided to the end users, end user details, details of the pr oducts to be serviced and support. Mor eover on softwar e support side, the tool contains the details of the tool like make, version, w arranty etc. This tool also r ecor ds the details of the support engineer and what kind of support he pr ovided to the customer after the r equest made by the end user . These r ecor dings are view ed by the decision maker to follow the suppor ting pr ocess.

5.2 Database System

As w e have used a tool as the initial pr ocess for the support, the tool contains default database which holds the data’s r egarding hardwar e, softwar e, vendor ’s, employees, and other data’s. The data’s which ar e logged by end users, support engineer s ar e saved in database and the saved data’s ar e consider ed to be very useful and initiative at the futur e pr ocess of the DSS.

5.3 Knowledge Disco very and sharing

This component is a common base for domain know ledge i.e. it holds the data’s r egar ding the technical support issues, new tr ends, technologies. It holds vital par ameters about the IT technical support. The concerned service engineer or a manger can get some know ledge to adapt with the types of pr oblem by using this component.

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Tool/Appli ca tion

Rela ted /Exte rnal

DSS model

DBMS

Ha rdwa re DB

Softwa re DB

Employee DB

Vend or DB

Othe r DB

Kn owled ge dis cove ry & s ha ring

Problem e valua tion

Kn owled ge mini ng

Te ch nology selection

Supp ort selection

Te ch nical supp ort da ta De cision ma ke r/Au thori ty rep ository

DSS

Kn owled ge base

Model base

De cision model

Te ch niques/Te ch nol ogy

Vend or Su pport

Wa rran ty

An ti vi rus u pda te

Ha rdwa re

Softwa re

I T infras tru cture

Lea rnin g

Trainin g

Te ch nical da ta se t Explori ng

Figure 1 : Prop osed DSS framework

5.4 Vendor Support

Vendor suppor t is a separate component which pr ovides the very impor tant manager ial details about the pr oducts. It pr ovides the data like w arranty, antivirus
updates, product license, hardwar e and softwar e support etc. This vendor suppor t component affor ds itself to pr ovide some know ledge discover ing activity.

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5.5 Knowledge base

Know ledge base has some pr edefined facts and data’s r egar ding the technical support issues either it may be technological perspective or managerial perspective. This pr edefined data’s ar e extracted fr om know ledge discovery. Even end users can gain using this know ledge base via the supporting tool.

5.6 Techniques/Techn ology

This component suggests the exact technique r equir ed to solve the pr oblem. If the technology need to be impr oved at certain points or for certa in pr oblems then this exports to the model base for further actions. Mor eover , it gives methodology to train the engineers with the existing and r equir ed technology to explor e themselves technically.

5.7 Model base

This is the final component of our system which showcases the DSS model for the technical support. So, it uses all the components to evaluate the pr oblem and pr ovides a technical DSS to the decision author ity. It also r efer s exter nal model available with the similar pr oblem definition and w ith exact solution to the pr oblem. This model base pr ovides the decision model to a support system fr om which the decision author ity can view and mingle w ith the DSS. The Support system is a separate inter face loaded in system to showcase the DSS model.

6 CONC LUSION

This paper has descr ibed the DSS concepts and issues r elated w ith IT technical support. It has also pr oposed a DSS fr ame wor k for effective decision making to pr ovide best technical support thr oughout the or ganization. Many pr oblems exist in domain specific due to the lacking of a DSS. So, w e conclude that the intelligent decisions ar e made by applying information’s pr ovided by the basic components. The frame wor k w hich is pr oposed in this paper is w ell illustrated and it is developed towards the focus of applying the technology on the IT technical support. In futur e, the r esear ch w ill be focused on the futur e DSS technology w hich suits for technical support.

7 REFERENC ES

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[15] YE Qio ng we i, QU Re njun, LUO Yume i, SONG Guang xing, “Distribute d Arc hitec ture o f Dec isio n S uppo rt Sy ste m (DSS) and its Imple me ntatio n in E-Business Env iro nme nt”, 2010 3rd Inte rnatio nal Co nfe re nce o n Info rmatio n Manage me nt, Innov atio n Manage me nt and Industrial Eng inee ring, DOI 10.1109/ICIII.2010.17.

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Mr. Desabandhu is currently pursuing Doctoral degree program in software engineering inVIT University, India. E-mail: desabandhu.p@vit.ac.in

Dr. Sathiyamoorthy is currently working as Associate Professor in VIT University, Indi. E-mail: esathiyamoorthy@vit.ac.in

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