In a world that is getting more abstract and virtual, proper documentation is key. In IT Projects this aspect is often forgotten. A clear sign of our industry being young and immature. Imagine an architect building a house without any form of design, or an pharmacist releasing a medicine without any testing. Unthinkable, yes.. but in our industry these practices are normal day to day business.,
We not only understand the risks of this better than anyone else, we have developed a flexible and easily maintainable documentation methodology that fits any project or organization. Our methodology has two main pillars of understanding being:
Don’t write the same information twice.
Keep blocks of information manageable
To achieve these goals we reach into the holy grail of IT operation, ITIL and utilize this to create a documentation library. We break an infrastructure down into functionality blocks called assets. These functionality blocks are described at a high level in an Asset Documents (ADOC). These assets consist of systems, being server, network devices, virtual devices and more.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Each and every entity in the asset gets a SDAT document (which is usually generated out of CMDB or Inventory data). In most cases an asset consists of a number of technologies that utilize these devices to create an asset.
Revisions and ownership are key elements to a proper documentation library. Nobody is interested in a design document that is written a number of years ago. Documentation is a living organism that regenerates itself over and over again.
These technologies are described in technical design documents (TDOC). Technologies can be used over multiple assets, and devices can be utilized in multiple designs.
Ownership and review
Therefore each document in the library has an assigned owner. The owner is responsible for the content of the document. Every change to the elements described in the document must be amended in order to keep the documentation current and relevant.
An action item that should be addressed in every change control meeting. To re-ensure that the document is valid and up to date each document is also reviewed at set intervals.
