Prepare Phase
A true alignment with the business is necessary in order for IT to provide companies with competitive advantage.
In the prepare phase of the network lifecycle, a company establishes business requirements and a corresponding technology vision. The company develops a technology strategy and identifies the technologies that can best support its growth plans. After the financial and business value of migrating to a particular advanced technology solution has been assessed, the company establishes a high-level, conceptual architecture of the proposed system and validates features and functionality documented in the high-level design through proof-of-concept testing.
Plan Phase
In the plan phase of the network lifecycle, a company assesses its network to determine if the existing system infrastructure, sites, and operational environment are able to support its proposed system. The organization tries to make sure that adequate resources are available to manage the technology deployment project from planning through design and implementation. To plan for network security, the company assesses its system, networks, and information against intruders and assesses the network for threat of outside, untrustworthy networks gaining access to internal, trusted networks and systems. A project plan is created to help manage the tasks, risk, problems, responsibilities, critical milestones, and resources required to implement changes to the network. The project plan aligns with the scope, cost, and resource parameters established in the original business requirements.
Design Phase
During the design phase of the network lifecycle, a company develops a comprehensive detailed design that meets current business and technical requirements and incorporates specifications to support availability, reliability, security, scalability, and performance. In addition, the company develops a comprehensive design specific to the technology system’s operations and network management processes and tools. Where applicable, custom applications are created for the technology to meet the organization’s requirements and to enable integration with the existing network infrastructure. A variety of plans is developed during the design phase to guide activities such as configuring and testing connectivity, deploying and commissioning the proposed system, migrating network services, demonstrating network functionality, and validating network operation.
Implement Phase
In the implement phase, a company works to integrate devices without disrupting the existing network or creating points of vulnerability. The company might stage and test the proposed system before deploying it. After identifying and resolving any system implementation problems, the company installs, configures, and integrates system components and installs, configures, tests, and commissions the operations and network management system. Once network services have been migrated, the company validates that its operational network is working as intended, validates system operations, and works to close gaps in staff skills.
Operate Phase
Network operations represent a large part of a company’s IT budget. An organization spends substantial time in this phase, living with the technology in the company’s environment. Throughout the operate phase, a company maintains the ongoing health of its system, proactively monitoring and managing it to maximize its performance, capacity, availability, reliability, and security. The company manages and resolves problems or changes affecting its system, replacing or repairing hardware as needed. It makes physical and logical moves, adds, and changes and keeps system software and applications current, and it manages hardware and software suppliers to help ensure efficient delivery of products or services.
Optimize Phase
The paramount goal of the optimize phase is achievement of operational excellence through ongoing efforts to improve the performance and functionality of the system. A company tries to ensure that its operational system is meeting the objectives and requirements established in the company’s business case and works to improve system performance and security.
Management practices are enhanced by improving network deploy-ability and operational efficiencies through a network management system that automates, integrates, and simplifies management processes and tools.
Business requirements are regularly updated and checked against the network’s technology strategy, performance, and operations. The network must be adaptable and prepared to cope with these new or changing requirements. As it is changed to support new business requirements or to enhance performance, the network re-enters the prepare phase of its lifecycle.
Reference: Information Courtesy of Cisco Systems PPDIO