Capacity Management Policy

From IT frameworks

This policy defines optimum capacity for the various systems and for components within the systems. The policy covers only the most important standards for Capacity Management.

The Capacity Manager must aim to have system capacity within the optimum range as defined in the table below. The process of Capacity Management should be run to achieve optimum capacity. This ensures that the company has elbow room without wasting resources on over-capacity.

Some guidelines for setting up monitoring of service availability are given in the table below. The minimum free resource should give a warning in the monitoring systems. Less than half the warning threshold (minimum free capacity) should give a critical alert.

Area	Service	Component	Parameter	Optimum capacity
Service Desk	All	All	Open tickets (SD+EM+IM+RF+AM)	100-200
			Response time	1-2 hours
Service Operation	Servers	Storage	Free storage space	20%-50%
		RAM	Free Ram	30%-60%
		CPU	Free capacity	> 20%
	Internet	Bandwidth	Free bandwidth	30%-90%
	Internal net	Bandwidth	Free bandwidth	10%-90%

These are the guidelines when monitoring services for capacity. Each system worthy of monitoring should have its own metrics defined in the CMDB. The Capacity Manager determines (in cooperation with the system responsible) which system should be monitored for capacity. An example of a specific system could be to monitor the call centre application for capacity:

Area	Service	Component	Parameter	Optimum capacity
Service Operation	Call Guide	Queues/Operators	# in queue * vacant operators	< 20

The Capacity Manager gives notice to the Category:Service Assets and Configuration Management of which systems should be monitored for capacity, exactly what to measure and the thresholds for warnings and critical alerts.

For critical systems, there should be a defined procedure for adjusting the capacity on the various components so that this can be included as Standard Changes when needed.

Every autumn, the Capacity Manager submits a capacity plan to Change Management for the next year.

Outsourced systems are managed according to their Underpinning Contracts.