FITS OM: What is FITS OM?
FITS OM stands for Framework for ICT Technical Support Operations Management and is based on a collection of best practice principles and models used successfully in education and industry. FITS OM is complementary to FITS and uses the same approach to help schools to implement best practice in bite-sized and manageable chunks.
We recommend that schools implement all the FITS processes to a level of maturity before undertaking the implementation of the FITS OM functions. This is because all the OM functions use the FITS processes to manage the activities within them.
Example: Technical support installs a new storage device following the function specification 'Storage Management'.
FITS processes used
| FITS Change Management | To document, assess, plan and approve the change |
|---|---|
| FITS Incident Management | To deal with faults, failures or breaches |
| FITS Service Level Management | To manage user expectations for data restores |
To check whether your school has implemented all the FITS processes to a level of maturity, you may like to work through the FITS Assessment or attend the Implementing FITS expert workshop.
FITS OM is Becta's structured approach designed to help schools to achieve operational excellence in the management and administration of the technology of their ICT infrastructure. The technology comprises the network components that support the ICT services used for learning, teaching and management which includes;
- Computers
- Peripherals
- Routers
- Operating systems
- Switches
- Servers
- Firewalls
- Cabling
To be able to provide reliable ICT services for learning, teaching and management, you have to configure, operate and administer the network technology effectively. Poor practices will have a big impact on reliability and availability of ICT services, because:
- network components and services may not work efficiently
- security could be compromised, affecting availability
- recovery from an ICT service interruption, such as a fault or disaster, could be difficult.
FITS OM is tailored specifically for schools and offers a quick-start approach to implementing best practice on any type of technology, platform or infrastructure.