A cloud-based solution for the performance improvement of IT support organizations

IT support organizations are in charge of restoring normal operations after IT service disruptions, among other tasks. Such organizations can be complex systems, with a large network of interacting support groups subject to complex management policies. The performance assessment and optimization of IT support organizations is an extremely challenging task that requires considering organization-specific structure, behavior, and business-level objectives. This paper presents Symian-Web, a decision support tool that enables IT managers to both assess and improve IT support organization performance by using what-if scenario analysis. Symian-Web features advanced information visualization concepts and metaphors, allowing for precise and timely assessment of IT support organization performance, and facilitating their redesign. Symian-Web is realized as a cloud computing-based Web application, thus enabling the tool to take advantage of the on-demand computational capabilities provided by the cloud.