Relieving the Burden of System Administration Through Support Automation

The number of computer users with little or no training continues to rapidly increase. Networks are at the heart of companies large and small. Applications, ever more complex, span intranets and extranets. This all adds up to an increasing burden on system administrators and end user support organizations at a time when there is constant downward pressure on support budgets and a shortage of qualified staff. The result is a technical support crisis with dissatisfied end users, burned out system administrators, and unhappy support teams. The need for support automation is critical as it enables the scaling of effective end user support while minimizing the need for additional resources. There are significant challenges to automating support, since it is essentially a large collection of special cases. Different methods have been used to achieve this automation, with varying degrees of success. This paper describes a software system that automates the solution of many recurring end user problems, greatly relieving the burden on system administration staff for mundane issues. We describe the architecture of the system, give examples of its use, demonstrate its extensibility, and report on our experience using it in the field.