Next-generation platform

Responsibilities for the next-generation platform

As you are planning to use IBM Sterling® Order Management System service, ensure that you understand the division of responsibilities between IBM, your implementation team, and yourself. Review the list of common tasks that you and your teams are expected to perform.

The successful launch and ongoing operation of your IBM Sterling Order Management System requires the full commitment and participation of your management and personnel. In particular, your personnel have, but are not limited to, the responsibilities that are identified within the following responsibility assignment tables and lists.

The following RACIS matrices are arranged to summarize and clarify your responsibility assignments and the responsibilities of IBM regarding your IBM Sterling Order Management System contract and service. Your responsibilities are also subdivided between you and your selected SaaS Extensions Support Provider. You and your IBM Business Partner can use these tables to scope the statement of work for your service, and determine how your Business Partner can take on certain responsibilities as your Systems Integrator or SaaS Extensions Support Provider, or both.

The RACIS matrices indicate for each task or deliverable how each group is responsible for the task or deliverable. The matrices use the following characters to indicate the level of responsibility for each group:
R The group is responsible for completing the task or deliverable.
A The group is accountable for ensuring that the task or deliverable is completed by the responsible party.
C The group is consulted by the responsible or accountable party to determine how the task or deliverable is to be completed.
I The group is informed about the progress and completion of the task or deliverable.
S The group is supporting the responsible party to complete the task.

Delays in the performance of these responsibilities can result in delays and extra costs with launching your service.

Account management

The following table identifies your responsibilities as the IBM Sterling Order Management System client and the responsibilities of IBM for managing your IBM Sterling Order Management System account.

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Own client relationship C R/C R/A

Service governance

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
SaaS service levels and Service Level Agreement (SLA) I I R/A
Provide SLA metrics on demand I I R/A/C/I
Provide usage metrics I C R/A
Provide access and provide basic training on ticketing tool and reports I I R/A/C

Client instantiation

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Calculate capacity requirements for each new customer and environments C R/A/C/I
Enter onboarding data into self-serve and trigger provisioning environment creation   R/A/C
Set up tenant access to environment for integration and connectivity (Allowlist and 2-factor authentication is replaced by mutual authentication and network policy controls in IBM Sterling Order Management System.)   R/A R/C
Send welcome email after environment is successfully created for all of the IBM Sterling Order Management System components     R(A)/A
Provide tools and administrative support for collaborative lifecycle management to your system integrator or system integration team     R/A
Setup queue forwarding and remote queues (on demand) I I R/A/C

Service operations

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Maintaining the service in healthy and operational state     R/A

SaaS extension management

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Setup client desktop development toolkit R/A R C
Perform change control and configuration management for application extensions R/A R  
Document system context diagram for planning integration endpoints R/A R  
Design, develop, and test SaaS extensions that comply with Best practices that are defined in the IBM® Documentation and maintain compliance with the ISO-27001, ISO-27002 and DIME and DARE R/A R C
Upload Customization package to Service R/A R S/S(A)
Deploy Customization to each environment R/A R S/S(A)
Triage Deployment issues R/A R C/S
Triage Customization issues R/A R C/S
Recovery and rollback of App level customizations (Via redeploy) R/A R S
Performance test and tune SaaS Extensions

For more information, see Performance tuning.

R/A R C/S
Maintain healthy application status and alert resolution that is related to SaaS extensions and integrations R/A R C
Regression test SaaS extension code and resolve any incompatibilities against IBM base updates (Minor Update and Major Updates) R/A R C
Maintain healthy application status and alert resolution that is related to application DB usage R/A R C
Notes:
  • As part of deploying changes into your development environment and quality assurance environment, you are responsible for completing any required testing, including functional, load, and performance testing. The Applications Manager is responsible for reviewing your testing methodology and scope to ensure that your testing is sufficient.
  • As part of the deployment of changes into your preproduction and production environments, you are responsible for completing any user acceptance testing.

IBM services updates

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Create deployment or release strategy and notification plan to deliver updates and notification (upcoming changes, confirmation of completion, changes to plan) for IBM Sterling Order Management System components clients     R/A/C
Deployment of IBM Initiated updates according to update schedule     R(A)/A

Security remediation

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Guide, assist, track remediation and report on security, compliance and certification of regulatory categories including ISO, PCI, SOC2, GDPR, SPbD, NIS, LGPD, ITSS, and so on - Base service and infrastructure     R/A
Tracking and reporting of security and compliance deliverables - SaaS extensions R/A R  
Resolution of platform security vulnerabilities and gaps   R/A/C
Resolution of service or application security vulnerabilities and gaps - Client is responsible for extensions     R/A/C
Resolution of SaaS extension security vulnerabilities and gaps R/A R  
Appropriate logs and records are maintained for a minimum of 90 days, or as required for compliance     R/A/C/I

Monitoring and alerting

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
Tracking and report - Application (production environment only)     R/A
Triage alerts and call the right team - Application or platform   R/A

Support and issue resolution

Responsibility Client System Integrator IBM
1 - Report incident or create or log ticket based on observed application behavior, request service by using IBM Support community R R  
Receive ticket as the first point of contact   R
Answer How do I product questions from client business users and system integrator users (Dave the developer)   R/C
2 - Create or log a service request ticket (external) for issues determined by IBM I I R/A
Validate incident information and capture all required information within the service request ticket based on observed system behavior R/A R/A C/I
Validate incident information and capture all required information within the service request ticket based on OOB operational monitors and alerts, synthetics I I R/C
Enabling traces on application, integration or agent servers, third-party servers R R C
1 - a: Primary triage of all client reported cases to determine problematic component I R/A C/I
2 - a: Primary triage of all alert raised behavior to determine problematic component I I R/A
2 - b: Secondary triage of cases to determine problematic component when primary triage determined the issue to be either SaaS extension, data, content, back-end system, or third-party service I R/A I
1 - b: Secondary triage of secondary of client reported cases to determine problematic component     R/C
Provide first-level support or resolution, or both and assign a ticket to the appropriate queue in the ticketing tool     R/C
Coordinate additional technical resources for S1 issues and leverage existing Supply Chain incident management process and RACI     R
Incident and problem resolution for IBM MQ     R/A/C
Incident and problem resolution for WebSphere Application Server     R
Incident and problem resolution for DB servers     R/A/C/I
Incident and problem resolution for application issues that are related to DB (Customer or IBM detected)   R/A R
Customer initiated requests for diagnostic and/or change requests for application   I R/A/C
Customer initiated requests for diagnostic and/or change requests for DB I I R/A
Communicate ticket status for tickets that are related to the application     R/C
Communicate ticket status for tickets that are related to SaaS extensions, data or content, external back-end systems or third-party systems R R C
Communicate ticket status for tickets that are related to DB servers     R/C
Primary Triage of performance or stability issues R R/A C
Re-creating incidents for troubleshooting purposes R R I
Undertaking formal root cause (System Outages - Platform)     R/A/C
Undertaking formal root cause (System Outages - Application)     R/A/C
Communicating formal root cause feedback to client (System Outages)     R/A/C/I
Documenting root cause for application incident in the support case     R/C
Troubleshooting self-server issues (deploy issues, restarts)   R R/C