publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/306297
ILTA WHITE PAPER: APRIL 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 17 But what about our ILTA members who couldn't attend this session? Our panel of experts didn't want the lessons learned to stop there. They've gathered once again to help you perform a DMS health check. WHAT IS A DMS HEALTH CHECK? Cindy Mahoney: A DMS health check is a comprehensive system audit meant to identify and prioritize issues, risks and opportunities related to the DMS and the firm's document management workflow. It is a focused effort to look at the system objectively, on a routine basis and with a consistent approach, so the information gathered is timely and can be compared to past and future health checks. This is technical preventive medicine instead of a prescription to treat an actual problem, so — like other strategically important but not urgent tasks in IT — it is postponed easily. The consequences can be damaging, though, especially when an avoidable problem occurs. Peter Lieber: The health check helps you determine the stability, performance and quality of your document management system. It includes system settings, benchmarking, usage reporting, compliance checking and feature practices. An interesting aspect of legal DM systems is that they are integrated tightly with daily activities, making a DMS health check a significant portion of overall system health. Mark Denner: A DMS health check is a regular, structured review of key elements of the document management system. At a basic level, it should include security, capacity and overall system health, such as a review of system logs, database backups and key configurations. More broadly it should include discussions with stakeholders and a review of documentation and procedures, such as disaster recovery and performance testing. Each time a health check is performed, you should create a brief report summarizing findings and next steps. WHAT ARE THE MOST CRITICAL PARTS OF A DMS THAT SHOULD BE MONITORED, AND HOW COULD THESE AFFECT THE DMS? Mark: System capacity and a review of key logs are the most critical things to review. Inadequate capacity is one of the most common causes of system failure. Peter: There are several components that should be monitored with any document management system: • File System: DM systems add security and audit- to-file operations, so consistency and security must be monitored. This applies to on-premise and cloud offerings. • Database: This is the brains of the operation. For in-house systems, there are a multitude of SQL monitoring and alerting capabilities for SQL availability, health, performance and data integrity. • Application Server: This is the heart of most document management applications. At minimum, a health check should uncover a healthy heartbeat and any abnormalities. • Transport: A DMS is only as good as its underlying pipes. In some ways, we have shifted focus from desktop network interface card (NIC) speed to server backbone speed, and now to remote location speed. Mark Denner Mark Denner is a consultant for the Information Lifecycle Management group at HBR Consulting. With 13 years of legal consulting experience, his primary focus is on best practices in electronic document life cycle management. Working with firms in the U.S. and U.K., he's tackled projects related to knowledge management, search systems, electronic document security and document management system design. Mark has technical expertise in relational database schema design, high-availability system architectures and software development. Contact him at mdenner@hbrconsulting.com.