Return Material Authorization (RMA)

RMA is the process of taking the replacement for the faulty devices with some vendor conditions
such as under warranty and non-physical damage. In COMPANY, the process goes like this, all
the networking related devices come to network Management team. Assigned person from the
team has to call the vendor to get the replacement. Calling person may have to provide basic
information such as model number, product number, serial number of the device including so
technical information about the cause for the malfunctioning of the product and troubleshooting
procedure followed to fix the faulty device. Vendors representative will issue Return Material
Authorization (RMA) and provide information regarding the Advance Part Replacement(Each
additional specified device gadget or parphiler with information of the part number, type, and
serial number of each part to be replaced). Once RMA received, by using the return label,
assigned person would send back that defective product to the vendor and close the case ticket
with the representative on phone. Now, replacement hardware may be new or equivalent to
new.
Summer Hours
In general, summer hours at COMPANY mean employees can take six Fridays off during the
months of May to August each year. The normal working day in IT services at COMPANY is for
7 hours. In other words, these summer hours are equivalent for 42 hours. To cover up these 42
hours work and wage, employees have to work one hour extra during four other working days.
Access Points
An Access Point (AP) is a device that provides wireless networking solution to the devices.
Usually these devices work in-between wired and wireless networking devices. The Access
Points are designed to provide wireless with different standards of Ethernet (802.3) based on
range and usage of the network. At COMPANY the general standard is 802.11a/n and

802.11b/g. The number of APs required per site will be determined during the site survey phase
of the wireless LAN integration. The Access points would be connected to each other through
an edge device (L3 Switch) ,in general we can understand it as backbone devices that all Aps
connected to.
Wireless Iimplementation
During the wireless implementation on the sites, it was duty of the field services to go to site and
install the APs. Usually the APs did not come up on the network right away. They took couple of
minutes some time even couple of hours. So by the time, the APs comes up on the network field
technician or engineer get moved to another site. In a nutshell, if any problem comes after that,
our team had to handle that remotely.
Cisco Prime Network Control System (NCS)
The Cisco Prime Network Control System (NCS) is a Cisco LAN Solution network management
tool that adds to the capabilities of the Web User Interface and the command-line interface
(CLI). NCS gives admin facility to add a graphical view of multiple controllers and managed
Access Points. With NCS, network administrators have a single solution for RF prediction, policy
provisioning, network optimization, troubleshooting, user tracking, security monitoring, and wired
and wireless LAN systems management. Robust graphical interfaces make wired and wireless
LAN deployment and operations simple and cost-effective. Detailed trending and analysis
reports make NCS vital to ongoing network operations.
BMC Remedy
BMC Remedy is a software suite designed to provide easy and efficient automation of IT-related
functions resulting to a highly effective service. When an issue occur, the software automatically
or manually create the ticket to address that issue. That issue could be change of process,

addition of new or replacement of a device, or malfunctioning issue of any device. The suite
offers a user interface, enabling users to address problems in efficient way. Basically the
remedy is used to tracking and measurement of IT-related service tasks.