Service Level Management Articles

• Web Performance Metrics- Setting the Standard
by Richard Longland
Performance benchmarking must be based on the real-time gauging of Internet Web site performance relative to industry peers.

• Demonstrating IT's Value As An Internal Service Provider
by Mary Nugent
Internal IT organizations are frequently viewed as cost centers. While most business units assume that the cost of IT is too high, and that they can get better value by outsourcing, they should consider the undocumented services performed by IT. At the same time, IT must prove its business value by demonstrating its understanding of customer needs.

• Reaping the Rewards of Resource Consolidation
by Christopher Marino
Examining the impact of a sophisticated service level management solution on resource consolidation initiatives.

• Service Level Agreements: Consequences for Non-Performance
by Rick Sturm
A look at establishing effective consequences for nonperformance in Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

• How Businesses Use Technology: Pushing the Envelope
by Jean-Pierre Garbani
Studies have shown that the key to productivity in interactive applications is a rapid response time. In this environment, the IT management role is to provide not only the functions required by businesses, but to provide them with a satisfactory level of performances at a competitive price.

• Reporting for SLM
by Rick Sturm
A key element of SLM is reporting. Unfortunately, from the viewpoint of the client, most of today's reporting is worthless gibberish.

• Speeding up Service Level Agreement Negotiations
by Steven C. Sopko
Negotiating a technical contract is nobody's idea of a good time. We all agree that negotiations take too long, but nobody seems to be able to figure out why. Until now.

• Service Level Management: The Big Picture
by Rick Sturm
SLM is much broader than Service Level Agreements, metrics, data capture, reporting, and the like. Besides managing performance and availability, issues like backup and recovery and security must be addressed, too.

• Understanding Active Service Level Management
by Brad Stone
Businesses must improve their e-business application service levels (performance and availability) if they are to protect these profits. However, while sustaining e-business service levels and service level management has become a strategic imperative, improving application performance and availability is not easy.

• Application Availability: An Approach to Measurement
by David Fishman
To end users, application availability means continuous application access with predictable performance. But to measure availability, you must define what it is, detail how you'll decompose applications for measurement, classify service level indicators and more.

• Service-level Agreements in Business Continuity Management
by Andrew Hiles
Increasingly, service level agreements are viewed as the means to bridge the gulfs between providers of support services and their customers. However, during the most crucial time for any business - recovering from as disaster - neither customer or recovery service supplier is usually protected by a Service Level Agreement.

• The Heart of the Matter: Service Level Agreements
Service level agreements (SLAs) are a must for quality IT service management. Here's what comprises an SLA, what are the essential components and how how to negotiate one.

• Establishing SLM
Whether you are contracting to an external service provider or to your internal IT organization, here are the six compelling reasons to establish SLM.

• What is Service Level Management?
The basics of what is Service Level Management, and why implementing it is truly win-win for both your organization and IT.

• The Perception and Management of Service Levels
It's sometimes true that IT and end users speak different languages. But by measuring end-user experience end to end, IT can truly measure the SLM it's delivering from the end user's point of view.

• Talk To Me: Reporting on Service Levels
SLM is all about good communication between IT, users and the company's business units. So IT must communicate how it is measuring its service delivery to customers with reports that are relevant to customers.

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