Application downtime and poor end-user response time can be devastating for an IT organization. Costs rise, revenue and productivity fall, and corporate management sees red. It’s especially frustrating when traditional indicators— service level and application performance measurements—show your IT system is working fine. You think the network and infrastructure are operating at 99% plus. But the people who actually use the system are telling you otherwise.
For IT organizations, good end-user experience has to be the litmus test for enterprise application performance. This is an increasing challenge, given the complexities of distributed computing environments. To be successful, you need to focus on the fundamentals: Who are your end users? How can you monitor their experience with the IT system? Can you translate these measurements into proactive troubleshooting? What tools and methods can help?
Service level management (SLM) is gaining widespread attention from enterprise IT departments and executive management teams alike. Most people agree that SLM is a process for delivering services that consistently meet client requirements. An excellent framework for managing IT costs, SLM serves to help firms guarantee, deliver, and improve specific application and systems response times for their IT end users. Ultimately this leads to improved customer satisfaction.
The challenge has always been knowing where to begin with an SLM implementation. In the past, the available SLM tools to support service guarantees and continuous improvement just didn't deliver on the needs in the marketplace. Now, however, IT vendors offer a variety of point products and solution suites with enough depth and breadth to fit narrowly focused as well as comprehensive SLM initiatives. With these tools in place, executing on an SLM plan is a reasonable and business-wise proposition.
SLM tools let service providers confidently negotiate service level agreements (SLAs) because the performance of IT systems can be adequately measured and analyzed. Once comprehensive and granular performance data is available, it can be used to demonstrate compliance with an SLA . The performance data can also identify where and when service violations occur so that system weaknesses can be corrected.
Why jump on the SLM bandwagon now? Because the tools have evolved to the point of being practical and useful. In the short-term that means the IT end users can receive what they need, when they need it and at the same time IT service providers can realistically deliver the agreed upon level of service. In the long-term, robust SLM tools enable continual improvement by providing insights into future system needs. This contributes directly to the competitive stance of the firm, shapes its agility, and provides opportunities to fully maximize the value of IT assets.
Mission-critical applications are ideal candidates for starting on the SLM path. Monitoring of the critical infrastructural components leads directly to establishing appropriate management goals. Service level reporting on those resources should be a minimal effort when using the right SLM software. This will set the stage for open two-way communications between the IT group and its customers resulting in more closely integrated systems. The end result will be better service and better return on IT investments.
