Drafting a Service Level Agreement (SLA)? Make sure it is an effective one. An SLA will set the standards for the service quality and the route taken to achieve it. Service Level Agreements can be complicated to establish and if not well-defined, prone to non-compliance as well.
Outlining or Defining expectations
As a first step, defining the basic expectations from the project is important. After the project expectations are listed out clearly, the vendor can also decide whether or not they can be met. Both, the client and the vendor need to spell out the expectations in the beginning of the Service Level Agreement and the ability to meet them.
Defining the process
The client can also define the process they would like to be followed. This must be spelled out in the beginning of the Service Level Agreement; if pursued later, it can be dismissed as a communication lapse. Defining the process is important if the client wants the project to be executed a certain way. It can also help clear out confusions regarding client expectations and pave the way for clearer outlining of goals.
The meeting point
The Service Level Agreement should also serve as a meeting point, ideally. SLAs are primarily the bridge between the technical team creating the solutions and the business team representing customer needs. Only when both reach a meeting point, can the solution be termed as an effective one. The SLA needs to be drafted keeping in mind goals that are achievable in terms of IT services management. At this point, the agreement also needs to be reviewed and any omissions or changes addressed.
Application monitoring ensures that your applications are all working as intended and users are not facing problems. Monitoring tools will provide information about business applications and their performance in the form of reports. Depending on the tool you have chosen, you may also have access to reports via email. Some application monitoring software will provide you with a dashboard that helps you track the usage and performance applications.
Application monitoring offers many options. Generally though, it is agreed upon that comprehensive monitoring is more effective. This means not just the application, but its environment will also be monitored, among other elements, for possible issues. The monitoring itself may be undertaken by using a locally-installed monitoring tool on the server or by employing different technical processes to collect information on the application.
The significance of timely alerts
If application monitoring is to be effective, you need to ensure that you get timely performance reports. Application monitoring also takes care of compliance with SLA besides helping with capacity planning.
Adequate monitoring allows you to take corrective steps in case of a problem; issue resolution can then be taken up before it starts affecting the end-user or customer transactions. Some critical functions and applications may also be subject to real time monitoring. Corrective action can then be taken to ensure that serious outages are prevented from affecting the business.
Timely alerts during monitoring can help ensure the health of your application. When problems area discovered on time, corrective action can be taken before outages happen. Timely intervention also ensures long-term damage to your system and infrastructure. Further, because you are alerted of problems and issues on time, your tech support system is ready to deal with them. Thus, timely application monitoring alerts also help you create an entire IT infrastructure that is far more manageable and dependable.
Well-managed infrastructure systems create lesser loads for the business, overall. Depending on the application needs and the monitoring tools utilized, you can also check robustness of your user-intensive systems such as emailing, instant messengers, websites and user interfaces and other platforms that help users engage and communicate. Databases and other information-rich systems can similarly be monitored to ensure they are working optimally.
The advantages
Insisting on a robust alerting system in application monitoring tools has many advantages to it.
> Reduced outages
> Higher uptimes for applications, services, etc.
> Rapid resolutions for processes that are not performing or have failed
> Resolution before application failure can affect end-users
> Reduced chances of revenue loss due to failed or poorly-performing applications
Optimally-performing applications will not affect customer transactions or operations that are critical to your business. Timely monitoring and reporting ensures that your applications are an asset to your business and a big help in increasing and maintaining the revenue stream.
About the Author:
Tevron develops and delivers Application Monitoring Solutions, Service Level Agreement, IT Service Management, and End to End Performance monitoring solutions available globally. Tevron has also successfully delivered enterprise Application Monitoring Solutions and Testing solutions to support every IT enterprise application to hundreds of customers across the globe. Tevron's solutions designed to support diverse environments, business processes and applications with a service oriented management.
Effective IT infrastructure and services management is the probably one of the first steps towards ensuring your business operations are running without interruption. Depending on the industry your business belongs to, you may have an online presence, a website that connects with your customers, or an online system of ordering merchandise, etc. Supporting all of this is your IT system. Apart from having a robust, heavy-duty system in place, you need to ensure you maintain it regularly to ensure hassle-free operations. IT services management, thus, is a dedicated responsibility that allows business owners the freedom to ensure an online presence without the bother of setting up a support system.
Some of the problems with having in-house IT monitoring could be:
> Lack of adequate technical knowledge about which tools to deploy for different functionalities
> Not enough bandwidth to accommodate resources that to install, maintain, and update monitoring tools
> Lack of resources to undertake and maintain comprehensive monitoring
The work carried out by IT services management companies or vendors includes comprehensive system monitoring, anticipating problems, and carrying out troubleshooting to resolve them. Different sectors within an IT set-up may need dedicated monitoring, and the service provider may utilize different tools for this purpose, or may work with one comprehensive tool.
Regardless of the tool used, the company or service provider that does IT services management for a business is also responsible for ensuring that problems do not escalate into bigger issues. As a result, managed IT services are always in demand.
The benefits of dedicated IT services management
> The business that actually needs its IT infrastructure looked after, does not need to worry about technical details or infrastructure purchase hassles, etc.
> Based on the vendor's method of monitoring, areas needing monitoring will be analyzed and reviewed for performance. Troubleshooting is also undertaken by vendor
> Mutually acceptable SLA can be drafted to ensure thorough monitoring
> Back up and support hassles are also managed by the IT services management vendor
Reliability is higher
Because the vendor supplying IT services management has technical understanding, reliability is higher. For a business to ensure effective IT monitoring, it will need to hire talent as well and further spend on training the talent as well. But professional vendors do not need any handholding because their information and knowledge is current and totally relevant to contemporary IT monitoring needs. As a result, the reliability is higher.
Higher accountability
Unlike an in-house system where blaming and passing responsibility may lead to derailing of the IT systems, vendors who manage IT services end-to-end take care of the monitoring in a comprehensive manner. This means there is higher accountability on the part of the monitoring team and your systems get taken care of, efficiently.
About the Author:
Tevron develops and delivers Application Monitoring Solutions, Service Level Agreement, IT Service Management, and End to End Performance monitoring solutions available globally. Tevron has also successfully delivered enterprise Application Monitoring Solutions and Testing solutions to support every IT enterprise application to hundreds of customers across the globe. Tevron's solutions designed to support diverse environments, business processes and applications with a service oriented management.
