Service Level Management: Assess
As detailed in the Service Level Management ITSM process, before the IT organization can control and improve SLAs, IT organizations must first identify which IT services are being delivered and baseline the current performance level for each service. SLAs can be tied to an IT Service as a whole, such as the ‘e-mail service’ or to an IT System, such as “firewalls”.
Before negotiating SLAs all stakeholders should have a common, objective picture of current performance levels. No final SLA should be agreed upon or implemented before real monitoring data is collected to ensure that targets are achievable and an ongoing monitoring infrastructure is in place. The initial assessment of performance levels can also help to identify the weakest areas in the business, most in need of improvement, so a plan can be put in place to improve those areas first.
Log Intelligence can be used to assess the current performance of IT services and systems, such as by counting:
- # Error messages from firewalls, routers, switches, servers, and applications
- # Reboots for firewalls, routers, switches, servers, and applications
- # Transactions, e-mail messages, logins or connections processed (un)successfully
- Average (and minimum and maximum) transaction delay (such as mail delay)
The result of the assessment can also be correlated with data from assessment of the Incident Management or Capacity Management process. By comparing data across processes, management can establish whether:
- The number of Incidents reported to the support desk rise as SLA targets are being violated
- SLA targets are negatively impacted as capacity utilization targets are exceeded
Senior management can now use the result of the assessment to evaluate whether the correct assumptions have been made about the cause and effect of other processes on service quality.