Service Level Management Process

5.6.1. Introduction to the Process

Service Level Management serves as the bridge between customer and business requirements and IT Departments. Without Service Level Management, IT would have difficulty to define and optimize what is considered as a proper service level that meets the business expectations. Service Level Management at the same time will work to set proper expectations of the current infrastructure performance abilities to the business and help the business take crucial decisions such as capital investments required or outsourcing options available.

Service Level Management will work to formalize the relationships with the customer, IT, and vendors through multiple forms of Service Level Agreements. The term Service Level Agreements refers to three type of agreements:

§ Service Level Agreement (SLA): A formal agreement signed between the business (Customer) and IT in which all expectations to service levels are defined in term of:

service priority to the business, service availability requirements, optimized capacity needs, Disaster recovery options for the service (if required), and incident and problem resolution windows tolerated

§ Operational Level Agreement (OLA): A formal agreement signed within the IT infrastructure and among the various groups that will ensure a proper quality of service. A typical OLA will be signed between the Service Desk and Incident Management Support Groups (example: Network Operations) to define the response and resolution times to opened and assigned incident tickets

§ Underpinning Contracts (UCs): UCs take a very formal and legal approach as it is usually signed between the IT and third parties (outside vendors). It would be a different form of an SLA where the IT plays the role of the business or Customer Ideally, UCs serve as a baseline where OLAs and SLAs will be defined. If an UC is signed with the vendor and defines a response time of x minutes, IT Department would not be able to offer the business or other IT entities a commitment of response time that is less than x + y, where y is a factor defined in relation to many criteria such as resource availability and geographical location.

5.6.2. Benefits of Service Level Management Process Implementation

As a business interacting process, Service Level Management benefits can be substantiated through financial savings. As expectations are defined by the business, IT Departments will work on improving the service quality and reduction in service interruptions and failure. Other list of benefits include:

§ IT will work to design its services according to business expectations and less based on infrastructure capabilities

§ IT Roles and operation will be optimized to focus on areas considered important to the business

§ Customer will receive a clear indication on what is expected from the business to ensure proper service quality (required investments to provide the requested quality of service)

§ Continuous IT alignment to optimize services based on customer feedback and inputs

§ Better understanding of what type of engagement needs to be defined with the vendors and enable for proactive engagement to define what is considered as acceptable quality of service by the Customer

5.6.3. General Process Activities

Service Level Management process activities are proactive and enables for continuous improvement of service quality based on real measurements. The process activities are grouped into four main areas:

§ Establish the Service Level Management function

§ Define and Implement the SLAs

§ Manage the process

§ Conduct Periodic Reviews

The table below further elaborates on the activities main areas.

Table 19 – Service Level Management Process Activities

Activity Name Main Activity Tasks / Actions Establish the SLM

Function

§ Plan the creation of the function as part of the IT organization structure. Ensure that the SLM Manager occupies a rank where direct reporting is established with the CIO or IT Director / Manager

§ Define the associated roles and responsibilities of the SLM Manager function

§ Create necessary awareness in the organization on the role of SLM

§ Define requirements for building a Service Catalog

§ Draft an initial SLA

§ Review currently signed UCs, OLAs, and SLAs

§ Draft the SLAs and ensure buy-in from all parties involved.

Ensure the parties are involved in the definition of the SLA

§ Define the reporting procedures required and ensure it is included in the SLAs

§ Communicate the SLA expectations to the whole organization and start the monitoring process

Manage the Process § Review necessary metrics and service targets that enable for monitoring of Service Levels and achievements

§ Produce necessary reports that capture the impact of the SLA on the service quality and business expectations

§ Conduct necessary service review meetings with the customers to discuss achievements and issues

§ Review the SLAs to reflect business changing

Figure 17 – Service Level Management Process Activities ¹¹

5.6.4. Relationship with Other Processes

Service Level Management interacts almost with every other process in the ITIL domain.

The ultimate objective for Service Level Management is to be able to capture the various requirements in the form of Service Level Agreements.

Below table provides a summary of the required interactions and relationships:

Table 20 – Service Level Management Relationship with Other Processes

Process Name Relationship with Service Level Management Process

Incident Management (As described in Table 10 above) Problem Management (As described in Table 14 above) Change Management (As described in Table 16 above)

Configuration Management § CMDB holds all related information of SLAs

§ IT Service Catalog defines the relationships between configuration items (infrastructure components) as defined in the CMDB. Any updates to the IT Service Catalog should be reflected in the CMDB

Capacity Management § Define the capacity thresholds that adhere to service levels and quality of service

expectations

11 CHAPTER 4: SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT, Book for Service Delivery (Published 2000) © TSO 2005, All rights reserved

Process Name Relationship with Service Level Management Process

Financial Management § Translate availability requirements into financial costs as required by the Service Level

Management process

Figure 18 – Service Level Management Relationship with Other Processes