What users want from SLM software

Real-time tools, common views called key to service-level management.

Increasingly dependent on their networks to realize evolving business objectives, companies are looking harder at new service-level management software.

These tools are designed to track and enforce preset service-level agreements (SLA), both with internal end users and external customers and service providers. Many vendors offer software that can help companies more quickly collect and correlate performance metrics from network components that support a business service such as a customer service desk, or an application such as online credit card processing.

"We as information technology professionals need to do a better job in supporting [our customers'] e-business applications," says Rob Shepard, regional CIO at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Public Buildings Service, in San Francisco. "To remain competitive . . . it is critical that IT personnel proactively manage all of the services we provide."

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Increasingly dependent on their networks to realize evolving business objectives, companies are looking harder at new service-level management software.

These tools are designed to track and enforce preset service-level agreements (SLA), both with internal end users and external customers and service providers. Many vendors offer software that can help companies more quickly collect and correlate performance metrics from network components that support a business service such as a customer service desk, or an application such as online credit card processing.

"We as information technology professionals need to do a better job in supporting [our customers'] e-business applications," says Rob Shepard, regional CIO at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Public Buildings Service, in San Francisco. "To remain competitive . . . it is critical that IT personnel proactively manage all of the services we provide."

What follows are the things network executives told us they would most like to see from SLM suppliers.

1. Real-time tools.

Users need SLM tools to report on service across routers, switches, databases, and Web and application servers while events are taking place to avoid poor performance affecting end users and customers. In other words, SLM software must deliver intelligent data in real time.

"In an ideal world, SLM would help the IT manager know about the problem and possibly have it resolved before the user even knows there is a problem," Shepard says.