* SLM resources from Enterprise Management Associates, others
Since the economic downturn, service-level management has become increasingly critical for IT professionals needing to trim spending and demonstrate the value of their organizations. Now there are resources available to learn more about SLM.
In an April study by Enterprise Management Associates, 64% of IT professionals surveyed felt that SLM was more important because of economic pressures. Another 28% felt that it is equally important as it was prior to the downturn.
SLM is a means for managing technology according to business goals and objectives. The idea is to tie investments in IT to the business priorities of an organization. Using SLM, IT organizations commit to a given level of service and measure performance against that commitment – helping to reduce operational expenses and improving the contribution of IT in building corporate revenue. A key aspect of SLM is measuring satisfaction of users (or customers), both internal and external. Successful SLM implementations can improve customer satisfaction, demonstrate accountability, and ultimately increase company profits.
Most IT organizations are in the early stages of SLM implementation or exploration. The challenge for most IT professionals is finding a way to implement SLM in addition to all of their other priorities. The industry is confusing, with more than 80 vendors offering SLM products. Best practices such as Six Sigma and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) further complicate the market landscape by providing competing structures for SLM implementation.
Help is available. We at EMA offer several resources, and there are others out there. For example:
* Many books have been published on the subject. For example, there is “Foundations of Service Level Management,” by EMA’s Rick Sturm, and Wayne Morris and Mary Jander. Another is “Service Level Management for Enterprise Networks” by Lundy Lewis. Both offer an overview and explain concepts needed to successfully implement SLAs for IT.
* The best practices ITIL and Six Sigma confuse many IT professionals. However, they can be used to add structure to an otherwise chaotic process of implementing SLAs. There are organizations to support these best practices, as well as published guides and certification programs.
* Discussion groups for any of the management toolsets are also a good resource and means for getting in touch with other IT professionals working on the same types of initiatives. Many of these toolsets are used for SLM with SLM-specific functionality or related performance and availability capabilities that help to support SLM data gathering and reporting.
A good place to start is EMA’s own slm-info Web site, a new resource intended as a vendor-independent learning community for IT service management.
The idea is to facilitate online learning and dialog among IT professionals, service provider operations staff, vendors, and industry leaders in SLM, and to promote the evolution and development of IT-based service management. The site will remain vendor-neutral and serve as a clearinghouse for all types of information related to IT service management. IT professionals will find a wealth of information, including practical tips for SLM implementations, a discussion board, links and information about SLM-related standards, details about SLM products, and news and events related to SLM. For more, go to:
