ITIL Chapter 5: SLM: Aligning IT with Business Requirements
What is the objective of Service Level Management?
The objectives of service level management are not restricted to "define, document, agree, monitor, measure, report, and review" (how well the IT service is delivered) and undertaking improvement actions when necessary. It also includes working with business relationship management to build a good working relationship with the business customers.
What are the three different SLA structures?
1. Customer-based 2. Service-based 3. Multilevel
Which management works to remove any single points of failure that could lead to downtime and addresses the causes of such downtime in order to deliver the highest possible level of availability to the customer?
Availability Management
Which management plans ahead to ensure sufficient capacity is provided and therefore preventing service failures that would otherwise have occurred?
Capacity Management
Which SLA structure have one agreement covering all the services provided to a single customer or customer group? This is straightforward from the customer point of view, because all the services they use are in a single agreement. From the IT provider's viewpoint, however, it means that the same service may appear in multiple SLAs, which can be difficult to monitor.
Customer-based
Which ensures the design meets the SLR?
Design Coordination
Which management provides cost information?
Financial Management
Which will plan to ensure that service continues to be provided despite major upheavals; where a break in service cannot be prevented, it will work to ensure that the service is restored in line with the business requirement?
IT service continuity
Which management focuses on resolving incidents and restoring service as quickly as possible? Performance against targets for incident resolution is usually a major area within an SLA.
Incident Management
Which ensures that the customer's data is protected and will work with the service level manager to educate the customers and users regarding their own responsibilities in this area?
Information Security
Which SLA structure has three levels: 1. The corporate level contains information that is applicable to all users across the organization. This saves a lot of repetition of this information in every SLA and should not need frequent updating. 2. The customer level contains information that is applicable only to that particular customer, whatever service is being used. 3. The service level will contain information on a particular service as it is delivered to that particular customer. There may be several of these sections.
Multilevel
Which agreement is a straight forward agreement between internal support departments or other internal departments who are supplying an element of the service? Typical commitments might include the hours during which support is provided, what level of on-call support is provided, what technology each team supports, and what is outside their area of expertise.
Operational-Level Agreements (OLAs)
Which management will address the causes of any failures and work to prevent their recurrence, thus improving the delivery of the service against targets?
Problem Management
What falls into three categories: Type I, Type II and Type III?
Providers To recap, they can be embedded in a business unit (Type I), be shared across business units(Type II), or be external to the organization (Type III). Type III service providers will have an SLA with their external customers that will be a legal contract, because they are separate organizations.
What do you use at the start of each report, summarizing achievements across all the services?
SLA Monitoring (SLAM) chart These are often colored to show all services that comfortably met their targets in green, those where the target was under threat but not actually breached in amber, and those that failed to meet the targets in red. This "traffic-light" system of red, amber, and green is sometimes referred to as a RAG report and is very effective in concentrating attention and discussion on the services that merit it, rather than plowing through all the reports equally.
Which works with CSI in designing and implementing the SIP? They also work with business relationship management. However, BRM is more concerned with strategy, identifying customer needs and ensuring the objectives are met.
SLM
Which management provides information about services to support the SLA?
Service Catalog Management
Which plan have an agreed desired outcome and timescale? Actions will be allocated, and progress will be checked. When complete, the results will be reviewed to ascertain whether the plan has been successful and whether any further actions are required. The SLM should undertake the action plan in partnership with the CSI manager.
Service Improvement Plan
What describes the service and the quality measures by which the delivery of that service will be judged?
Service Level Agreement (SLAs) SLA's is also an opportunity to clarify what is and is not provided.In addition to the service provider responsibilities, any customer responsibilities are also stated here. It is important that the SLA is an actual written agreement, not a vague "understanding." It should be signed by all parties to the agreement, including the service provider and the customer. Often the SLM will do all the preparatory work, but the IT director actually signs, showing that the commitment is that of the whole department
Who uses underpinning agreements to ensure that targets are achievable by monitoring, measuring, and reviewing the service level achievements?
Service Level Management SLM build relationships with the business units by understanding their requirements and how it delivers a service that meets these requirements. SLM tracks customer satisfaction levels and takes action to improve them
What represent what is required by the customer for a particular aspect of the service, and they are therefore based on business objectives?
Service Level Requirements (SLRs)
To build a stronger relationship and to increase each party's understanding of the other, what should occur between the customer and the service level manager?
Service review meetings Regular meetings will ensure that successes as well as failures are discussed and that issues that could be destructive to the relationship are aired and dealt with.
Which SLA structure refers to only one service? The service described is provided to all users of that service, so the requirements of all customer groups need to be ascertained. This option is useful for organization wide services, but the service provided across all locations may not be of equal quality.
Service-based
Which management ensures UCs are in place and are being fulfilled?
Supplier Management
What are external organizations that supply an element of the overall service?
Suppliers Customers may have little or no knowledge of the suppliers and the contracts that are held with them. The IT service provider will usually aim to provide a seamless service to the customer
What is the difference between suppliers and providers?
The critical difference between suppliers and service providers is that suppliers provide only an element of the service and are not visible to the customer, whereas providers (includingType III providers) provide the whole service. A Type III provider would typically use a number of suppliers to provide elements of the service which they were providing, but the service level agreement is between the provider and the customer; the provider is responsible for ensuring that the supplier fulfills the contract that the provider has with them
What is the purpose of Service Level Management?
The purpose of service level management is to ensure that all current and planned IT services are delivered to agreed achievable targets. Service level management is about discussing, negotiating and agreeing with the customer about what IT services should be provided and ensuring that objective measures are used to ascertain whether that service has been provided to the agreed level.
Which agreements are with the external organizations that provide elements of the overall service? Because these suppliers are external, these agreements will be contractual and therefore legally enforceable
Underpinning Contracts (UCs)
