SLM - Continued

OK - so last time we saw what a basic SLA in general looks like - at least from the components pov (a lot of the information that follows is related to BMC's (Remedy) SLM product, simply because I'm not familiar with any other SLM product and for no other reason - sorry about that).

This time we'll dig a bit deeper, and see what kinds of information may be used to generate service targets (SVTs).

In a Help Desk situation you want to be aware of SLAs concerning resolution time/closure time and such - you also want to know how soon someone was assigned, and then started working the issue. SVTs can be set so they 'attach' to a ticket that follow a given START criteria (Service = Help Desk AND Status = Assigned - for example), and then do a STOP criteria (Service = Help Desk AND Status = Resolved/Closed). You get the idea.

Along the way you want milestones - say your goal is 24 hours for the case to be closed, and you want to be warned 12 hours into the ticket by email or a pager note - absolutely possible.

This was just a basic explanation of an SVT for a simple Help Desk ticket, but I am quite sure you can follow the enormous potential of such a product. Now, if you have the ITSM suite you'd get an integrated set of products that are aware of each other and ready to work with each other. There are templates you can apply and you could also create your own customized templates specific to your organization.

In order to create an SVT you first need a data source (DS). You could create your own DS based on an existing infrastructure (say an existing database of widgets that have status information in them, which you want to monitor). Or, you could use the integrated DS - such as Help Desk, Change Management, Compliance and such.

You could also use data from other sources (such as BMC Performance Manager: PATROL and the BPM Portal; SNMP Traps; Transaction Manager: TM-ART - in the case of BMC's (Remedy) SLM product) that you have set up in your organization and mine them for specific triggers. Say you want to monitor how long the CPU of an important machine stays at 60% or above for SLA purposes: sure, you not a problem. You can look at the history of each of these Measurement Records and figure out what data was retrieved and when.

It's easy to see the limitless applications of SLM - once you have a reliable, accurate data source you'll be able to consume its data, manipulate them and calculate all sorts of statistical information. And ultimately - you have the reporting feature, which you can use to plot the progress of your project.

Now that we've seen the types of data that can be used in generating SVTs, our next stop shall be related to the advantages of having implementing SLM in your enterprise.