Chapter4.Instrumentation

Chapter 4. Instrumentation

The term instrumentation is used to describe the technologies and processes for monitoring and measuring the behaviors of services, infrastructures, and elements. You use instrumentation to monitor behavior and assess the impact of changing operational conditions on your ability to meet the compliance requirements for Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Services managers need appropriate instrumentation to inform them of actual or potential problems and provide feedback after they make adjustments. This chapter introduces an instrumentation methodology for managing the infrastructure described in the overview in Chapter 3, "Service Management Architecture."

This chapter covers the following topics:

• The differences between element and service instrumentation

• The information needed to make effective service management decisions

• Instrumentation modes: trip wires and time slices

• The instrumentation system

• Instrumentation design for service monitoring

• Instrumentation trends