Information for Service Management Decisions


There are many technical and business management decisions that affect operations only on a certain day. Others affect the long-term ability of an organization to deliver a high level of service quality. This section examines the various types of management decisions and the roles instrumentation plays in those decisions.

Most environments usually have a mix of services whose dynamic behaviors are influenced by the constantly changing interactions of the technology infrastructures, service providers, and customers. Service managers must make ongoing adjustments to maintain an overall equilibrium that delivers consistent service quality despite one or more failures, load shifts, and resource conflicts.

Lack of the appropriate service instrumentation results in service managers being left to manage by hope and by customer feedback. This strategy involves reacting to problems reported by customers and trying alternatives until something works.

Decisions based on poor management information result in the following:

  • Extending service disruptions by lengthening the time to resolve problems Staff may consume additional time narrowing the cause.

  • Disrupting staff unnecessarily Calling a network expert to deal with a server problem wastes his or her time and extends the disruption.

  • Addressing a technical problem to the detriment of the business All failures do not have equal business impacts. For example, fixing an internal e-mail problem while customers cannot transact business could prove very costly.

  • Exacerbating the issue Poor information can lead to poor decisions that introduce further disruptions.

Technical and business managers need information about, and insight into, service behavior so that they can make effective service management decisions. Operational decisions must be made within short time intervals, while other decisions, having major long-term effects, can be made more slowly. The text discusses these in turn.

Operational Technical Decisions

Technical managers must administer and control highly dynamic environments that have changing network and computing loads. Many environments also have a growing mixture of services, often with conflicting demands. An environment solely dedicated to exchanging files has very different operational characteristics than one for interactive Web-driven processes. Supporting a range of different service characteristics can introduce conflict and interactions that degrade the performance of all services. Technical managers need to allocate resources quickly to minimize instabilities in their delivery of services.

Operational decisions are tactical in nature; that is, adjustments are made in response to current conditions to sustain compliance with an SLA. Managing for compliance requires fast and accurate responses to constantly changing conditions, and accurate information provided by good instrumentation is essential.

Operational Business Decisions

Business administrators must also make an increasing number of operational decisions as more online business processes are introduced. Business perspectives rather than the underlying technology behaviors drive real-time business adjustments. Business-centric metrics are often derived from a combination of processed technical measurements and direct instrumentation of services.

As an example of the business perspective, an online web site selling merchandise can be monitored with network-based probes tracking the actual URLs being used. The web applications can also provide direct access to information. The instrumentation indicates the number of abandoned shopping carts by analyzing the URLs flowing on the network or reaching certain points within the application itself.

Technical problems, such as slow credit authorization or billing services, can increase the number of abandoned shopping carts. These problems are correctable with standard technical means. Carts are also abandoned when there is a problem with the actual web content or navigation. The business administrator needs to understand when an unwelcome change has occurred and take steps to keep the business running smoothly.

Decisions That Have Long-Term Effect

Other causes of service degradation are rooted in poor long-term management processes rather than in any dynamic operational fluctuations. Long-term management is strategic in nature, with administrators taking steps to eliminate or minimize future problems. High-quality information is essential for these tasks as well. Managers must have confidence in their information because they are investing in the resources to increase the competitive capabilities of their organizations.

Examples of long-term decisions include the following:

  • Provisioning by using current operational data and trends to predict future resource requirements Many operational decisions involve reallocating resources as conditions change; provisioning, in contrast, tries to ensure that there are sufficient resources to manage operationally.

  • Stress testing services to determine their actual capacities and breaking points Managers stress test those operational areas and loads where service disruptions are more likely.

  • Evaluating the services mix to determine if new services will destabilize the current mix and introduce more service degradation Managers can avoid unpleasant surprises and outages by planning ahead.

Instrumentation is the bedrock for managing services and service quality. An instrumentation system provides accurate and timely information for a range of management decisions and other functions. In addition, instrumentation provides essential feedback for technical and business administrators. Measuring the results of any decision validates good choices or indicates whether further attention is still needed.




Practical Service Level Management. Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services
Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services
ISBN: 158705079X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 128

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