SLA Monitoring
The monitoring of agreed-on SLAs is often sadly neglected. Usually this work is outsourced to a service provider – with only moderate success.
In many cases, the monitoring of SLAs at the interface between outsourcer and client today is not especially time-consuming or expensive. The reason is that defining the SLAs is often kept simple.
Today 90% of dialog response-times take less than one second, and are at 99.5% availability. And then there are servicing-times of between eight and 18 hours. That describes most SLAs. The related reporting is not overly demanding, especially since the detailing for a precise calculation of even the simplest SLAs is often missing.
Yet, in view of increasingly complex SAP landscapes and the increasingly greater dependence of firms on availability and service-quality, requirements change.
Forward-thinking IT strategists – including on the provider side – develop more complex, application-based SLAs, such as:
- Response-times based on transactional applications, the portal and communication pathways
- Throughput-times for processes, for example the creation of an offer including the availability check, within 10 minutes
- Availability of applications beyond SAP system limits
- Others.
As well, SLAs must be continuously and permanently enhanced, so the agreement with the service provider should only define a starting point, including a procedure by which SLAs can be further enhanced.
Otherwise, the required adjustment to the agreement may quickly turn out to be a commercial disaster after connecting to another company-critical application if the outsourcer is paid for every minor alteration.
This is why a large number of our clients have not given the job of measuring SLAs, reporting and further development to service providers; instead they have transferred it to VMS.
Neutral monitoring, an independent moderation of problem cases and the task of permanently development focused on the requirements of the user and the company, is what VMS offers.