Hi All ,

I think this question has been asked several times in this discussion list but there are no answers till yet for this . Does any body have any idea about the -which are the most common or measured service level metrics .

Any suggestions or answers are welcomed !

Rick , Hope you can answer it , as the link stated you answer the question , but i havent seen any answers from you .

Regs Vivek

-- Vivek (vivekkkashyap@yahoo.com), May 28, 2002

Answers

Regs, One metric that is almost universal is availability. It is important to remember that availability must reflect the complete service covered by the SLA and not individual components. Availability may be expressed in terms of % availability, minutes of downtime, number of outages, mean time between failures (MTBF), etc.

Another important area for SLA metrics is performance. However, when we look at this space, there is a difference between what is being used (reported) and what should be used. A key requirement is that the metrics must be meaningful to user receiving reports. Another requirement is that the metrics reflect the user experience. Both of these requirements are frequently violated.

It is very common for IT departments to create SLA reports that only contain technical data. Examples of these metrics include: packet loss, latency, jitter, paging swapping, allocation failures, etc. I have seen each of these in SLA reports given to end-users. Obviously, most end users will not understand this type of data or be able to relate it to their overall experience. However, if the service provider is a carrier and the client is an IT department, then packet loss, latency and jitter will be very appropriate, and are commonly used.

In conclusion, I want to emphasize that the most commonly used metrics are not necessarily the best metrics to use. The choice of metrics depends upon the nature of the service and the technical sophistication of the user.

If you would like to discuss further, please feel free to contact me directly.

Regards,

Rick Sturm

-- Rick Sturm (sturm@enterprisemanagement.com), May 30, 2002.