Service Level Agreements White Paper - A Summary

1. Service Level Agreements White Paper - A Summary Quality of Service Task Force The Open Group Presented by: Jon Saperia saperia@jdscons.com

2. Presentation Overview • Focus of presentation is on discussion points - not the ‘raw data’ in the white paper. • Survey Methodology. • What we learned and should investigate further: • About the importance of services and SLAs. • SLA metrics & management. • Marking and measurement. • Organizational issues. • Other areas for study. • Concluding thoughts and Discussion. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

3. Survey Methodology • Goals: • What is a service and an SLA • How important are they to enterprises • What technologies do they use to mark, measure, manage and control them • Lean about inter and intra-organizational issues as they relate to SLAs • What can the Open Group do to contribute - what needs to be done • Web-based questionnaire • Telephone follow-up Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

4. Services and SLAs What we Learned • General consensus about what an SLA is. • Strong agreement about the central role of services and SLAs. • If a service is important enough to be deployed, it is important enough for an SLA. • There is no dominant technology used for SLAs - it is probably too soon. People use what they have. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

5. Services and SLAs What’s Next • Form of the SLAs - are there opportunities to create a ‘standard’ for high-level network services? Is this desirable? • What would enterprises want from a technology to help with SLAs in their network environment? • To what extent does the management software problem inhibit new services? • Are there trends for technologies for services and can the Open Group help codify these? For example using one or more technologies to deliver VoIP. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

6. Services and SLAs What’s Next Continued • SLAs are more useful by traffic or application type yet many do not have this ability. We should investigate further the cost/benefit of technology deployment to meet this need. • Definition of terms used with technologies used for SLAs mean different things for users and technologists. We need to better understand terms like marking and metering so that SLAs can be more accurately written. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

7. SLA Metrics What we Learned and What’s Next • There is consensus about what happens (versus what should happen) when an SLA is met or not met. • No clear metrics about what should be used for specific services • Range of services is broad. Is there a list of high-level services that are emerging for which ‘standard’ metrics might be useful? Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

8. SLA Management What we Learned • Management is really a problem. There are too many non-integrated pieces. This makes it hard to provision and monitor services and their SLAs. • Even basic data is not as available as people would like. • Much of the data that is collected is collected via manual means such as web forms that users fill out to describe their (dis)satisfaction with services. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

9. SLA Management What’s Next • How to increase the availability of management statistics such as latency, MTBF. Less than half the respondents had what they wanted. • How to create ‘standardized’ metrics and values for different high level services so that more effective SLAs can be written. • Determining what factors about extant management software are so inadequate and creating an industry RFI to describe what is needed by the enterprises. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

10. Marking and Measurement What we Learned • Few companies ‘mark’ traffic using any of the newer technologies like DiffServ. • URL identification is most common. Most often certain Web pages go to dedicated servers. • Marking and measurement are terms that users and technologists use differently. They most often mean dedicated resources are assigned to specific traffic. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

11. Marking and Measurement What’s Next • 77% of the respondents indicated that they did not mark traffic: • Was it not needed? • Too expensive? • Too difficult to deploy? • Used unknown technologies? • How does this square with large percentage that said they would mark in the next 12 months? Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

12. Organizational Issues What we Learned • Many of the same concerns/justifications for SLAs within an organization are similar to those when the SLA is provided by a service provider. • Some telephone respondents indicated internal SLAs help justify department budgets and keep work inside rather than being outsourced: • Organizations that look at the infrastructure as a cost center and not a competitive advantage seem to outsource more. • Those that see infrastructure as key and a competitive advantage use internal resources for internal SLAs Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

13. Organizational Issues What’s Next • What are the types of SLAs enterprises would like to have with their customers - the most often cited external organization that would have an SLA • Can service providers bridge the trust gap and offer more services, what do they need to do • With 73% reporting that personnel consequences can be the result of a failed SLA, there seems to be an incentive not to offer strong agreements Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

14. Other Areas for Study What’s Next • Collect more data from the doers rather than the managers - this might change some of the responses • An economic look at over-provisioning versus new technologies like DiffServ? • Application-specific information was highly valued but not widely available: • What applications are of concern • What application specifics are needed for each application Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

15. Other Areas for Study - Continued • What are the economic factors that would cause a migration from over-provisioning to technologies that prioritize resource utilization • Security was described as a concern in some telephone responses. What are the specific security concerns for both internal and external SLAs. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

16. Concluding Thoughts • SLAs are becoming ubiquitous - help organization manage internal agreements • SLAs are key to the functioning of many enterprises • SLAs between enterprises and their service providers are also now common, many have real teeth • SLAs are not dependent on technology, though technology can help. • Over-provisioning rules Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

17. Concluding Thoughts - Where to Improve • Enterprises care deeply about how well the services and SLAs for them are functioning but: • New technologies are not being adopted at a high rate • Manual methods of service verification still dominate • We have a long way to go to understand how to write and manage SLAs in an efficient manner - much more work to be done. • We have work to do in the area of basic definition of terms. Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia

18. Discussion Topics • Other analysis of the survey • Where do we go from here Qos Task Force - The Open Group - Services and SLAs White Paper Presentation - Jon Saperia