Dear Sirs,

We are trying to implement SLA's, but we have found that in our department, there are very different ideas about how to define the services we provide as IT department. Are there any guidelines to make such definitions?

Thanks in advance.

-- Efrain Mejia (emgx0112@pmicim.com), February 12, 2003

Answers

Efrain, The answer to your question depends upon whether you are writing the SLAs with clients or between groups within IT. In ITIL terminology the latter would be considered an OLA. I will assume that you are aware of the distinction and that you are working on SLAs with the clients of IT.

Your problem is not unique. Each group within IT will tend to think of the "service" in terms of the function that they perform. However, that is relevant to discussions around internal SLAs (OLAs). For SLAs with a client group, the only definition that matters is the client's definition, or view, of the service. What the client cares about is the end-to-end service and not the components. Therefore, if you want to know what definitions to use - ask your clients.

Regards,

Rick Sturm

-- Rick Sturm (sturm@enterprisemanagement.com), February 25, 2003.