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Service Level Agreement (SLA) Monitoring and Reporting
Summary: Nimsoft Monitoring Solutions (NMS), formerly known as NimBUS, for SLA track operations and business service levels against SLA metrics, and forecast violations with warning alerts. NMS provides a graphical interface for defining SLA parameters,including compliance period, operating period, exclude periods, compliance percentage, compliance calculation methods, and much more. NMS offers an array of out-of-the-box mathematical formulas that can be mixed and matched in order to suit business-unique SLA compliance calculations. NMS’ extensive archive of probes and gateways provides the infrastructure and end-user data necessary to monitor end-to-end business services and SLA compliance. Web-based SLA compliance reports with drill down granularity can be automatically generated and distributed.
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There is a growing popularity of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) given their business value. Incentives for IT and the business to adopt SLAs include IT alignment with business objectives, predictable business performance, improved cost controls and operational efficiencies, and much more—all of which translates into significant competitive advantages and business gains.
To realize business gains requires full SLA compliance as non-compliance nullifies the many business benefits SLAs offer.
To mitigate the risk of non-compliance and as a precursor to adopting SLAs as a business practice, Nimsoft Monitoring Solutions (NMS), formerly known as NimBUS, for SLA, which feature fully automated and cost effective SLA monitoring and reporting capabilities, should be in place.
Primary features:
- Template-driven SLA definition
- Comprehensive IT infrastructure data analysis including end-user experience
- SLA compliance calculation and breach forecasting with warning alerts
- Automated web-based SLA report generation and distribution
- SLA compliance historical reporting with trend analysis
Additional features:
- Protects existing investments with 3rd party tools data integration
- Operational level agreement (OLA) monitoring with service desk integrations
- Uniquely positioned for ITIL, Six Sigma, and other quality improvement initiatives
Key Benefits:
- Reduces IT labor/costs associated with data analysis to determine SLA compliance
- Forecasts SLA breach and highlights degrading SLOs for SLA violation avoidance
- Dramatically reduces the bottom-line impact of SLA violation penalties
- Provides compliance history to support IT in SLA compliance review meetings
Figure below: Verbal or written SLAs can be easily transposed into Nimsoft SLA templates for automated compliance calculation, and Web-based report generation and distribution. (Click for a larger image.)
Multi-point Data Aggregation and Analysis
Critical to effective SLA monitoring and reporting is full access to status data representing the end-to-end service infrastructure; this also requires access to end-user quality of service metrics and service desk performance statistics. NMS probes, gateways, and adapters provide this broad data access and consolidate this information into the NMS quality of service (QoS) database, where the data becomes available for SLA compliance calculation and reporting.
Template-driven SLA Definition
Graphical SLA templates included with NMS facilitate SLA definition—SLA configuration options includecompliance period (for example, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year); operating period (for example, “9am to 5pm, Mon-Fri”, or “7 x 24 except Sundays”); compliance threshold (for example, 98.5%); and more. Web-based SLA compliance reports are automatically generated upon completion of the SLA definition.
Figure below: NMS SLA template fully defined to monitor an end-to-end Cisco VoIP Service. (Click for a larger image.)
SLA Compliance Calculation Methods and Formulas
NMS features an SLA compliance calculation engine that uses mathematical formulas to analyze and summarize QoS data points according to users’ SLA definitions. SLA Compliance can have any number of definitions, each of which are determined through SLA negotiations—NMS’ array of compliance calculation methods and formulas accommodates unique compliance requirements, for example: SLA and SLO compliance formulas include best, worst, sequential, average, weight, AND, and OR. QoS compliance formulas include interval, median, and average.
Note that all compliance methods and formulas can be customized (mixed and matched) to create and satisfy unique SLA compliance calculation requirements.
Single and Grouped SLAs
With NMS, it’s possible to define single or grouped SLAs—each with their own unique compliance thresholds/targets defined according to different types or classes of service. The SLA grouping feature allows for organizing SLAs by branch office, customer, business unit, geography, service, technology, application, and more.
SLA Compliance, Operating, and Exclude Periods
NMS provides a calendaring function so users can specify various SLA compliance, operating, and exclude periods (i.e. for scheduled maintenance). This functionality ensures that the NMS compliance calculation engine analyzes data only within defined service hours.
Automated Web-based SLA Report Generation
SLA compliance calculation results are forwarded to the NMS QoS database and become immediately available for reporting and trend analysis. SLA report generation is an automated function within NMS—immediately upon completing the NMS SLA template, an initial compliance calculation is performed and then a Web report is automatically generated that reveals current compliance results.
Figure below: NMS’ Web-based service level reports display current SLA compliance status and forecasted breach information. Drill through the service level report to show individual SLO and QoS metrics against defined constraints. Select the ‘History’ tab to view SLA compliance history for past periods with visibility of developing trends.
(Click for a larger image.)
To view live NMS SLA report examples go to: http://www.nimsoft.com/reports/sla-reports.php
Predicting SLA Violations with Warning Alerts
NMS will continuously perform calculations to determine if the current period SLA is safely in compliance. It will also determine if an SLA breach is imminent if a problem condition is allowed to persist. NMS SLA reports include color-coded SLA compliance/breach trend indicators with forecasted breach date and time—warning and critical level alerts can be generated when % compliance decreases to predefined thresholds.
Figure below: NMS SLA reports include status indicators, such as current SLA period, current SLA compliance in period, SLA compliance trend analysis (breach forecast), and percent non-compliance remaining in SLA period.
(Click for a larger image.)
Historical SLA Compliance Reporting
NMS’ SLA reports also provide historical perspectives—selecting the ‘History’ tab in the Web report will display SLA compliance results for past periods in graph and tabular format. The history report will reveal improved or degrading compliance trends. In addition, past periods listed in the history report can be drilled into for analysis. An additional key feature of NMS’ SLA historical reporting is the ability to modify and recalculate past SLA periods (i.e. add forgotten exclude period).
Figure below: NMS’ SLA compliance/breach history reports show past periods and status. NMS SLA reports support drill-down on past periods to review details for that period.
(Click for a larger image.)
NMS requires minimal effort for implementation and training, and will not require extensive ongoing maintenance.
If you would like to request a free trial of Nimsoft, please click here. For free white papers or additional information click here.
