Branimir Valentic
August 21, 2013
By providing IT services, a service provider creates value that a customer receives. To avoid a gap between (customer) expectations and reality (of how services are provided), the value created should be measured. There are several ways, i.e. parameters, of how this can be done. Availability of the service is just one of them.
It’s simple – we agree with the customer as to a certain service level, which includes targeted availability, and then we measure (availability) achievement. Easy to say, but how does it work in practice?
It is important to say – availability of services significantly shapes customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction). I assume that I don’t have to explain the negative effects of unavailable service. Therefore, both service providers and customers need plain numbers that will provide information about service availability. In addition to service availability, some components (or Configuration Items – CIs) that form the service will be measured, and their availability parameters analyzed and reported. All this implies that availability must be managed.
Availability management is about monitoring, measuring, analyzing and reporting of the following aspects:
My experience is that Service Level Agreements (SLAs) usually define only availability requirements, and rarely reliability and maintainability.
So, service incidents happen. Is that the end? It shouldn’t be. One of the principles of Availability management is that customer satisfaction can still be achieved, even if incidents occur. How? By assisting Incident Management to ensure that incidents are resolved as quickly as possible and that the impact of incidents is minimized.