Dear Sirs,

IŽd like to know formal concise definitions of:

Service Level Guarantee

Service Level Agreement

Service Level Management

Thank you!

Regards

Marcelo Knust Brazil

-- Marcelo Henrique Knust Rolim (mknust@embratel.com.br), October 15, 2002

Answers

Service Level Guarantee = a guarantee to meet one or more service level objectives. For example, if a service level objective is 99.999% availability during defined peak hours (say, 8:00AM to 1:00 PM M-F), when you are making a guarantee that you will beet this objective.

Service Level Agreement - a contract between providers of service (internal IT, external provider, etc.) and the consumer of the services being provided. Defines service level objectives, roles and responsibilities, contingency measures, and, in some cases penalties.

Service Level Management - the array of activities that support managing service delivery and achieving service lavel objectives - includes change control, problem management, process scheduling, operational level agreements between and among all providers in the service delivery chain, recovery management, and associated metrics. It can, and should, include process improvement, customer satisfaction measurement and other key performance indicators that are used to gage the effectiveness of meeting critical success factors (usually expressed as service level objectives) within the context of a service management strategy.

-- Mike Tarrani (mtarrani@pacbell.net), October 15, 2002.

Marcelo, Mike Tarrani's answers were correct. I do want to add one thing. The book that led to the creation of this site "Foundations of Service Level Management" has been translated into Portuguese and is available in Brazil. As you study this subject, you will find it helpful.

Rick Sturm

-- Rick Sturm (sturm@enterprisemanagement.com), October 18, 2002.