Practices and problems in managing electronic services using SLAs

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to present the key areas of activity to be used for drafting service level agreements (SLAs) for electronic services and, at the same time, to present best practices and problems that arise from the application of this discipline.Design/methodology/approachA range of recently published (2000‐2005) works has been reviewed, in order to: a) analyse how an SLA has to be defined and applied b) identify the applicable best practices and c) identify the problem areas.FindingsProvides guidance for the business and the Application Service Provider (ASP) when they want to engage in an outsourcing agreement by presenting best practices and problems that occur from the application of SLAs.Research limitations/implicationsSuggests further research is needed in a number of research areas such as: development of semantic models for SLAs, development of flexible pricing models in relation with SLAs, definition of SLAs in cases of dynamic service creation, etc.Practical implicationsA useful source of information both for academia and the business.Originality/valueProvides practical insight on a specialized topic and guidance to researchers.

Maintaining and evolving Service Level Agreements: Motivation and case study

“…She identified five problems with how SLAs were used in those interactions, three of which are particularly relevant. A 2008 Forrester Research study [10] and a paper identifying SLA principles and best practices by Fitsilis [11] support her conclusions and offer additional problems, as follows:…”

“…A Forrester study [10] concluded most SLAs are defined in technical terms not accessible to business users. Fitsilis [11] emphasizes the difficulty in mapping service levels from low-level measurable information to higher-level meaningful information, reporting that only technical specialists understand SLAs. He also emphasizes the importance of changing this: the first two best practices identified are "service level definitions should be business-based, meaningful to the users..." and "service level definitions should be easily defined and measurable".…”

“…It also requires technical staff to have the ability to elicit requirements from business users, and these two groups may not be able to communicate on the same level. Fitsili [11] remarks that by only penalizing performance below a minimum standard, providers are incentivized to strive for minimum levels and no better.…”

Stability and Creativity as Contradicting Values in Information Management

“…The service provider may be an internal IT/IS department, or the provision may be outsourced from an outside opera- tor. Outsourcing continues to grow as a business practice when ASP, Web hosting or other such services become more popular (Fitsilis, 2006).…”

“…Although there is much evidence with regard to the advantages of SLAs in IT service management, research has identified major problems in applying them (Antonio, Arienzo, Esposito et al, 2004;Hiles, 1994;Trienekens, Bouman, & Van Der Zwan, 2004). Fitsilis (2006) categorizes these problems in two areas: problems related with traditional service level management, such as developing SLA semantic models; cost models; better understanding of SLA terms, and so forth; and problems that arise from technology and marketplace evolution such as SLAs for federated environments, for aggregated services and for on-demand services, and so forth. Trienekens et al (2004) explain that the problems arise from SLA specifications: specification of effort versus specification of results, or unclear service specifications.…”