service level agreements

How to better measure outsourcing

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 06:59:59 -0400

Outsourcing has ballooned into a $120 billion a year industry. While most companies say that it's critical to their business, Forrester Research recently announced survey results that show that 57 percent of IT buyers are somewhat satisfied with their primary outsourcer, 22 percent are very satisfied and more than 20 percent think their outsourcing could be better. "It's not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. You're not inviting disaster into your firm by outsourcing," Dr. Paul Roehrig, a senior analyst with Forrester told CIO. "But there's a tremendous amount of room for improvement."

Roehrig has a number of tactics that CIOs can use to make certain their outsourcing is on track: First off, get regular checkups on the health of your outsourcing deals. He recommends going beyond just measuring performance against service-level agreements (SLAs). He says that CIOs should "assess the deal systemically beyond 'price per widget' or whether the service provider met the SLAs." He further contends that there are six areas that outsourcing customers should assess: business management capability, relationship and context, provider market status, expectation matching, transformation capability and delivery management capability.

For all the details on this holistic approach to outsourcing:
- see the article in CIO

Survey: SaaS hits the mainstream

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Software as a Service (SaaS) is no longer a niche approach to software delivery. According to a survey by InformationWeek, two out of three businesses are either buying or considering buying software via a subscription model. The survey also found that 29 percent of the 250 technology professionals surveyed are using at least one licensed application hosted by a vendor and accessed over the Internet, and 35 percent are planning to buy software that way or are considering it. Security, reliability, and integration remain concerns, but not enough to outweigh the implementation and cost benefits for many. About a third are wary of SaaS. Integration and making sure a company has the service-level agreements in place with their SaaS vendors to ensure transaction response times, system availability, failover for disaster recovery and response time to problems is key. The true test will be whether companies can use SaaS effectively for business-critical applications.

Read more about SaaS:
- read the article at InformationWeek

ALSO:
- read this on the real cost of deploying SaaS
- this on the value of SaaS
- and this on the pros and cons of SaaS

Soft issues gaining importance in networking decisions

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:01:38 -0500

When it comes to evaluating network viability and network providers, flexibility, Quality of Service (QoS), customer/partner relationship management, speed and ease of use are increasingly important decision-making factors for CIOs, in addition to traditionally important factors such as cost, reliability, security and bandwidth. CIOs are also putting more stock in good support, especially for companies with multiple locations and are concerned that network availability is falling below what's stipulated in service level agreements (SLAs). To make sure you get the right networking technology and provider, consider your network and company's reach, density (how many sites it connects to) and criticality.

Learn more about the importance of soft issues in networking:
- read the article at ITWorld Canada

Migrating to IP telephony with relative ease

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:01:38 -0500

Making a successful transition to an IP telephony infrastructure can mean great gains for your company, but it's often a difficult path. Verizon Business offers many best practices around about the transition, which center on hiring a managed services provider (MSP) to oversee the transition of the network to IP telephony. The company also offers advice including criteria for choosing the right MSP. Top suggestions include checking vendors out thoroughly, determining their reach, researching repair times and the types of service level agreements (SLA) available, and investigating whether the switch will necessitate new hardware and software purchases.

Read more about switching to IP telephony:
- Read this press release at Yahoo News

Why hiring an architect may be a good idea

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 19:01:37 -0500

Enterprises that truly want to integrate business and the IT infrastructure might consider pulling an IT architect on board, especially if service oriented architecture is on your to-do list for the future. According to tech experts, specific knowledge of infrastructure and architecture can be a handy skill to have for enforcing data standards and making interoperability actually happen. As service-level agreements are a key aspect of any SOA effort, tech leaders would be well advised to consider hiring on some expertise to help standardize the governance of services.

For more on why an architect is needed today:
- read the blog post at CIO

Related Article: What SOA is really all about. Article