|
|
VW Poll
VWpoll is a suite of applications designed to measure the performance of a typical IT
group against a defined Service Level Agreement (SLA).
It is designed to:
- Use a balanced score card approach
- Be as automated as possible
- Be as impartial as possible
- Be highly visible and accessible to everyone
- Run across a wide area network in a Microsoft environment
- Provide easy tools for people to easily see how their IT service is performing
- Be able to set up specific SLAs against different systems and companies
|
|
|
How does VWpoll work?
VWpoll is made of two major components, Clients and Master.
In this case each client is a system that is to be monitored
and the server is the system that collects, orders and measures the data.
The master system is simply another system on the network where all the data is
collected into a database and made available for analysis.
The master system itself can be monitored as a client.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What does VWpoll do for me?
VWpoll allows you to:
- Set-up a service level against the performance of systems
- Communicate that performance to your customers (users)
- Manage service level agreements easily
- Automatically collect the information with little effort
What is a service level agreement?
A service level agreement (or SLA) is an agreed level of service between two
parties, one normally paying for the service and one normally delivering the service. The level of service can vary and is normally measured by certain key performance indicators or KPIs.
In an IT service area you could measure several areas, common ones include:
- System uptime
- Network uptime
- Application availability
- User satisfaction
The level of that agreement is all-important. For example, system uptime may be vital in normal business hours but unimportant
outside those hours. So a service level could be 99.95% availability between the hours of 8am to 6pm, 5 days per
week, not including public holidays.
Why have a service level agreement?
Setting service levels lets you define what is expected of you and what your people can
deliver. It allows you to focus on what you need to achieve.
Having a service level agreement also allows you to focus on results.
Most often your customers do not care how you achieve something as long as you do. A
service level lets them concentrate on their business and you on yours.
What is a balanced scorecard?
A balanced scorecard is a concept that attempts to use key performance indicator (KPI)
measures other than purely financial ones. In this case for example, you could measure the performance against
budget but that may never tell you what quality of service you are receiving.
A more balanced view in this case may be:
- System availability against agreed levels
- System performance against agreed levels
- User satisfaction
- Performance against budget
Isn’t this monitoring?
No.
It is very important to distinguish between monitoring of systems and a
service level agreement applying to that system.
Monitoring tools normally allow you to find out:
- When a system has gone down
- Why it has failed
- What corrective action to take, etc
Most of your customers don’t care about these things apart from the fact that the
system went down and when will it be back up. And more importantly I hope it does not happen again!
For example, the service level agreement may state that you may have your systems
unavailable for only 15 minuets per month, but does not care when those 15 minutes occur.
Why measure the IT service area?
Simply put, if you never measure something it will never improve. Because you won’t
know if it has improved. Because you are not measuring it.
Equally, you will not know if it is getting worse.
It is easy to come under budget – simply reduce your costs by reducing what you do
– your service level.
Many IT service areas think they are doing a good job but their customers (users)
think not.
|
|
|
