The more I work on trying to provide best practices to a customer on SLM,
the more I feel like I'm just not there in being able to fully explain the
concepts and correctly guide them on how to configure the SLAs and OLAs.
There are two parts to my issue with SLM: the first part is with the
concepts around SLM (services, SLAs, and OLAs) and the second part is with
implementing them in BMC Remedy. Please provide any comments you have on
my thinking.
1. Concepts
1. Services
1. There are two main types of services: Internal/External
Customer Facing Services (IT services) -- let's call them
Parent Services
and Supporting Services (IT Provider services)-- let's call them Child
Services. The Child Services should support the Parent
Services. Many Child
Services may make up a Parent Service.
2. Service Level Agreements
1. These are agreements for the Parent Services
1. Example: Email
3. Operational Level Agreements
1. These are agreements for the Child Services
1. Example: Exchange, Network, Database
2. Configuration based on concepts above
1. Atrium Service Catalog
1. You would define your services
2. Service Level Agreements
1. You would create an SLA and relate a Parent Service
2. Regarding Incident Management, you would setup the SLA and then
relate service targets to it. Typically the service target would only
include the related company and priority in the "Terms and Conditions"
field, and once related to an SLA, the service target would
use the Service
defined in the SLA as part of it's terms and conditions to
get attached to
an incident ticket.
3. Operation Level Agreements
1. You would create an OLA and relate a Child Service
1. Related to Incident Management, you would setup the OLA and
then relate service targets to it. Typically the service
target would only
include the related company and priority in the "Terms and
Conditions"
field, and once related to an OLA, the service target
would use the Service
defined in the OLA as part of it's terms and conditions to
get attached to
an incident ticket.
So now my question is how would this work together in BMC Remedy? For
example, a critical incident ticket is created because a user says that
their email is not working and it's assigned to the Service Desk. The
"Email" service would be related to the incident ticket using the "Service"
field, which, in turn, would relate a specific service target (e.g. Email -
Critical Priority Incident Resolution). Since "Email" is a Parent Service,
the service target is related to an SLA. The "Email - Critical Priority
Incident Resolution" service target will run from the time the ticket is
created until it is resolved. The Service Desk does initial triage and then
decides to escalate to a Tier 1 group. Tier 1 determines that there is an
issue with a network component. Ideally, this network component should be
part of a child service, which should be related to an OLA.
So how should I continue? The ticket now needs an SLA and an OLA? Should a
separate related incident ticket be created with the Child Service, so that
the OLA would become attached? Is there some other way to have both the OLA
and SLA attached to the original ticket? Should I design everything
differently?
Another thought was that the SLA should only be attached to Service
Requests in SRM, and then only OLAs would be attached to the fulfillment
applications. If this seems like a better solution. My only question is,
because I haven't tested it, can we relate SLAs to the generic SRDs that
Remedy uses when a Incident User creates a ticket directly in Incident
Management and the system creates the related Service Request?
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