Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services

Product Description

Measure, manage, and improve the speed and reliability of web services

• Complete reference for creating relevant, effective Service Level Agreements
• Detailed discussions of both technical and business performance metrics and their statistical treatment
• Performance and management implications of various web services delivery infrastructures, including caching and load distribution
• Discussion of the transport infrastructure, including quality of service (QoS) technology and traffic shaping
• Instrumentation system design
• Measurement collection, aggregation, correlation, and use for real-time service level control and reporting
• Quick problem detection, "triage" problem diagnosis, and root-cause analysis
• Automated, policy-based system management
• Load testing, modeling, and capacity planning for web systems
• Calculation of return on investment for web infrastructure improvements
• Structured plan for implementation of SLM techniques

The web has become a major vehicle for transforming business processes, but ineffective management of web-based services can result in high costs and user dissatisfaction. Service Level Management (SLM) is therefore a competitive weapon in the web marketplace, providing the tools needed to improve performance and reliability of web services while simultaneously controlling costs.

Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services shows you how you can measure, manage, and improve network performance and quality of experience (QoE) for critical web services. Starting with an explanation of SLM and common performance metrics, the book provides detailed discussions of methods to measure and improve performance. Service Level Agreements, instrumentation, performance-improvement technologies, load testing, and long-term planning are all covered in detail. This book provides both technical engineers and non-technical managers with an organized, cohesive plan for measuring, improving, and evaluating the performance of web-based services.

Whether you are delivering services to other businesses or directly to customers, Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services walks you through the complete process of designing a balanced solution for your situation. Use it to help design a system with the speed, reliability, and flexibility that are critical success factors for your business.

This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Press, which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.

Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful Theory of Service Level Management is well explained, February 10, 2004 By A Customer This review is from: Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services (Hardcover) The book delivers an explanation for the staff and management of organizations that need to understand what Service Level Management (SLM) is and how to improve SLM in today's networks. There are not very many books out there that have tackled the subject of SLM and the author has done a good job in taking on this subject. The book begins with an introduction to Service Level Agreements (SLA) and SLM. It breaks down SLM into its basic components by introducing facets of a network that must be highly-available and responsive quickly to the inevitable failures that very few organizations can experience without major financial losses. Most network implementers know what needs to be done to design a network, or more specifically a web-based service, to be highly available but few have taken the step to analyze and detail it in the way that the author John McConnell has. The book enlightens the reader into parts of SLM that are performed everyday without thinking about the "what... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful Practical Service Level Management, February 22, 2004 By A Customer This review is from: Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services (Hardcover) This book really lives up to the title in that is focuses on a difficult subject matter and doesn't deviate into trying to cover a million other subjects. It will not tell you how to configure a router, a monitoring agent or set up a server application in detail; what it does is focus on how to correctly implement Service Level Management (SLM) across the various levels in an IT infrastructure just like the title says! It is a must read for anyone involved with or thinking of setting up an effective SLM organization for their company. I appreciate the authors' approach to traditional Service Level Agreements (SLA) being one of three portions for effective SLM that need covered with the others being Quality of Service and Quality of Experience. The latter is a subject that it seems like many in the field haven't paid nearly enough attention to as it is the most difficult to measure but is the most important to the customer. The portions of the book in regards to setting up... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful Solid Overview of SLA Management, September 29, 2005 By  C. Coleman - See all my reviews    This review is from: Practical Service Level Management: Delivering High-Quality Web-Based Services (Hardcover) This book was a great resource for implementing an outsourced service policy at my company. I was able to use McConnell's text in conjunction with the tools available from DigitalFuel - http://www.digitalfuel.com/ to save my customers millions of dollars. I buy will buy this book for all my clients. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment

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Index

Download - 256 KB -- Index

Table of Contents

Preface

I. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS AND INTRODUCTION TO SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT.

II. COMPONENTS OF THE SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE.

III. LONG-TERM SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS.

IV. PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT.

Downloadable Sample Chapter

Download - 307 KB -- Chapter 1: Troubleshooting Methodology and Approach