Melissa J. Buco

A Generic SLA Semantic Model for the Execution Management of E-business Outsourcing Contracts

It is imperative for a competitive e-business outsourcing service provider to manage the execution of its service level agreement (SLA) contracts in business terms (e.g., minimizing financial penalties for service-level violations, maximizing service-level measurement based customer satisfaction metrics, etc.). In order to do that, the provider must possess a generic means of capturing and managing the SLA contract data (e.g., quality measurement data sources, service-level evaluation rules, etc.) as well as the relationships between them and internal service-level management (SLM) data (e.g., resource management data, system configuration data, etc.). This paper presents the design rationale of a generic SLA semantic model (including a set of semantic elements and relationships) based on an in-depth analysis of nine real e-business outsourcing SLA contracts/templates comprising over 100 service-level guarantees and intents. Our development experience with a state-of-the-art SLA contract execution manager (named SAM) suggests the semantic model is practical and useful.

IT service management automation - A hybrid methodology to integrate and orchestrate collaborative human centric and automation centric workflows

People, processes, technology and information are the essential building blocks for creating a successful IT infrastructure in todays fast-paced, service-focused marketplace. ITIL which is recognized as the de facto standard for service management is a process based approach. ITIL focuses on a set of integrated processes which run the gamut from highly interactive and dynamic processes such as problem determination to highly repeatable processes such as patch deployment which are best handled in a fully automated, non-interactive fashion. The ability to support and integrate the full spectrum of interactivity for these processes with the appropriate level of automation is crucial for the service provider. Also key is the ability to identify opportunities to increase the level of automation as maturity and technology permit. In this paper, we propose a conceptual methodology for IT service management process automation that leverages the ontological relationships between process artifacts and resource artifacts to develop data aware processes for an effective automated approach to integrate both highly automated and human centric process models. The objective is to develop a systematic approach that addresses the needs of an IT organization in order that highly automated operational processes work in conjunction with collaborative human decision centric processes in order to effectively deliver IT services. In addition, we propose a complexity model to assist in identifying automation opportunities to satisfy the need for continuous efficiency and cost improvement.

Low traffic overlay networks with large routing tables

The routing tables of Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs) can vary from size O(1) to O(n). Currently, what is lacking is an analytic framework to suggest the optimal routing table size for a given workload. This paper (1) compares DHTs with O(1) to O(n) routing tables and identifies some good design points; and (2) proposes protocols to realize the potential of those good design points.We use total traffic as the uniform metric to compare heterogeneous DHTs and emphasize the balance between maintenance cost and lookup cost. Assuming a node on average processes 1,000 or more lookups during its entire lifetime, our analysis shows that large routing tables actually lead to both low traffic and low lookup hops. These good design points translate into one-hop routing for systems of medium size and two-hop routing for large systems.Existing one-hop or two-hop protocols are based on a hierarchy. We instead demonstrate that it is possible to achieve completely decentralized one-hop or two-hop routing, i.e., without giving up being peer-to-peer. We propose 1h-Calot for one-hop routing and 2h-Calot for two-hop routing. Assuming a moderate lookup rate, compared with DHTs that use O(log n) routing tables, 1h-Calot and 2h-Calot save traffic by up to 70% while resolving lookups in one or two hops as opposed to O(log n) hops.

Integrated change and configuration management

This paper provides a summary of the best-practice change-management and configuration-management processes that express a core which conforms to ITIL® and discusses how they are extended for the service provider domain. These customizable processes, coupled with an execution platform and a configuration-management database, form the essence of the IBM Tivoli® Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB)-the heart of the IBM strategy for information technology service management (ITSM). We provide an overview of ITSM best practices and present details of the best-practice processes developed by IBM for the CCMDB product. We also describe a number of insights gained from implementing these processes and discuss issues that are key to implementing them in a service provider environment.

Fresco: a Web services based framework for configuring extensible SLA management systems

A service level agreement (SLA) is a service contract that includes the evaluation criteria for agreed service quality standards. Since agreeable specifications on the evaluation criteria cannot be limited in practice, competitive SLA management products must be extensible in terms of their support for contract-specific SLA compliance evaluations. While the need of running and managing those software products as services increases, we have found that developing a good solution for configuring them as per contractual terms is a challenging task. This paper presents the Fresco framework, which facilitates configuring extensible SLA management systems using Web services. An XML-based specification of SLA management related data called SCOL will also be presented to show how the framework supports contract-specific SLA terms and contract-specific extensions of the deployed SLA management software. The paper furthermore shows how the Fresco system uses a template-based approach to communicate with other Web services applications with support for various input and output formats. Our experience with implementing the Fresco framework for a leading commercial SLA management software product demonstrates that the framework facilitates the creation of effective and efficient solutions for configuring extensible SLA management systems.

Decomposition of IT service processes and alternative service identification using ontologies

Providers of IT services are under constant pressure to reduce cost and improve the quality of the services they provide. The ability to decompose such IT services (defined by themselves or third party suppliers) into elemental service processes characterized by core function can benefit the providers by allowing them to identify alternative service processes of potentially lower cost and/or improved quality. This paper proposes an ontology-based hierarchical service decomposition and identification approach to support service providers in managing their operational service processes by the characterization and exploitation of such elemental service processes. We further demonstrate the feasibility and sample outcomes of the proposed approach an example.

PEM: a framework enabling continual optimization of workflow process executions based upon business value metrics

The competitiveness of the market place and the advent of on demand services computing are encouraging many organizations to improve their business efficiency and agility via business process management technologies. A lot of work has been done in process codification, tracking, and automation. However, a significant gap still remains between the way an organizations codified processes execute and the organizations business objectives such as maximizing profit with high-degree of customer satisfaction. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a process execution management (PEM) framework which enables continual optimization of workflow process executions based upon business value metrics such as SLA breach penalty, revenue, and customer satisfaction index. We have implemented the PEM framework based upon leading commercial products. We have also used the framework to develop two representative business performance management solutions for service quality management processes and application execution workflows. Our experimental results show that, when compared with a state-of-the-art commercial workflow product, our PEM system can reduce the loss of business value of a set of process execution requests by 67% on average.

Quality of IT service delivery — Analysis and framework for human error prevention

In this paper, we address the problem of reducing the occurrence of Human Errors that cause service interruptions in IT Service Support and Delivery operations. Analysis of a large volume of service interruption records revealed that more than 21% of interruptions were caused by human error. We focus on Change Management, the process with the largest risk of human error, and identify the main instances of human errors as the 4 Wrongs: request, time, configuration item, and command. Analysis of change records revealed that the human-error prevention by partial automation is highly relevant. We propose the HEP Framework, a framework for execution of IT Service Delivery operations that reduces human error by addressing the 4 Wrongs using content integration, contextualization of operation patterns, partial automation of command execution, and controlled access to resources.

IT service management automation: an automation centric approach leveraging configuration control, audit verification and process analytics

People, processes, technology and information are the service providers resources for delivering IT services. Process automation is one way in which service providers can reduce cost and improve quality by automating routine tasks thereby reducing human error and reserving people resources for those tasks which require human skill and complex decision making. In this paper we propose a conceptual methodology for IT service management process automation in the area of configuration control, audit verification, and process analytics. We employ a complexity model to assist in identifying the opportunities for process automation. We recommend and outline an automated approach to the complex task of variance detection of the hierarchically defined Configuration Items in a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) against the Configuration Items in the IT environment. We also recommend the integration of this automated detection with human centric remediation for resolving the variances detected and outline an automated approach to the variance detection.

Dispatch tooling for global service delivery

Tool development to support service management is a problem in optimizing service quality and reducing redundant work subject to competing constraints, both technical requirements and political realities. However, many of the constraints only become clear over time, and often only after a series of iterations as tooling exposes new or previously discounted constraints. We present a case study: the evolution of tooling for global dispatch of work orders supporting incident tickets. We discuss different approaches, how they highlighted different constraints, and even how they competed with each other, and conclude with a discussion of approaches to balancing constraints, many of which are not initially apparent and some of which shift over time.