Integrating Service Level Agreements

The use of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) will soon become the prevailing business model for delivering a large number of products and services. SLAs offer service providers the ability to distinguish themselves from the competition in today’s volatile market while providing a measure of security for their clients. Following an innovative approach, this book will clearly show you how to implement SLAs as part of an operation support solution (OSS). The authors address the issues you should know about and show you how to integrate data from applications available at all layers of the telecommunications management network (TMN) model. By combining network management, service management, field service activities, entitlement, and rating with dynamic workflow automation and leading-edge collaboration capabilities, the authors’ revolutionary approach provides you with a complete view of the SLA environment. This hands-on guide will also help you take full advantage of current community collaboration, data interface, process automation, and Internet-based distribution and reporting technologies when developing an SLA delivery strategy. Covering everything you need to know about drafting and utilizing SLAs, Lee and Ben-Natan include discussions on: The roles, objectives, and life cycle of SLAs The complexities in the SLA environment Lessons learned from the CLEC telecom bubble SLAs in a customer-centric approach Business-level SLAs as well as device-level SLAs The integrated SLA (ISLA) model Integration techniques Organizational issues, including the various management layers Operational processes, workflows, notifications, and alerts Metrics and performance reporting Notification, mobile computing, and wireless access