The Rise of Self-Service Portals in Data Centers
Keywords:
Service level agreement; Self-service portal; SLA management; SLA monitoring; SLA creation; SLA changes; SLA requests; Service quality; Data center; Data-center; Infrastructure-as-a-Service; Operations support; Self-help; Capacity planning; Demand management; Knowledge management; Environmental monitoring; Multi-tenancy; Customer isolation; Customer experience; Risk; Compliance; Governance; Costs; Efficiency .Abstract
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are key contractual documents describing expected quality of service between a service provider and its customers. In the context of Data Center Provider Services, SLAs define electrical, mechanical, cooling, network, storage, security, and other attributes of the facilities. Both the provider and the customers share the responsibility for realizing the SLA objectives. Customers rely on their Data Center Providers to deliver the agreed-upon service quality and the Providers themselves utilize their own supporting suppliers and partners to ensure demand is met. A shortcoming of the prevailing SLA management paradigm is that it remains largely a suspenseful activity for customers. A complaint-handling, after-the-event exercise can have deep implications on their business. Allowing customers to self-service the entire life cycle and processes around their SLAs via an easy-to-use self-service portal enhances their experience and jointly drives quality with the Data Center Provider.
Visualizing and presenting SLAs in an engaging manner for customers is critical. Self-service SLAs enable customer-initiated workflows around creation, amendment, monitoring (via dashboards), ticket requests, and approvals. There are numerous operational support functions that can be formalized between the Data Center Provider and customers such as demand forecasts, spare part reservations, service requests, operational reports, etc. Enabling these requestfulfilling, change management, and knowledge-management processes through a self-service portal further drive quality during the day-to-day life cycle. There are several specific considerations that require attention in a Data Center context. Customers expect real-time position and health of Data Center Services to ensure quality. Any breach of physical or environmental parameters will have a cascading effect on one or more SLAs. Multi-tenancy and customer isolation further add complexity.
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