Users share opinions about data center access SLAs, outages

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: STEVE TAYLOR AND JIM METZLER ON WIDE
AREA NETWORKING
10/06/05
Today's focus: Users share opinions about data center access
SLAs, outages

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* More thoughts on high-speed access into data centers
* Links related to Wide Area Networking
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Users share opinions about data center access
SLAs, outages

By Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler

Last time, we discussed an issue raised by some user
organizations about providing dual high-speed access into their
data centers. Today, we'll continue this conversation.

There was a wide range of opinions relative to the value of
service-level agreements (SLA). The majority of IT organizations
that we talked to place little if any value in SLAs, feeling
that the penalties that are included in an SLA are not big
enough to make a difference. A couple of organizations stated
that they tend to negotiate SLAs as hard as possible and then
forget about them. One organization stated that, "SLAs are
important. However, if you are pulling them out on a regular
basis, you are in trouble."

Most of the organizations that didn't see much value in SLAs did
see value in establishing a meaningful escalation process so
that executives in the carrier organization would get contacted
soon after a major outage. Virtually every organization has an
escalation process but it is another to have such a process that
actually works in a timely fashion.

Few organizations felt comfortable with having a contract for
high-speed access circuits that was longer than three years in
duration. In addition, many of the users we spoke with stated
that they include in their negotiations with their carriers a
way to get out of the contract if the carrier continually fails
to meet their SLAs.

The users were in agreement about the importance of the
carrier's account team. The general feeling was that if a
carrier swapped out account teams your ability to get
information from the carrier or make changes to your service
could change dramatically.

For now, this is the last in our series of newsletters on data
center access. We are beginning to explore proactive network
management in general, and WAN application optimization in
particular. We would appreciate it if you could take a few
minutes and fill out the survey
<http://www.webtorials.com/survey-05-6.htm>. We're sure that
this is a topic that we'll be discussing in this newsletter in
the not-too-distant future.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. How to solve Windows system crashes in minutes
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwan7765>
2. Nortel faces uphill battle
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwan8139>
3. Cisco pushes new security software
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwan8140>
4. WLAN QoS specification approved
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwan8287>
5. Somebody's got to pick up the 'Net's tab
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwan8288>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates
and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed
information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter,
connect to Webtorials <http://www.webtorials.com/>, the premier
site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and
market research. Taylor can be reached at
<mailto:taylor@webtorials.com>

Jim Metzler is the Vice President of Ashton, Metzler &
Associates, a consulting organization that focuses on leveraging
technology for business success. Jim assists vendors to refine
product strategies, service providers to deploy technologies and
services, and enterprises evolve their network infrastructure.
He can be reached at <mailto:jim@ashtonmetzler.com>
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ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the WAN newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/frame/index.html
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FEATURED READER RESOURCE

IT PROS SHARE THEIR TALES OF MAKING ITIL WORK

Running an enterprise network is challenging. IT organizational
change can be even more so if managers don't balance efforts
proportionally across people, process and technology.
Implementing best practices frameworks such as Information
Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can help, but they
introduce their own set of challenges. Click here for more:

<http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/092205-itil.html>
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