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

John McConnell (Author), Eric Siegel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2004

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

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.

From the Back Cover

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Cisco Press (January 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158705079X
• ISBN-13: 978-1587050794
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,256,322 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 and why". I have worked on networks for over 8 years and have implemented Web-Based Services for half that time. Many of the points the author makes are taken for granted and never really analyzed to try to improve upon them by the majority of network designers and engineers.
The book continues with a discussion on problem identification and resolution. The speed of identifying the everyday problems that may develop has become essential just as the amount of data a network administrator must weed through has grown. An example the book illustrates is a Denial of Service attack. This can be crippling to a business that depends on Web-Based Services to perform day to day operations or sales. The author reinforces the reason we need good tools to quickly identify the real issues among the false positives.
The book ends with several chapters devoted to the steps in improving the quality of web based services from a theoretical level. You will not find any specific router configurations for example, but you will find out how the case can be made using Return on Investment (ROI) to begin planning on a web-based service. Included is a case study that analyzes this ROI. Lastly the book covers a SLM Implementation Plan moving from the documentation of the existing systems, to creating a baseline, and to fine tuning the service. The book continues with an explanation of creating and managing SLAs and ends with a look into the future of Service Level Management.
Overall, I would rate this book a 5 out of 5. As I mentioned earlier, it is not a book that will teach you how to configure a router or switch to perform QoS. But it will teach you to think about the reasons why it needs to be done and the consequences of doing without some planning. The book has diagrams interspersed throughout the chapters illustrating such things as a Web Service Delivery Architecture that enhance the author's description SLM. I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about knowing the heart of SLAs and SLMs and how they affect business today.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 correct Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are extremely useful. SLAs have to be carefully worded in order to accomplish their goal. One of their examples of how if you have a hundred sites and a 99% uptime SLA for the month, 99 of a 100 could not have any outage and the other can have 100% downtime for the month! It makes you think of all the SLAs that are sitting out there that really do not do what they are intended.

The end to end picture that this book provides is especially helpful for those in management or project management positions. It covers how to make a business case for SLM based on the return on investment, the steps needed to correctly phase in the SLM for the company (a good strategy does not just get turned on overnight), and even how through the right modeling and testing it can continue to remain an effective tool going forward. SLM is not something that is just turned on and then everyone walks away. It is an ongoing project. If you are more focused on digging into the technology that pertains only to your position, hop through the book and read the chapters that are focused on the area you work in. There are dedicated chapters to the transport (network), server, and application areas in regards to SLM so if want to skip the big picture and focus on your area of responsibility it is easy to find the information.

I would like to end this by saying that I wish I would have had this book three years ago when I was working for a company providing a managed web service over the Internet. It seems like the book is a perfect description of many of the things learned in real life. The only area that I would have liked to see additional coverage on is the number and types of tools that are available to perform the desired tasks. The book always gave at least one example of technology and at least one vendor (sometimes more) but I would have found it helpful to list a small chart with the vendors so I could easily use that as a reference but that is only my opinion.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Overview of SLA Management, September 29, 2005

By 

C. Coleman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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.