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Service Level Agreement
A service-level agreement (SLA) is a commitment between a service provider and a customer. Particular aspects of the service – quality, availability, responsibilities – are agreed between the service provider and the service user. The most common component of an SLA is that the services should be provided to the customer as agreed upon in the contract. As an example, Internet service providers and telcos will commonly include service level agreements within the terms of their contracts with customers to define the level(s) of service being sold in plain language terms. In this case, the SLA will typically have a technical definition of ''mean time between failures'' (MTBF), ''mean time to repair'' or ''mean time to recovery'' (MTTR); identifying which party is responsible for reporting faults or paying fees; responsibility for various data rates; throughput; jitter; or similar measurable details. Overview A service-level agreement is an agreement between two or more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Service Provider
A service provider (SP) is an organization that provides services, such as consulting, legal, real estate, communications, storage, and processing services, to other organizations. Although a service provider can be a sub-unit of the organization that it serves, it is usually a third-party or outsourcing, outsourced supplier. Examples include telecommunications service providers (TSPs), application service providers (ASPs), storage service providers (SSPs), and internet service providers (ISPs). A more traditional term is service bureau. IT professionals sometimes differentiate between service providers by categorizing them as type I, II, or III. The three service types are recognized by the IT industry although specifically defined by ITIL and the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996. *Type I: internal service provider *Type II: shared service provider *Type III: external service provider Type III SPs provide IT services to external customers and subsequently can be referred to as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Service Desk (ITSM)
Information technology service management (ITSM) is the activities that are performed by an organization to design, build, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers. Differing from more technology-oriented IT management approaches like network management and IT systems management, IT service management is characterized by adopting a process approach towards management, focusing on customer needs and IT services for customers rather than IT systems, and stressing continual improvement. The CIO WaterCoolers' annual ITSM report states that business uses ITSM "mostly in support of customer experience (35%) and service quality (48%)." Context As a discipline, ITSM has ties and common interests with other IT and general management approaches, information security management and software engineering. Consequently, IT service management frameworks have been influenced by other standards and adopted concepts from them, e.g. CMMI, ISO 9000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telecommunications Act Of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, The act was the first significant overhaul of United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years, amending the Communications Act of 1934, and represented a major change in American telecommunication law, because it was the first time that the Internet was included in broadcasting and spectrum allotment.The Telecommunications Act of 1996. Title 3, sec. 301. Retrieved frofcc.gov (2011) The goal of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other." The legislation's primary goal was deregulation of the converging broadcasting and telecommunications markets. The law's regulatory policies have been criticized, includin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Service Provider
Network Service Provider (NSP) is one of the roles defined in the National Information Infrastructure (NII) plan, which governed the transition of the Internet from US federal control to private-sector governance, with an accompanying shift from the 1968-1992 single-payer economy to a competitive market economy. The plan envisioned Network Service Providers as a wholesale layer, moving Internet bandwidth produced at Network Access Points (subsequently called "Internet exchange points") to Internet Service Providers, who would in turn sell it to end-user enterprises, or on to Internet Access Providers (IAPs) who would sell it to individual end-users in their homes. In fact, the original Network Service Providers quickly vertically integrated with Internet Service Providers and Internet Access Providers, through the mid-1990s, creating conglomerates and reducing competition. Now, the term may refer to telecommunications companies, data carriers, wireless communications providers, Inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ITIL
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL describes processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists which are neither organization-specific nor technology-specific, but can be applied by an organization toward strategy, delivering value, and maintaining a minimum level of competency. It allows the organization to establish a baseline from which it can plan, implement, and measure. It is used to demonstrate compliance and to measure improvement. There is no formal independent third party compliance assessment available for ITIL compliance in an organization. Certification in ITIL is only available to individuals. Since 2013, ITIL has been owned by AXELOS, a joint venture between Capita and the UK Cabinet Office. History Responding to growing dependence on IT, the UK Government's Ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maintenance Window
In information technology and systems management, a maintenance window is a period of time designated in advance by the technical staff, during which preventive maintenance that could cause disruption of service may be performed. High availability services For a high-availability service, such as an Internet hosting service or Internet service provider, the purpose of stating a time period in advance is to allow clients of the service to prepare for possible disruption or prepare for any major changes to the functioning of the service. This type of disclosure is typically guaranteed as part of a service level agreement. High-availability maintenance windows are often planned for a time where activity is at its lowest so as to cause minimal disruption to customers, though which also require unusual work schedules for the employees. An Internet service provider, for example, may schedule a maintenance window for Sunday during the night hours. Managed business computers School ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dedicated Servers
A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. There is also another level of dedicated or managed hosting commonly referred to as complex managed hosting. Complex Managed Hosting applies to both physical dedicated servers, Hybrid server and virtual servers, with many companies choosing a hybrid (combination of physical and virtual) hosting solution. There are many similarities between standard and complex managed hosting but the key difference is the level of administrative and engineering support that the customer pays for – owing to both the increased size and complexity of the infrastructure deployment. The provider steps in to take over most of the management, including security, memory, stor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Private Server
A virtual private server (VPS) is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting service. The virtual dedicated server (VDS) also has a similar meaning. A virtual private server runs its own copy of an operating system (OS), and customers may have superuser-level access to that operating system instance, so they can install almost any software that runs on that OS. For many purposes it is functionally equivalent to a dedicated physical server and, being software-defined, can be created and configured much more easily. A virtual server costs much less than an equivalent physical server. However, as virtual servers share the underlying physical hardware with other VPSes, performance may be lower, depending on the workload of any other executing virtual machines. Virtualization The force driving server virtualization is similar to that which led to the development of time-sharing and multiprogramming in the past. Although the resources are still shared, as under the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shared Hosting
A shared web hosting service is a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. The overall cost of server maintenance is spread over many customers. By using shared hosting, the website will share a physical server with one or more other websites. Description The service must include system administration since it is shared by many users; this is a benefit for users who do not want to deal with it, but a hindrance to power users who want more control. In general shared hosting will be inappropriate for users who require extensive software development outside what the hosting provider supports. Almost all applications intended to be on a standard web server work fine with a shared web hosting service. But on the other hand, shared hosting is cheaper than other types of hosting such as dedicated server hosting. Shared hosting usually has usage limits and hosting providers should have extensive reliability features in place. Shared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uptime
Uptime is a measure of system reliability, expressed as the percentage of time a machine, typically a computer, has been working and available. Uptime is the opposite of downtime. It is often used as a measure of computer operating system reliability or stability, in that this time represents the time a computer can be left unattended without crashing, or needing to be rebooted for administrative or maintenance purposes. Conversely, long uptime may indicate negligence, because some critical updates can require reboots on some platforms. Records In 2005, Novell reported a server with a 6-year uptime. Although that might sound unusual, that is actually common when servers are maintained under an industrial context and host critical applications such as banking systems. Netcraft maintains the uptime records for many thousands of web hosting computers. A server running Novell NetWare has been reported to have been shut down after 16 years of uptime due to a failing hard disk. A Ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mean Time To Recovery
Mean time to recovery (MTTR) tp://download.intel.com/design/servers/ISM/docs/317987.pdf INTEL call for Mean-Time-to-''Repair'' on page 4 left. is the average time that a device will take to recover from any failure. Examples of such devices range from self-resetting fuses (where the MTTR would be very short, probably seconds), to whole systems which have to be repaired or replaced. The MTTR would usually be part of a maintenance contract, where the user would pay more for a system MTTR of which was 24 hours, than for one of, say, 7 days. This does not mean the supplier is guaranteeing to have the system up and running again within 24 hours (or 7 days) of being notified of the failure. It does mean the average repair time will tend towards 24 hours (or 7 days). A more useful maintenance contract measure is the maximum time to recovery which can be easily measured and the supplier held accountably. Note that some suppliers will interpret MTTR to mean 'mean time to respond' and ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Resolution Time
A service-level agreement (SLA) is a commitment between a service provider and a customer. Particular aspects of the service – quality, availability, responsibilities – are agreed between the service provider and the service user. The most common component of an SLA is that the services should be provided to the customer as agreed upon in the contract. As an example, Internet service providers and telcos will commonly include service level agreements within the terms of their contracts with customers to define the level(s) of service being sold in plain language terms. In this case, the SLA will typically have a technical definition of ''mean time between failures'' (MTBF), ''mean time to repair'' or ''mean time to recovery'' (MTTR); identifying which party is responsible for reporting faults or paying fees; responsibility for various data rates; throughput; jitter; or similar measurable details. Overview A service-level agreement is an agreement between two or mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
