Building a separate SLA for every tailor-made application is not an option.

Welcome to the jungle of applications

Communication needs evolve rapidly, and the development of communication solutions should follow that same pace to remain up-to-date.

New applications and services are added and are to be integrated with all the existing elements of the solution.

The result is a jungle of applications, all of them requiring their own service assurance. And very often, only the individual who did the integration knows how the individual services will interact.

Where is the SLA?

In this jungle of applications, it is almost impossible to offer an overall, end-to-end Service Level Agreement.

Communication solutions evolve in multiple directions, with different services being added on a one-by-one basis. Service Providers therefore cannot keep track of what is exactly installed, and are not able to guarantee a global SLA.

High cost of upgrading

The existing communication solution is often tailor-made for the customer. Therefore the integration of these new elements requires an individual, ad-hoc approach. The same goes for software updates and upgrades.

That approach is extremely inefficient, thus highly expensive and many companies go for the easy way: no upgrading. If not because of the cost, often simply because of the hassle.

This results in numerous outdated solutions, which are even more difficult to upgrade. Completing the vicious circle. Additionally the customer does not benefit from the latest features and possibilities, resulting in frustration and disappointment.

Dependency

Another concern is the dependency on the engineer who installed the solution or performed the tailor-made integrations.

In other words: customers become dependent on the availability of that one person. And the quality of his memory when he needs to figure out the ins and outs of a system he might have installed a couple of years before.

What if disaster hits?

Who is responsible? Which SLA applies? And even more important, how long does it take to get a client’s configuration up and running again?

In a classical approach, customers have to organise their own backup and disaster recovery process. Knowing that even simple computer backup is often set up poorly, or even neglected, this is asking for trouble.

Offering one end-to-end SLA on Service Assurance is therefore not only a major asset. It should be standard.