Interfacing with Other Service Management Processes

SLM interfaces with several other processes to ensure agreed service levels are being met:

• Problem management will address the causes of any failures and work to prevent their recurrence, thus improving the delivery of the service against targets.
• Availability management works to remove any single points of failure that could lead to downtime and addresses the causes of such downtime in order to deliver the highest possible level of availability to the customer.
• Capacity management plans ahead to ensure sufficient capacity is provided and therefore preventing service failures that would otherwise have occurred.
• Incident management focuses on resolving incidents and restoring service as quickly as possible. Performance against targets for incident resolution is usually a major area within an SLA.
• IT service continuity will plan to ensure that service continues to be provided despite major upheavals; where a break in service cannot be prevented, it will work to ensure that the service is restored in line with the business requirements.
• Information security ensures that the customer’s data is protected and will work with the service level manager to educate the customers and users regarding their own responsibilities in this area.
• Supplier management ensures UCs are in place and are being fulfilled.
• Service catalog management provides information about services to support the SLA.
• Financial management provides cost information.
• Design coordination ensures the design meets the SLR.
• SLM works with CSI in designing and implementing the SIP.
• SLM works with business relationship management. However, as stated earlier, BRM is more concerned with strategy, identifying customer needs and ensuring the objectives are met.