TABLE OF CONTENTS Making your IT environment available is a large enough topic to justify its own book; therefore, we cover what we reasonably can in order to get you pointed in the right direction. One of the 404 section requirements is that your financial systems be available to end users, and that an explicit recovery plan be documented and executed in the event of a failure.
Think of your IT group as being a service department for your company, with system and application end users as your customers. The combination of policies and SLAs is what defines and articulates IT goals and the expected results of the delivery of those goals to the company. Executives may look at you and ask, What am I paying for and what can I expect in return? From the user s perspective, these goals define how they can expect to get their work done. From a SOX perspective, these goals provide a basis on which to establish how to test an environment and demonstrate compliance. We have provided some sample SLAs for you to consider. Even though they are simple and will not completely satisfy your departments individual needs, they illustrate the sections that should be addressed when writing your own SLAs.
| Tip | The sample SLAs provided are based on the standard templates available from NextSLM.org, which provides information concerning the strategies and practices surrounding IT service level management. In addition to templates, they provide tips, recommendations, and guidelines for managing... |
