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What is the scenario in India when it comes to SLA management?

We believe that the adoption of formal SLAs is fairly limited in India. SLA formulation and management requires IT and multiple business stakeholders to accept a single version of the truth, in terms of the data that drives the metrics. This is typically a fairly resource-intensive task that involves aggregating data from multiple application repositories, databases, infrastructure management systems, configuration management databases and service desks. The cost is at least in the order of tens of thousands of dollars, and in many cases above the U.S.$100,000 mark.

A company would take up such a resource-intensive project only if sufficient scale exists and/or if the awareness of the need for IT maturity is high – these conditions are rare in India. Even globally, formalized internal SLAs are more important to the very large enterprise than any other kind of company (this does not include service providers of all kinds, because SLAs are the core of their business).
When defining an SLA with a service provider, what are the key parameters to be specified?

That really depends on the provided service. Any infrastructure management (including outsourced help desk) sort of service would have SLAs that cover incident response time (including tasks such as adds, moves and changes), mean time to repair, availability (such as network and email availability) and how these variables trend over time. A lot of work usually gets done before parties can agree about defining the right metric and context for each (such as, which event would define incident closure?), segmenting types of events (based on severity), periodicity of monitoring, data collection and aggregation procedure, rules defining penalties and the escalation procedure.

When the service involves application hosting, SLAs would be related to uptime (availability), which is qualified by factors such as the number of concurrent users to be expected. Performance is a little more difficult to define. Ideally, performance should be measured in terms of end-user experience, but sometimes measuring end-user experience involves hard-to-scale tasks such as installing agents on end users' desktops, and with the growth of mobile users, it's hard to control the endpoint and the network, complicating matters.
What are the aspects to keep in mind when it comes to managing an SLA?

SLAs are not substitutes for a good partner relationship and governance procedures. Therefore, a broader management scope would still be necessary. Inordinate effort to make the SLA absolutely watertight isn't necessary, particularly when the internal IT organization involved. Select the SLA that best represents the end user's actual experience, while being realistic about what the expectations should be. So, application availability makes much more sense than server uptime does.

It needs to be appreciated that SLAs can be met only under certain given conditions – for example, if the average user's Web experience is to remain above the threshold, strong URL filtering is required to ensure that Web usage is in accordance with policy, and requests for exceptions should be carefully managed. At a high level, there isn't much that is arguable about the right SLAs. However, collecting and aggregating metrics is usually quite tough. Data typically resides in multiple databases, infrastructure management systems and possibly multiple service desk solutions. Building connectors to these data sources, aggregating them and developing dashboards for reporting are all resource-intensive tasks.

Tools don't do much here – the professional services' costs typically equal the average SLA management tool's licensing costs (a 1-to-1 ratio). Hiring an expert who is familiar with the metrics that work in terms of securing buy-in (and truly representing the business' interests) and hiring the IT talent to build the data connectors is much more important than any tool-related considerations.
How can IT teams leverage the various features offered by SLA management tools?

SLA management tool vendors offer value in multiple ways. First of all, they know which metrics to select. They also know where to look for data necessary to build metrics that IT and business would monitor as part of the SLA.

Vendors have the necessary tool knowledge to build connectors to the data. They also provide mechanisms such as rules engines that ease the process of aggregating the data to build metrics to be monitored. Dashboards are usually provided to aggregate and present the metrics in an automated way, which provide automated alerting services, analytics, etc., and in effect, create a single system of records that everybody can agree on. So, it's less about tool features and more about competence that the SLA management tool provider brings to the table.
Somak Roy, managing analyst at Butler Group, Datamonitor India, gives his views on service-level agreement (SLA) management.

How did you get interested in mainframes at such a young age?

I always tell people that it's not my fault. Both my parents were mainframe software developers. It's sort of in my blood. My senior year in high school, I took an independent study course from my dad to learn all the basics. Each summer during college, after graduating from high school, I had an internship with NESI. That's where I learned the majority of what I know now.
Why aren't you administering Linux and Windows boxes like most people of your generation?

When you see the power of how the mainframe can have so much control over things, you get over a little Java program that you can use to run a game or something. I felt like this was more challenging, and I could go further with this type of job. With the mainframe there's so much to learn. There are so many things going on. It's like you can play this game forever and never reach the highest level. That aspect of a mainframe career got to me, and I never looked back.
What does IBM have to do to get young people interested in mainframes?

That's definitely the question of the year. IBM has already been working to address this problem through the Academic Initiative program. We have to get past the stigma that the mainframe seems to have with the younger generation. Most people don't know the mainframe very well. My peers told me I was crazy for going into this career. IBM is trying to get schools to teach this curriculum. It is a problem being worked on, but it's one of those that can't be solved in a week or a day or a year.
How did you get involved in zNextGen?

It sort of began at Share in Boston, which was in August of 2005. They held a little get-together for younger people at a tavern, and that went so much better than people expected it to go. I got involved in it by participating in that. The next thing I knew they decided to make zNextGen a full-fledged project this year. They designated me as project manager, and I was happy to take on the job.
Tell my why zNextGen is such a good thing.

As I'm sure you're aware, there's not exactly a flood of new mainframers coming into the business. The goal isn't to get people interested in mainframes necessarily, but for those getting into the mainframe, there wasn't a community for them to speak and reach out to. We're sort of there to encourage people to come to Share, to branch out in the mainframe community, use your resources out there, build a network of friends and mentors. We sort of have this goal to be the gateway for newcomers to the mainframe.
What are some new, upcoming plans for the group?

We have plans to really work with projects to make sessions more beneficial to members. We also do have some things hopefully planned outside of the Share conference. I was just up in Poughkeepsie, [New York], for an IBM course, and we had a dinner event up there. Hopefully we'll do more of those.

Let us know what you think about the story; e-mail: Mark Fontecchio, News Writer. This article originally appeared on SearchDataCenter.com.
Kristine Harper is not your normal mainframe developer. First, she's a woman. Second, she's 23. So how did she get interested in the mainframe?

What is the biggest challenge in getting a job as a first-time CIO? Is it out-competing others who look similar on paper?

I think there is a tremendous amount of competition. Most of the CIO positions out there are usually going through some type of an executive recruiting network. The recruiters I talked to don't usually pull up a set of criteria in a database online. One recruiter I talked to doesn't even recommend candidates putting information into an executive recruiting online database, because most executive recruiters aren't going to use it. They're going to look to the contacts and network of sitting CIOs or deputy CIOs to ask if there is someone on their staff or someone they know.
You became CIO of the World Wildlife Fund at age 37. What helped you most to get that job?

I was recruited for it. I did not approach an executive recruiter for that position; they approached me, at the recommendation of another sitting CIO. I had established my credentials in the private and for-profit sector. I had gotten experience with a variety of technologies at some pretty tier-one organizations: it was Sallie Mae on the financial services side, and PricewaterhouseCoopers on the consulting side. I had gotten all my tickets punched. I got my technical MBA at Johns Hopkins University. I actually took it a step farther. A year after I obtained by graduate degree I started teaching as an adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins -- intentionally.
As a way to increase your network?

Increase my network, increase my exposure. As an adjunct faculty I was giving back to the IT community and the educational community, but at the same time I was greasing the skids for easier access to publications. When someone was looking at my bio and saw I was a director of this, a tech MBA and teach at a graduate level, when I submitted articles I believe they had a little more merit behind them.
What's the biggest mistake you made in plotting your career?

I'm not sure that I made any.
None?

I really don't think that I have. I've gotten consulting experience, I've gotten for-profit experience, I've gotten Big Five experience, I got my tech MBA, I've got publishing experience, I've got my graduate adjunct faculty. The only thing that I would -- I don't know if this is really a mistake. I was about to say, started my graduate work earlier. But Hopkins wouldn't really let me enroll in the program until I had a specific number of years of business experience.
Fifty percent of your experience is in consulting, and you strongly recommend that aspiring CIOs work as consultants. Why?

You've got to get both sides of the fence if you want to be a viable CIO. You have to understand the consulting proposition. You have to know also how to manage consultants and vendors.

Being a consultant makes you a little bit humble. There are many instances where you have to sidestep and put the brakes on what you may know technically or business wise. You may have to deal with a client or a customer that is not that smart or that doesn't know as much as you do, and you've got to figure out creative and diplomatic ways to get that customer on board or eliminate any roadblocks that the customer may be putting up. In the organizations that use consultants regularly, some of the internal employees are a little bit jaded. They're thinking, 'Why did we have to go to the outside, when we could have probably done this on the inside.' Serving in a consulting role gives you far more experience than flat-out IT experience.
Define for us what you call in your book "the IT glasshouse."

I define the glasshouse as the central IT management infrastructure of the past where all decisions, all the systems and all the policies were pretty much made within the IT shop. If you had to classify it as a government, it would be an IT monarchy. Today, I don't believe that works. I am not a fan of 100% decentralized IT, where managers and staff are completely decentralized and put into business units. I am not saying do a 180-degree from the old model. But I do think that today's CIOs need to work more with the business units and customers of their organizations and form better relations to share the risks, responsibilities and project sponsorship, as opposed to assuming the responsibility in IT or forcing a system on a business unit.
There is a lot of talk about letting your business units take responsibility for the technology they use. But how do you do that? Do you get it in writing?

I do. But I don't let them take responsibility for the technology. I let them take responsibility for the business process that drives the solution. So when we are looking at doing a requirement analysis for trying to solve some problem or drive some goal, whether it is increasing revenue or something else, when we put budgeted dollars toward the project, we use an organizational structure that integrates with the project manager in the business unit itself. I bolt on an IT lead and have at least one business VP take accountability as co-executive sponsors. At the end of the day if I don't get signature from a business unit sponsor for a business unit application, I will not press forward. I make the calls for infrastructure, for security, all those good things. That is my job. But if we are looking for a CRM system, for example, to help drive donor management, the CIO should not own that system. IT should be owned by the business unit that is responsible for the revenue.

I have a simple phrase: IT drives technology decisions. The business units drive application business technology.
I thought it was refreshing to read in your book that a CIO should have a solid grounding in technology, because so much of what you hear now is that this position is being taken over by businesspeople.

I just met one the other day. A new CIO from the business unit, and I think he's scared. Think about it. I take the inverse view that businesspeople can do the job. I think it is way off, and I am not shy in stating that. Look, this is a profession that in my case includes 20 years of work experience at some of the best companies in America. I have gotten a top-tier education. If you combine all that together, I am somewhere in the 28-year range of progressive IT skills and experience, managing technology and applying it to business. Now, would you hire someone who came up that track, who had all that experience in IT, to head up your financial organization? I wouldn't.
The flip side is why is it hard for technical people to speak in business terms?

Given the amount of time they work on the technology side versus the amount of time they spend in the business unit side, it is so easy to lapse back into all of the different acronyms and the lingo the technology people use. I'll be honest. I have to force myself to be conscious of the fact that when I am speaking to a nontechnical audience to not be too technical. I have to force myself, today, and I am a sitting CIO with a new book out giving guidance to others on how to follow in my footsteps. It's hard.
Does it have anything to do with the notion that the kind of people attracted to technology are very concrete in their thinking; they simply think in a different way from businesspeople?

Working in the technology area takes an analytical, top-down, logical, process-oriented person. That said, I think at some point in their career they have to force themselves to branch off and submerse themselves in an environment, like an MBA, which makes them recognize the other side of the fence and to think like a business person. The technology field attracts far more the introvert than the extrovert. I probably started out as a pretty strong-typed introvert and became a forced extrovert as a result of going up the ladder.
When did you turn outward?

When I realized that it was absolutely one of the most important skills needed for an IT executive to have excellent communication skills.
How long did it take you to hone your presentation skills?

Oh gosh. I'll give you the answer in the form of advice given to me from one of my mentors. I asked how long it would be before I was completely comfortable giving presentations to an audience I had never met before. The answer was, once you've done your first 100 or so, you'll get the hang of it.
Your book's title is Straight to the Top, and top for you is CIO. Do you ever think there is somewhere else to go once you're a CIO?

Absolutely. I think it is the next-generation track to chief operating officer, and potentially a CEO of a technology company. I can tell that my career aspirations include one or two of these tracks.
You devoted an entire chapter to golf. I found that a bit shocking.

It wasn't the whole chapter. Half of it was about the vendor management function. I talk about the importance of relying on vendors, having a vendor management strategy, in my case reducing the overall number of vendors, and distinguishing between commodity-based vendors and strategic vendors. I consider Dell a commodity-based vendor. I buy stuff from them and put it in. A strategic vendor will actually help me go from Point A to Point B. It might be a CRM vendor. It might be a consulting vendor. And I talk about that whole process of how do you manage and scorecard your vendor and different approaches for doing that. And I ask other CIOs how they do it. So you'll see stuff about outsourcing.

Then, halfway through Chapter 8 is when I start talking about integrating sports to build your relationships and to grow your network and build stronger relationships with your vendors.
But why go out with them at all, especially given the sensitivity about conflict of interest these days?

Well, let me ask you, define conflict of interest.
There are some companies that say don't even go out for a cup of coffee with your vendors, because you don't need to be friends with them or beholden.

That would be the federal government. And you know what? I understand why they do it. But I don't think that a cup of coffee is going to materially make a difference in the decision to purchase goods or services. I think the federal government has just decided to take that track. But I take the issue beyond the level of the CIO. How many CEOs do you know who go out and have dinner with some of their partners and vendors and colleagues? And how many CEOs and presidents do you see on the golf course? I can tell you I played golf in a tournament and John Thompson was there. He is not a CIO. He is the CEO for Symantec.

It doesn't have to be about who pays for what, as I clarified in my book. My guidance to people is, check what your policies are. If there is a no-pay policy, fine, pay for yourself. There are some clear benefits of getting out of the office and spending some time with people, getting to know them. And at the end of the day, because I have a better relationship both professionally and through sports, I have several vendors who I can pick up the phone and say, 'Listen Tom, I need this done, you need to help me out with this.' Now granted, they should be able to do that regardless, as a vendor. But it doesn't work that way. And if you look at the quotes from the vendors in the book, people tend to reciprocate, form partnerships and get more stuff done, cut through the [bull], when they have a better relationship. And I have found that a 30-minute meeting in my office doesn't get me a better relationship with a strategic vendor.
Another piece of advice you give is that a CIO has to think like a chief financial officer. Why?

If you don't start thinking like a CFO, you're going to be reporting to one.
What is so bad about reporting to the CFO?

Because historically, CIOs who report to CFOs are doing so because the CFO is not comfortable with their financial management skills, or the CIOs need to be reined in on their cost controls. The other research that I found is that CIOs who reported in to the CFO spent overall less percent of the company's revenue than those that didn't. A CFO's job is internal controls, audit, cost containment, financial management and reporting. I don't think that is the best creative place to put a potential innovator and catalyst, such as the CIO, who interfaces with just about everybody. There is no other executive that touches every other point of the organization.

Let us know what you think about the story; email: Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer

Gregory Smith, author of "Straight to the Top: Becoming a World-Class CIO" and CIO of the World Wildlife Fund, talks about his carefully plotted route to the executive ranks and offers some tips for aspiring CIOs.

We can tap into everything from network design, monitoring and management to outsourced email management to storage services -- all without leaving our desks.

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many of my IT questions: I am asking my network of nerds. Over the years I have kept the contact information for about 200 of my CIO peers. This network is an invaluable...