User experience more important than SLA

Businesses that rely on a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to assess the quality of their deliveries are living practically in the Stone Age, according to Kanari’s CTO, Michael Breen.

“An SLA works well when there is one service provider in a supply chain. But that is not the case for complex IT systems. Nowadays, large businesses use hundreds of suppliers to deliver internal and external services and manage production. In addition, everyone has layers of cloud services, bespoke solutions and hybrid solutions stacked on top of each other. In cases like that, an SLA will not say anything at all about the service delivered to the end user,” says Breen.

Start with the end user

Breen’s advice to companies that are still not monitoring their systems is to start by metering at the end-user level.

“End User Experience is the most critical factor, because it has a direct impact on the business’s revenues and costs. Customers who experience delays, interruptions or instability will simply go looking for a new supplier. Employees who lose contact with systems, have to perform a restart or struggle with poor network connections will be less productive. That is why the end users’ lived experience lies at the heart of any effort to improve quality,” he says.

Most faults on customised applications

Kanari monitors, analyses, troubleshoots and automates systems, irrespective of platform or application.

“Our data shows that self-developed and bespoke solutions are a major factor in poor end user experience. When we start monitoring and analysing our new customers’ solutions, the faults we see most often are caused by self-developed scripts, specially designed modules or inadequate integration with existing applications,” says Kanari’s CTO Michael Breen.