Introduction to NonStop Operations Management

Operations Documentation
Introduction to NonStop Operations Management–125507
4-2
Service-Level Agreements
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Job duties and performance standards for each staff member, each operations group,
and the complete operations organization.
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The company’s disaster recovery plan and the procedures the operations staff should
follow to implement the plan.
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Naming conventions for systems, volumes, subvolumes, files, devices, event filters,
and programs. Standardized names make it easier for you to find files, monitor
programs, and solve problems. For guidelines on assigning names within Tandem
systems, refer to Configuring Controllers for NonStop Systems.
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Configuration-management and change-control policies and procedures.
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Operations requirements for internal applications software.
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Policies and procedures for shutting down a system and for shutting down
applications, including instructions on when to inform users and how to schedule
down time. You might also want to develop and require a shutdown request form
that provides the following information: the reason for the shutdown, the persons to
be notified, who must approve the shutdown, backup requirements, and any other
information relevant to your operation.
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Policies and procedures for scheduling and processing job and work requests.
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Procedures for transferring duties or tasks from one shift to another.
Service-Level Agreements
Service-level agreements specify the level of service that operations should provide. The
agreements specify the company’s business goals and determine the operation’s
management objectives, requirements, and standards, with the intention of aligning
operations goals with the goals of the company.
Most service-level agreements specify the following:
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The availability and reliability standards for systems, peripherals, networks, and
applications. For instance, the agreement might specify that the system must be
running 100 percent of the time, that individual processors must not be down for
more than one hour per 40-hour work week, that all applications must be available
24 hours per day except for scheduled down time, and that 90 percent of the
communications lines must be connected to the network throughout the day.
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Acceptable performance goals, such as acceptable system response time, deadlines
for batch jobs, and transaction volumes. For example, the agreement might specify
that 95 percent of all transactions for an application must be completed within one
second and that all batch jobs must be completed within 6 hours of submittal.
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Priorities for resource allocation.
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Requirements for problem resolution, by specifying how quickly problems must be
resolved before they are referred to a higher authority, how many problems should
be resolved by one level of support before the problems are escalated to a higher
level of support, and so on.