Vodafone Information Systems: Service Level Management at a Glance

IT service providers like Vodafone Information Systems depend on service level agreements (SLAs) as a measure of their success. In order to ensure that the agreed service level is provided at all times, the service provider needs a central reporting system, which brings together measurement data from a wide range of sources. The increasing heterogeneity of the IT environment – which includes a host, UNIX and Windows operating systems – makes central access to the relevant data essential.

For a long time, Vodafone Information Systems used a combination of two applications for reporting purposes, both of which ran on an IBM mainframe. In spite of the capabilities of these applications, they weren't scalable and were no longer able to keep pace with the most recent requirements.

A Single Point of Control
Using SAS, Vodafone Information Systems' employees are now able to bring together data from a wide range of sources with a few mouse clicks and to create sophisticated reports in a very short period of time. At the heart of the new system is SAS, which allows IT system managers to have a single point of control over all the IT processes. Measurement data from sources, including HP OpenView, ARS Remedy and IBM Tivoli and CCMS data from SAP R/3 (via the SAS IT Management Adapter for SAP) can all be extracted automatically and consolidated in a data warehouse. The ETL interfaces supplied by SAS ensure that the data import process is simple and efficient. The data warehouse currently contains less than 10 gigabytes of data.

The system also offers completely new ways of presenting the information. Employees and customers can access the reports via the company intranet or the Internet using a Web browser anywhere and at any time. As the SAS solution has been integrated into the V.E.C.T.O.R. reporting system developed by Vodafone Information Systems, the company can guarantee that employees and customers can only display the information that is relevant to their needs. The presentation formats used are PDF and HTML, which ensures that the reports are presented in a standard way and in accordance with corporate identity guidelines. Customers themselves are able to choose the level of detail in the reports and therefore receive only the necessary information that they need to be able to complete their tasks. The simple archiving process means that developments can be tracked over a longer period without any additional work being involved.

The Benefits
Vodafone Information Systems were able to describe the following benefits since implementing their SAS solutions:

• Automated import of measurement data from a wide variety of sources, allowing the automatic creation of up-to-the-minute reports.
• Constant access to the reports from anywhere and at any time via the intranet or Internet using a Web browser.
• Standard presentation media; standard layout following corporate identity guidelines.
• Dynamic selection of the level of detail in the reports.
• Dynamic creation of trend reports.
• Permissions concept for data access.
• Simple archiving process.
• SSL encryption and authentication with SecureIT card/client certificates for secure data access across the Internet.
• Necessary information available to the relevant people upon which to base sound technological and business decisions.

The Project
From the very beginning, Vodafone Information Systems' strategy involved outsourcing the development and implementation of the reporting system and using the solutions, services and skills of an external partner. It was not possible for the company to develop a system itself, as there were not sufficient resources available. A rapid decision was made to go with SAS, for a number of reasons. The first of these reasons was that SAS could already offer the necessary data warehouse structure and aggregation levels, which meant that this did not have to be developed. In addition, the specialists in the relevant department of Vodafone Information Systems already had many years of experience with SAS products, which had been used in the past for reporting purposes.

Another reason for choosing SAS was that the licensing costs of many of the other solutions on the market were based on the number of users. Since this number could grow very rapidly as customers accessed the reports, this was not a viable option for Vodafone Information Systems. With SAS, Vodafone Information Systems found the pricing structure to fit their needs and their usage. In addition, SAS offers the necessary level of support.

The development of the data warehouse and the ETL functionality was completed with no major problems. More than 50 of Vodafone Information Systems' employees are already working successfully with the new reporting system, and the first customers are beginning to access information via the Internet. SSL encryption and authentication with SecureIT card/client certificates ensure that the data is transmitted securely. There are also plans to increase the number of data sources from five to between 10 and 12.

About Vodafone Information Systems
Founded in 1971 as the IT competence center of the Mannesmann group, Vodafone Information Systems is now a Vodafone subsidiary that provides its customers with innovative systems solutions. Its services range from planning and integrating IT solutions to running the solutions in its own computer center.

The results illustrated in this article are specific to the particular situations, business models, data input, and computing environments described herein. Each SAS customer’s experience is unique based on business and technical variables and all statements must be considered non-typical. Actual savings, results, and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. SAS does not guarantee or represent that every customer will achieve similar results. The only warranties for SAS products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements in the written agreement for such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Customers have shared their successes with SAS as part of an agreed-upon contractual exchange or project success summarization following a successful implementation of SAS software. Brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

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