Creating Performance-based SAN SLAs

Applications – everything from Enterprise Resource Management and Web portals to Customer Relationship Management and email – are the lifeblood of today’s organizations. And as many enterprises have discovered the hard way, application performance must be up to snuff or they risk decreased employee productivity, low customer satisfaction, and lost business opportunities.

Consequently, IT managers are looking for ways to guarantee that users have access to the critical applications and data they need when they need it – what analysts at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) call “end-user quality of experience” or QoE. Establishing a service level agreement (SLA) is one way to provide these guarantees. EMA analysts note that QoE-based SLAs are possible because management tools are available that can monitor a wide range of application-related performance metrics.