Back to Basics
“Transformation” is all very well, but what basic services can customers expect from these providers?

They extend from basic helpdesk and desktop support to networks and data-center management.

The simplest form of infrastructure service is helpdesk support (e.g., troubleshooting support around desktops or log-ins not working). As one goes up the value chain, support can be sought for desktops (e.g., remotely monitoring desktops), servers (e.g., replication, virtualization), security monitoring (e.g., patching vulnerabilities), network monitoring (e.g., for traffic surges), network management (e.g., network segmenting) and data centers (e.g., hosting servers and data farms).

“The holy grail for infrastructure offshoring is monitoring. Managing it remotely is secondary. Only once a problem is monitored and identified can it be managed,” says Ross Tisnovsky, VP, Research (ITO), Everest Research Institute.

And the SLAs to determine the monitoring and management typically revolve around areas of response time, resolution time, escalation, availability, utilization and productivity. For instance, the mean time to respond to an issue could be 15 minutes and the percentage of escalations could be a maximum of five percent.

“SLAs not only create a shared pain scenario between vendors and their client, but they also serve as good benchmarking criteria for remote infrastructure management outsourcing engagements,” says Ahmar Abbas, SVP, SlashSupport. Founded in 1999, SlashSupport provides infrastructure services to some 30 customers from offshore locations. One of their clients is Blackboard, the world's largest provider of educational software, for whom SlashSupport manages close to 2,000 systems across multiple data centers in the U.S. and Europe .