Modern day IT organizations within enterprises have shifted their focus from managing individual components such as network devices, databases, servers, and middleware in silos to managing the business services they deliver to their users. Rather than managing against all the exceptions of all these components, CIOs and IT managers focus on their ability to deliver on the service expectations of their customers and users. As we saw in Chapter 1, Business Service Management: An Overview, the ability to maintain competitive, consistent levels of business and IT service is no longer a unique selling point, it is a business imperative. Service-level management therefore plays a pivotal role in ensuring that the objectives of the business are met by the IT infrastructure providing these business functions.

In the precedingChapter 4, 5 and 6 we looked at some of the modeling concepts in OEM Grid Control such as group targets, system targets, and service targets...