Martello BLOG : 2021

Assessing the Quality of Service from ISPs

Before you can achieve access to any cloud service a connection to the internet is required. Sounds simple enough, however, the challenge lies not only with the internet connection itself, but the provider of the service as well. Not all internet service providers (ISPs) and pathways to the internet are created equally which makes assessing and understanding the quality of the service you’re on a critical step toward maintaining business productivity. This blog will examine some ISP-related challenges and how Martello’s solution provides enhanced visibility of the quality of your internet service. 

Microsoft Limitations for ISPs

Collecting call quality data is important for assessing overall service quality. Microsoft does provide call quality data about the ISP in use – down to the user level – which can offer insight by helping to narrow down the options of where an issue stemmed from. The main downside however is that Microsoft cannot identify the number of issues the ISP has nor can they group users by ISP or provide alerts of service quality issues. This means that with Microsoft data alone it would remain difficult to decipher if a user issue were solely due to an ISP problem. However, the enhanced data and visibility offered by our Martello solution can help.   

Martello Solution 

Generating effective data that can be used to identify whether ISPs are the root cause of a service issue is the best way to maintain your current workflow and minimize any interruptions. To provide enhanced visibility Martello’s DEM solution provides a comprehensive process that consists of the following: detection, troubleshooting, and improvement. 

Detection 

• Martello’s solution works effectively for both in-office and remote users, but the tools used to detect and troubleshoot vary. For in-office users, our DEM robots are deployed to detect overall service degradation in real-time, 24/7. Although no ISP data is retrieved through this method we can determine if ISP issues have real-time consequences on the service quality delivered to users. Our real user monitoring (RUM) feature can be used by remote users; not only does it detect and offer a first-level understanding of potential ISP issues it also groups users by their ISP and provides alerts when issues arise.

Troubleshooting 

• Once the issue has been detected the next step in the process is to confirm that detection and troubleshoot it. Martello’s Active Network Path Monitoring (ANPM) probe checks the latency between the ISP and Microsoft 365 service to determine the root cause of the issue, whether it lies within ISPs network, and the most efficient way to alert the user. Martello’s ‘single pane of glass’ correlates our solution with the users’ existing monitoring tools and ensures that no other parts of your internal IT department are being affected by the ISP issue and helps calculate the Microsoft Teams call quality services per ISP service level agreement and shares the information with your stakeholders.  

Improvement 

• Once all the data has been collected and used to identify that the service quality issue is indeed a problem with the ISP the information can be used to discuss remediation with the ISP directly. At this point, you can proceed with a decision that best suits user experience and maintaining productivity. 

By assessing the quality of the ISP service your users have you are better positioned to detect where service degradation issues stem from, and if they are related to the ISP being used. The sooner this is determined the faster you can reduce the time of escalation and potential business loss for your organization. The more effective data you acquire the better you become at making quick decisions to improve the overall user experience and productivity. With Martello’s solutions we empower your business to stay ahead of potential issues and maintain a productive work environment anywhere you are working from.   

How Martello Helps You Measure & Share SLAs/OLAs with your Customers & Lines of Business

The ability to maintain successful operations in business requires specific agreements that are critical to helping justify service delivery, understand the service performance, and get a budget for any potential infrastructure projects. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are made between partners and customers and focus on the commitment of the partner to uphold an agreed-to level of service. Objective Level Agreements (OLAs) are similar in the sense that a commitment to maintaining a certain objective is set, but it is made between the IT team and the Business Lines. The inevitable questions regarding these agreements and how they relate to maintaining productive businesses is: how are these SLA and OLA agreements measured and how can they be used to benefit my business and/or achieve a specific set of business goals? 

Microsoft Limitations

Imagine your business utilizes Microsoft 365 services; to ensure optimal productivity for your team’s use of Microsoft Teams you establish an SLA with Microsoft that “guarantees” the availability of Microsoft Teams and regular uptime of the service. However, a change in the traditional workplace structure we were all accustomed to was upended by unforeseen circumstances (aka global pandemic) which drastically changed how and where most of your staff works. Instead of your entire team working out of managed offices, 95%+ of your staff now works remotely for the foreseeable future. When staff worked out of an office it was easier for IT to manage activity and resolve issues because everyone was on the same network, but with everyone dispersed it becomes more challenging, especially when it comes to proving an issue was caused by the service provider. Also, consider that for Microsoft Teams the Microsoft BI reports on the ‘average voice quality’ only.  There are  SLA reports for Teams performance and voice quality, but only from a Microsoft datacenter point of view. There are no custom SLAs extended to network and local IT or other Microsoft 365 workloads and no way to effectively measure the quality of the service being delivered around the clock, or when an SLA is breached.  

When it comes to the Microsoft 365 services being provided Microsoft does not own any of the associated networks, ISPs, or datacenters your organization uses; they are solely responsible for their own Microsoft network. This means that problems with their service that arise from network issues on the business’ end (including networks and ISPs of remote staff) are not protected under any SLA. SLAs do not guarantee the quality of service that is being received, but the availability and performance of the service itself from a provider point of view.  Therefore, to measure the level of service that is effectively delivered to Business Lines, organizations are choosing OLA that enables them to take into account every component of the service delivery to the end-users.

Martello Solution – an SLA tailored to your business needs

To facilitate an environment that promotes optimal user productivity IT service managers need as much data on the quality of the service being delivered as possible. Our Martello solution allows service managers to understand the service performance down to the user level. With that understanding comes an improved overall experience and a clearer pathway toward productivity. Here’s a closer look at what that means for your business: 

• Provides 24/7 service performance tests & reports that continuously measure each Microsoft 365 workload to each critical site –  

• End-to-end OLA reports for remote workers including the service delivered by Microsoft & the ISP 
• Automatic SLA/OLA calculation with a target reach 
• Custom extended SLAs that include every necessary component to deliver the service such as authentication system, network, ISP, devices, etc.  
• Ability to identify the root cause of an SLA breach to continuously optimize the service performance level 
• Pinpoints the users that are affecting the overall SLA achievement and provides data to negotiate the achievement of the SLA 

With Martello, you will be able to effectively detect where problems are coming from by identifying the root cause, properly (and more quickly) troubleshoot the issue when and if it does arise and not be impeded by issues you’ve dealt with before; create a clearer path to navigate your business forward. 

Our solution empowers your IT team to fix problems faster to reach better SLA achievement and grants the sharing of comprehensive reports on the quality of your Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 service to your stakeholders. Let Martello help you tailor your SLA/OLA to your specific business needs and justify a more accurate budget for investment into achieving the optimal user experience. Learn more about our SLA monitoring here.