The data center services provider should establish a process where it formally reviews the customers’ business requirements (needs) and requests (wants). This could be for a specific customer, or it could be a market wide analysis as described in the strategic plan. The needs analysis should address at least:
Business requirements
1) Strategic plan
2) Description of the (high level) purpose of the data center including its geographical coverage (e.g. cloud provider, BC/DR provider, Enterprise data center for European offices).
3) Market conditions and outlook.
4) Detailed description of service(s) required, desired and input from complaints.
5) Detailed description of optional services.
6) Validity period of service for ‘temporary’ services.
7) Operating hours for the service.
8) Availability requirements.
9) Clear data points:
a) What constitutes a successful service delivery?
b) What points to measure and how?
c) Who measures?
d) Sample interval.
e) Number of samples.
f) Calculation formula(s) (e.g. MTBF, MTTF, MTTR).
g) Calculation period.
10) Monitoring and reporting requirements.
11) Terms and conditions.
Support requirements
1) Life expectancy of the service(s).
2) Support process
a) Configuration Management.
b) Request Fulfilment.
c) Incident Management.
d) Problem Management.
e) Change Management.
f) Release/Deployment Management.
3) Escalation management including complaint handling procedure.
Commercial and legal requirements
1) Pricing of service.
2) Return On Investment.
3) Rewards/Penalties.
4) Dispute resolution.
5) Security.
6) Privacy.
7) Applicable codes and regulations (e.g. international, national, industry).
8) General Terms and Conditions (e.g. force majeure, assignment rights, etc.)
