Managing IT costs requires repeatable and measurable processes such as the best practices for service level management (SLM) documented in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Central to the ITIL best practices are the service management processes. These are subdivided into the core areas of service support and service delivery. This IBM Redbooks publication takes a top-down approach that starts from the business requirement to improve service management. This includes the need to align IT services with the needs of the business, to improve the quality of the IT services delivered, and to reduce the long-term cost of service provision. It focuses on how clients accomplish this by implementing SLM processes supported by IBM Tivoli Service Level Advisor and IBM Tivoli Business Systems Manager. For IT managers and technical staff who are responsible for providing services to their customers, use this book as a practical guide to SLM with IBM Tivoli products. It takes you from a general outline of SLM to specific implementation examples of banking and trading that incorporate the Tivoli monitoring products.