The SunTone Service Excellence Model is Sun's open services model defining end-to-end requirements for service delivery excellence within a heterogeneous service stack. The model's defined and proven service delivery and management best practices help customers instill process excellence in the delivery of IT as a service.
What is the mission of the SunTone Service Excellence Model?
IT is no longer a technology. It's a service. And the quality of service provided by an internal IT operation or an external service provider can determine the success or failure of any organization striving to grow, make a profit or serve the public. For over five years, Sun Microsystem's SunTone[sm] program has focused on assessing, improving and certifying the quality of the human skills, practices and technologies that support delivery of mission-critical IT and business services. As IT transforms itself into a mission-critical business service, the SunTone Service Excellence Model is setting the pace by taking on a new role as an open services framework for the active management and cost-effective delivery of high-quality IT services.
What is the value of the SunTone Service Excellence Model and the benefits of SunTone certification?
By adopting best practices defined by the SunTone Service Excellence Model, enterprise IT operations (as well as those of government institutions) can differentiate your IT and business services to your customer base, and you may also benefit from:
Improved service reliability, security, and overall service quality, while costs are kept in check.
Enhanced value IT delivers to the business (or organization).
Increased IT staff competencies and job satisfaction.
Improved customer (or user) satisfaction.
Improved ability to manage internal IT operations more like an external service provider.
Help enable adoption of ITIL processes and/or prepare for BS 15000 certification readiness.
What SunTone means for Service Providers: For external service providers, SunTone certification is recognized as an industry benchmark. With SunTone certification, your service is elevated in the eyes of your customers, partners, and employees. With SunTone certification for your service offerings, you may benefit from:
Enhanced customer confidence that you are delivering highly reliable, scalable and secure services.
Help enable adoption of ITIL processes and/or prepare for BS 15000 certification readiness.
Improved profit margins through streamlined operations efficiencies for service delivery and management.
Promotion of your SunTone Certified services to customers, prospects, the SunTone community at large, and Sun sales teams through your certified solutions profile posted to the SunTone web site.
How does the SunTone Service Excellence Model relate to industry frameworks for IT Service Management (e.g., ITIL, BS 15000)?
At the core of the SunTone Service Excellence Model is the SunTone Service Delivery Specifcation. The SunTone Service Delivery Specification is a set of technical guidelines that take the guesswork out of instilling process excellence in the delivery of IT as a service. The specification contains comprehensive listing of requirements covering architecture, policies, operations, and procedures, as well as a submission form for the SunTone audit and certification process.
The SunTone Specification sets Sun apart from other vendors in terms of defining and sharing intellectual capital for service delivery and management through a community-based approach. The SunTone Service Delivery Specification combines industry best practices from the Sun-lead SunTone Council with Sun and it's partners in-depth knowledge and expertise covering every facet of managing todays mission-critical services.
The SunTone Service Delivery Specification 3.0 is aligned with ITIL and BS 15000, helping to enable customers to improve their efficiency and effectiveness and thereby reduce their operational cost. The SunTone Specification is an essential element in delivering service excellence and helping prepare your organization for BS 15000 certification readiness. In addition, security requirements are consistent with COBiT, SysTrust, and ISO 17799 standards. Version 3.0 of the SunTone Service Delivery Specification includes 15 assessment areas under the categories of service delivery and service support in a heterogeneous service stack:
Service Architecture
Service Level Management
Data Center Management
Facilities Management
Security Management
Availability Management
Service Continuity
Service Desk Management
Incident and Problem Management
Change Management
Release Management
Capacity Management
Configuration Management
Service Management System
Financial Management
The SunTone Service Delivery Specification is available to members of the SunTone community who have executed the Confidential Disclosure Agreement. If your company is a already a member, please sign in to the member area to access the specification.
What is the SunTone Service Delivery Specification?
The SunTone Service Delivery Specification is a set of technical guidelines that take the guesswork out of instilling process excellence in the delivery of IT as a service. The specification contains comprehensive listing of requirements covering architecture, policies, operations, and procedures, as well as a submission form for the SunTone audit and certification process.
The SunTone Specification sets Sun apart from other vendors in terms of defining and sharing intellectual capital for service delivery and management through a community-based approach. The SunTone Service Delivery Specification combines industry best practices from the Sun-lead SunTone Council with Sun and it's partners in-depth knowledge and expertise covering every facet of managing today's mission-critical services.
Specification includes 15 assessment areas under the categories of service delivery and service support in a heterogeneous service stack:
Service Architecture
Service Level Management
Data Center Management
Facilities Management
Security Management
Availability Management
Service Continuity
Service Desk Management
Incident and Problem Management
Change Management
Release Management
Capacity Management
Configuration Management
Service Management System
Financial Management
The SunTone Service Delivery Specification is available to members of the SunTone community who have executed the Confidential Disclosure Agreement. If your company is a already a member, please sign in to the member area to access the specification.
The SunTone member community is the forum for sharing best practice expertise for service delivery and support embodied in the SunTone Service Excellence Model. There's no financial cost and no obligation to become a member of the community. As a member of the SunTone community, you're free to explore the intellectual capital embodied in the SunTone Service Delivery Specifications, upon completion of a Confidencial Disclosure agreement.
Members of the SunTone community may also be invited to participate in special offers, discussion forums, and early previews of soon-to-be-published updates of the SunTone Service Delivery Specification. By invitation only, members of the SunTone community may be invited to participate in the SunTone Council. The SunTone Council is an exclusive, Sun-lead industry group responsible developing the SunTone Service Delivery Specification. The SunTone Council is comprised of Sun subject matter experts as well senior technical experts from leading Sun customers and partners who are responsible for managing some of the word's largest, most secure and reliable mission-critical service delivery environments. The SunTone Council determines the requirements for achieving SunTone Certification, demonstrating excellence in service delivery and management.
All enterprise customers and service providers are potentially eligible for membership in the SunTone community, and all SunTone members are eligible to apply for certification of their networked services (e.g, IT services, business application services, hosting services).
SunTone certification means that a specific service has passed all the requirements and results measures defined in the SunTone Service Delivery Specification. Certification applies only to specific services, not to companies or organizations as a whole. SunTone certification ensures that the specific service has undergone a rigorous review of the end-to-end, heterogeneous "service stack" supporting the service delivery to an end-customer, meeting or exceeding the defined SLA. SunTone certification provides as "seal of approval" validating that the people, process and technology supporting the service delivery environment deliver excellence in service results.
SunTone certification emphasizes quality of service and best practices for enterprise customers and service providers (SPs). This certification is appropriate for customers wishing to certify their own internal network-based IT or business application services, or for external service providers (SPs) providing facilities and/or infrastructure for delivery of service provider services (including network services, ISP services, or application services) to multiple business customers, consumers or other service providers.
What does a company do to get a service SunTone Certified?
Interested companies should complete an for membership in the SunTone community. Once a company has become a SunTone member, it gains access to the specifications and self-assessment documents and certification assistance necessary to complete certification. The process for achieving SunTone certification consists of a self-assessment against SunTone specifications and guidelines and completion of the certification submittal process, followed by thorough review of the submittal by the SunTone Program Office, and an on-site audit performed by Sun or an independent third party.
Quality of Service is a measurement of how well a service or solution complies with internal or external Service-Level Agreements (SLAs). These metrics include, but are not limited to, Availability, Reliability, Scalability, Security, Up-Time Percentages, Serviceability, Response Times, Storage, and Disaster Recovery.
How does the SunTone Service Excellence Model help enable QoS?
The SunTone Service Excellence Model helps customers meet their service-delivery requirements/SLAs by providing a set of specifications against which a rigorous review of their network services is conducted, ensuring they have the necessary:
Service delivery architecture, to reduce equipment and software failure, and
Policies, procedures and operational practices, to reduce human errors that impact service quality.
Sun defines "multisourcing" as the trend, in which enterprises design a strategy to strike the best balance between outsourcing and in-sourcing. No matter which sourcing strategy you are pursuing, you need an objective way to validate your current service levels as well as to compare the quality of services offered by third parties. The SunTone Service Excellence Model serves as a guide-post, driving consistency in service quality, regardless of the provider of service components: Sun, it's partner, or your IT staff, in any combination, thereby facilitating the adoption of the "smart sourcing" strategy that makes the most business sense.
The SunTone Service Delivery Specification is available to SunTone members that have executed the Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA). Both the CDA and the specifications are downloadable by SunTone members within the member area of the SunTone website. Designated contacts within SunTone member companies have password protected member accounts which are used to access the SunTone member portal. (See also "How do I obtain a SunTone account to access the SunTone member area?")
The member area of the SunTone website is accessible to all SunTone members, and is designed to help contacts within SunTone member companies manage and obtain information regarding solutions for which they are pursuing or have already obtained SunTone certification.
Within the SunTone member area, members are free to explore the intellectual capital embodied in the SunTone Service Delivery Specifications, upon completion of a Confidencial Disclosure agreement. Members may also be invited to participate in special offers, discussion forums, and early previews of soon-to-be-published updates of the SunTone Service Delivery Specification.
How do I obtain a SunTone account to access the SunTone member area?
If your company is a SunTone member, you may obtain a SunTone account to access the member area on behalf of your company. Please contact the SunTone Helpdesk for assistance. If your company is still in the process of becoming a SunTone member, you may receive a SunTone account once membership has been granted.
If you have any questions regarding the status of your company's membership, please contact the SunTone Helpdesk.
SunTone certification ensures that the specific service has undergone a rigorous review of the end-to-end, heterogeneous "service stack" supporting the service delivery to an end-customer, meeting or exceeding the defined SLA. The criteria for certification is determined by the then-current version of the SunTone Service Delivery Specification which covers areas such as infrastructure, operational practices, hardware, software, and overall service delivery practices. Certifications of Enterprise and service provider services must be renewed annually, and must conform to the standards of the current specification level.
Becoming a member of the SunTone community is the first step in the certification process. Eligible companies that are not yet SunTone members may apply for membership. Upon becoming a member of the SunTone community, the second step is to download and review the SunTone Service Delivery Specification and follow the process for certification as detailed on the member site.
To access the SunTone Service Delivery Specification, and to begin the process of certifying an IT or business service:
Sign in to the member area of the SunTone website.
Submit the Confidential Disclosure Agreement for the company.
Download and review the SunTone Service Delivery Specification.
Prepare and submit the certification submission package (may be done online).
Undergo certification audit for the service.
Once the service has passed the certification audit, your company will be able to use the SunTone Certified logo to promote the certified service.
The length of the certification process varies depending upon the type and complexity of the service being certified. In all cases, the enterprise customer or service provider must first become a member of the SunTone community, submit required legal agreements, and then review and download the specifications and guidelines, and follow the certification process as detailed on the SunTone member site:
Some typical examples would be:
The customer or SP has an existing service and wants to validate it. Once the customer has completed and returned the self-assessment forms, the audit and certification process take approximately three weeks to complete.
The customer or SP has recognized gaps in its service-delivery architecture and/or its policies & operational procedures. The customer would engage Sun's Client Solutions organization or an authorized partner to do a gap analysis and then work with them to create and execute a remedial plan. After the recommended changes have been completed, the audit and certification process takes approximately three weeks to complete.
The customer or SP wishes to build a new service to the SunTone Service Delivery Specification standards. The time required in this case varies significantly. Historically, the process has taken SPs and customers between six and twelve weeks to complete, plus the normal three-week audit and certification period.
The SunTone Council, an exclusive sub-set of the SunTone community, is a Sun-lead industry group responsible developing the SunTone Service Delivery Specification. The SunTone Council is comprised of Sun subject matter experts as well senior technical experts from leading Sun customers and partners who are responsible for managing some of the word's largest, most secure and reliable mission-critical service delivery environments. The SunTone Council determines the requirements for achieving SunTone Certification. By invitation only, members of the SunTone community may be invited to participate in the SunTone Council. Member of the SunTone Council may be required to commit to a significant amount of time in reviewing pre-release drafts of the SunTone Service Delivery Specification and participating in council meeting conducted in person and via conference call.
No. The certification process only verifies that a service conforms to the best practices and methodologies outlined in the SunTone Service Delivery Specification
Does the SunTone Service Excellence Model cover only Sun environments?
No. The SunTone Service Excellence Model is Sun's open services model defining end-to-end requirements for service delivery excellence within a heterogeneous service stack. SunTone certification ensures that a specific service has undergone a rigorous review of the end-to-end, heterogeneous "service stack" supporting the service delivery to an end-customer, meeting or exceeding the defined SLA. Certification requires that the core-service components run on Sun/Solaris systems. For more information, please see the SunTone Service Delivery Specifications.
What are the general requirements for SP service certification?
Some of the key requirements for certification are as follows:
Operations--SunTone Certified services specify operational strategies and practices that promote quality service delivery.
Technical Competencies--SunTone Certified services are backed by experienced personnel who have demonstrated technical competency in specific areas that are essential to the delivery of highly reliable and available services.
Service Policies--SunTone Certified services are backed by customer service agreements that provide for means to measure service quality and consequences for failing to meet customer expectations.
Availability and Reliability--SunTone Certified services specify continuous service components for which any interruption is unacceptable, and resilient service components for which availability and reliability are predictable.
Security--SunTone Certified services address security through access control mechanisms (e.g., certificates), network design, and firewalls to carefully control traffic across multiple subnetworks and protect customer privacy. Key components of SunTone Certified services must run in the Solaris operating environment, promoting robustness, reliability, and high availability.
N-tier Architecture--SunTone Certified services specify functional decomposition by service, task layer, and special function to enhance reliability, availability, security, and scalability.
Scalability--SunTone Certified services support vertical database scaling.
Is there a particular service architecture service providers must use?
Not exactly, but there are characteristics common to all SunTone Certified services. Please refer to the SunTone Service Delivery Specification for more information.
What are the benefits to a service provider for having a service SunTone Certified?
For external service providers, SunTone certification is recognized as an industry benchmark. With SunTone certification, your service is elevated in the eyes of your customers, partners, and employees. With SunTone certification for your service offerings, you may benefit from:
Enhanced customer confidence that you are delivering highly reliable, scalable and secure services
Help enable adoption of ITIL processes and/or prepare for BS 15000 certification readiness
Improved profit margins through streamlined operations efficiencies for service delivery and management
Promotion of your SunTone Certified services to customers, prospects, the SunTone community at large, and Sun sales teams through your certified solutions profile posted to the SunTone web site.
Recognizes service provider investments in operations and infrastructure by providing a seal of approval for service delivery excellence.
Using the SunTone Certified seal as a guide, customers can easily identify SPs who have met stringent industry best practices and who deliver high standards for service availability, scalability, reliability and security;
What are the general requirements for enterprise service certification?
Some of the key requirements for certification are as follows:
Operations--SunTone Certified services specify operational strategies and practices that promote quality service delivery.
Technical Competencies--SunTone Certified services are backed by experienced personnel who have demonstrated technical competency in specific areas that are essential to the delivery of highly reliable and available services.
Service Policies--SunTone Certified services are backed by customer service agreements that provide for means to measure service quality and consequences for failing to meet customer expectations.
Availability and Reliability--SunTone Certified services specify continuous service components for which any interruption is unacceptable, and resilient service components for which availability and reliability are predictable.
Security--SunTone Certified services address security through access control mechanisms (e.g., certificates), network design, and firewalls to carefully control traffic across multiple subnetworks and protect customer privacy. Key components of SunTone Certified services must run in the Solaris operating environment, promoting robustness, reliability, and high availability.
N-tier Architecture--SunTone Certified services specify functional decomposition by service, task layer, and special function to enhance reliability, availability, security, and scalability.
Scalability--SunTone Certified services support vertical database scaling.
What are the benefits to an enterprise customer for going through certification?
By adopting best practices defined by the SunTone Service Excellence Model, enterprise IT operations (as well as those of government institutions) can differentiate your IT and business services to your customer base, and you may also benefit from:
Improved service reliability, security, and overall service quality, while costs are kept in check.
Enhanced value IT delivers to the business (or organization).
Increased IT staff competencies and job satisfaction.
Improved customer (or user) satisfaction.
Improved ability to manage internal IT operations more like an external service provider.
Help enable adoption of ITIL processes and/or prepare for BS 15000 certification readiness.
How is the SunTone Service Excellence Model helping enterprises achieve higher quality service levels?
By applying the best practices and processes outlined in the SunTone Service-Delivery Specifications, customers are better able to deliver and manage network-enabled IT services efficiently and cost-effectively.
Specifically, SunTone helps customers to:
Meet service level agreements and metrics with LOBs, with higher quality-of-service delivery
Manage flexible, high quality IT services in complex environments and competitive markets
Build and certify internal IT services to meet or exceed the service delivery standards demanded of external service providers
Build and maintain IT staffing competencies to meet rising business service needs
What types of services does Sun offer in support of the SunTone Service Excellence Model?
Since no IT organization can go it alone-especially when it is in the process of transforming itself to achieve new levels of operational capabilities - Sun and it's partners offer a complete range of goods and services that can be combined to create integrated people-process-technology solutions that help customers get to desired future states quickly, smoothly and economically. Sun and it's authorized partners offer the following types of Services in support of the SunTone Service Excellence Model:
Certification Assistance Services: Assist SunTone members in the completion of the necessary self-assessment submittal forms prior to the audit and certification.
Workshop Services: Identify the issues and requirements necessary to achieve quality service-delivery levels based on the SunTone member's current IT Strategy.
Assessment Services: Perform gap analysis and remedial planning. A range of assessment services (example: end-to-end or security-specific) are available. Many SunTone members leverage the Sun Ready[tm] Availability Assessment, as it ties closely to the service-delivery areas applicable to SunTone.
Remediation Services: Corrects service-delivery and management issues identified in customers' existing IT environments.
How do these services map to the SunTone specifications and the certification process?
These offerings help customers build, deploy, and manage their IT services to the high standards identified in the SunTone Service Delivery Specifications. The SunTone Service Excellence Model serves as a guide-post, driving consistency in service quality, regardless of the provider of service components: Sun, it's partner, or your IT staff, in any combination.
