I've been seeing some buzz lately around the need to identify a method for rating and comparing the performance of IT services - especially since the understanding and availability of cloud services has risen significantly. Specifically, one recent ReadWriteCloud blog post stuck out to me where several resources were named but the definition of performance was based on only one or two parameters, such as cost, response time, or availability.

I'll use the auto industry as an example.  Performance is a term that is loosely thrown with respect to cars, but as we know, it involves a lot of quantitative and qualitative information for someone to determine if a Lincoln is really better than a Cadillac. Reviewing one or two variables is simply not enough.

Hence, the need (back to IT for a minute) for the Service Measurement Index (SMI). This provides information about the quality of IT services (including cloud) - relative to other services. After all, the decision is often not whether or not to buy, but instead, "which one." Instead of being completely subjective or completely objective, SMI enables business services to be expressed and compared in business terms. It analyzes IT services across six metrics, including: quality, agility, risk, cost, capability, and security.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and CA Technologies teamed up to start the initiative, and CMU is leading the charge going forward with a growing consortium to support it. The result is that the industry now has a standard way to perform IT service comparisons and make more informed purchasing decisions. The results are compiled from CMU's initial and ongoing analysis, plus end-user-submitted surveys about their own experiences with existing IT services. The data is processed to generate a relative score, compared to other services of the same category based on the six key business metrics.

This provides a similar value to a component from one of my favorite magazines: Car and Driver. As a car fanatic who seldom gets the chance to test drive cars myself, I've always enjoyed the index in the back that compares many noteworthy cars across common metrics such as: price, power, acceleration, handling, top speed, lateral acceleration, braking, etc. This lets me quickly and easily single out the best (and worst) performers in their classes.

So that's all well and good. The only missing component now is that more subjective content that lets me dig in and learn more about particular cars, customer experiences, and those little details that make some people buy a Corvette, and other people a Porsche 911 - even though they match up pretty closely on the track (yes, they do).

Enter Cloud Commons. Consider this to be the rest of the magazine, and much more. In addition to being where you find SMI, Cloud Commons is an independent community of IT professionals, analysts, technology providers, and industry experts (CA Technologies is also a sponsor of Cloud Commons). It is a place to find, and contribute, user experiences, best practices, cloud-related news, and discussions. Cloud Commons, with the Service Measurement Index, is a living, breathing community and resource which is growing as more and more people weigh in along their journey toward cloud. And while it's still in its early stages, it's available today. SMI has over 30 organizations expressing interest in joining the consortium and membership for Cloud Commons has been growing steadily since its launch in May of 2010.

*Image used under Creative Commons License, courtesy of Luciano Meirelles.