Patent ID: 7467192

Claim:
A method for defining a service level agreement, wherein the service level agreement defines for a particular network a level of service that has been offered to a customer by a service provider and agreed to by the customer, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: creating a schema that provides a set of rules for defining both the contents of the service level agreement and how to organize the contents of the service level agreement; receiving first information defining the service level agreement, wherein said information defines one or more tests for monitoring the level of service that has been offered to the customer; verifying that the information defining the service level agreement conforms to the set of rules in said schema; receiving second information defining a service level contract associated with the service level agreement, wherein said second information defines apply times for performing the one or more tests; and verifying that said first information defining the service level agreement and said second information defining the service level contract conform with the level of service that has been offered to the customer by the service provider by performing: if said information defining the service level agreement conforms to the set of rules in said schema, then distributing the one or more tests to one or more agents that are configured to communicate with devices that are associated with the particular network; receiving result information based on the devices or agents performing the one or more tests; and creating and storing reporting information that identifies one or more exceptions between the level of service that has been offered and the result information; generating, at a server, interface data for defining service level agreements; and communicating the interface data to a client that is remote from said server, wherein the interface data allows a user to define tests for monitoring the level of service that is being provided by the service provider by displaying a graphical user interface at the client; wherein the graphical user interface comprises a first button that allows the user to add a round trip response SLA definition, a first box that allows the user to select a polling interval from a set of polling intervals, a second box that allows the user to select a probe type from a set of probe types, a source device box that allows the user to select one or more source devices from among a list of available devices generated by the server, a target device box that allows the user to specify one or more target devices either by address or by selecting from a device inventory and one or more threshold boxes that allow the user to enter a set of threshold values for which the round-trip response should not exceed; wherein the interface data causes updating the first information with changes that have been received through the graphical user interface.