How companies negotiate, create and manage their service-level agreements (SLAs) is undergoing rapid changes. No longer does content to measure IT performance simply note such factors such as whether a site is up or down; they now monitor key business processes throughout the enterprise that have a real impact on revenues and profits. These leaders view SLAs and service-level management as a critical step leading toward true alignment among IT groups, external service providers and business management. Topics of this white paper include: why internal and third-party SLAs are here to stay, business benefits of well defined SLAs, how SLAs are changing as IT moves toward service-enabled environments, managing applications with SLAs and the need for transparent and objective reports.