A Framework for Relating Frontstage and Backstage Quality in Virtualized Services

Virtualized service models are now emerging and redefining the way Information technology is delivered to end users. In this paper, we propose a framework to measure and track quality delivered by a Virtualized service delivery system. The framework accounts for the service’s internal elements as well as the other services it depends on for its performance. It provides a mechanism to relate hard metrics typically measured at the backstage of the delivery process to quality related hard and soft metrics tracked at the front stage where the end user interacts with the service. The framework is general enough to be applied to any type of IT service. In the paper, we show three instantiations of the framework – an IT enabled service, Software as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service.