What is a service name?

A service name is the name of the offered service. A service is an activity or capability offered for another party, rather than a physical product unit.

The name sits on the service

In the invented purchase from Purchase order, invoice and payment, Lantern Works asks a supplier to prepare a community Repair Day. The portable projector is a product, a type of good offered for supply. Its product name is the name of that product offering: Portable projector. The setup work is a service. Its service name, in that same invented example, is Projector setup.

Service name = the name of the offered service.

The service is the offering. The service name is an attribute of that service: the words people use when they call it. The words can change while the service stays the same record. The company changed its name makes that split for an organization, a group with a defined identity and purpose, such as a company. A name is how people recognize the thing. The record is what later questions point at.

The name, the description, and the provider

Service description is the activity or capability supplied. In the invented example the description is "Configure and test presentation equipment". The name is the short label. The description says what is supplied. Both are facts about the service, and each can be edited on its own.

Service provider organization is an organization providing the service. Service provider person is a person providing the service. In the example the supplier organization provides the setup. The supplier's own name is a fact about that organization. Projector setup stays the service name if a different person arrives to do the work.

Other records point at the service

An order is a request or commitment to supply goods or services. An order line is one product or service requested on an order. Order line product is the product requested on a line. Order line service is the service requested on a line. On the invented PO-104, one line requests the projector and another requests the setup service. What is an order line? keeps those as two lines. The service line stores a link to the service. The name is read from that service. A later edit that changes the label to Hall setup, while the line still points at the same service, still requested that service.

An incident is an unplanned interruption to a service, or a reduction in its quality. Incident affected service is the service whose quality is interrupted or reduced. A failing piece of software may be what broke the service. The service is still what the users were promised. Incident vs problem vs change keeps the interruption, the cause, and a proposed modification as separate records. The affected service says which offering was interrupted. Once that link is stored, the service name is the label readers see.

A runbook is a document of steps for operating a service or for handling a known situation, written so a responder can follow it under pressure. Runbook service is the service whose operation the runbook describes. The steps for Projector setup belong to that service. A document that uses the same words in its title, and does not point at the service, is a document with a similar label. What is a runbook? keeps those steps apart from a known error, a workaround, and a postmortem.

The name is separate from the service level

A service level agreement (SLA) is a documented agreement between a service provider and a customer. It identifies the services required and the expected level of service. It is a contract in this graph, because it creates commitments between those parties. Service level agreement service is a service whose targets this agreement commits to.

A service level objective (SLO) is a target value or range for a service level over a stated window. A service level indicator (SLI) is a quantitative measure of one aspect of the level of service. Service level indicator service is the service whose behavior this indicator measures. Availability is the proportion of good events among valid events, a measurement of that service.

SLA vs SLO vs SLI keeps the promise, the target, and the measurement apart. Checkout can be a service name. A percentage can be a target on an indicator for that service. The percentage answers how the service should behave. The service name answers which service.

An alert is an observation that a stated condition was met and that a person may need to act. Alert affected service is the service whose condition the alert is about. The alert names a condition. The service name names the offering that condition is about.

A software name is a different record

A software application is software that people run. In this graph an application is not the service users are promised. The service is the capability. An application may be what provides it. A software component is a part of an application, such as a module, a library, or a microservice deployed on its own. Calling that part a microservice does not make it the service. The component is a piece of software. The service is the capability offered to another party.

A search for what a service name means often starts from a process list, a Windows service, or that microservice. Those names identify software. This attribute identifies the offered activity. Checkout can be the service, with the service name Checkout, while two applications and a component are what provide it. An incident on checkout points at the service. The component that failed can be named on its own record. Sharing a spelling does not merge the two.

When someone asks what a service name means, answer with the offering it names, then say which record holds the name. Projector setup, the description under it, the supplier, and the line that requested the setup are four facts. The names in this guide are made up. The split is the part worth keeping.