The Meaning of SLA

What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

This is a critical component of a contract between a vendor and supplier of a business or company. It lays out the standards by which the consumer can expect the provider to deliver quality products and services on time. As SLA thus sets the metrics for these services and also the penalties or remedies when the assigned responsibilities are not fulfilled. This agreement can be between companies or external suppliers but also between the two different departments in the same company. This is a single point of contact for end-user problems and the guidelines for which the effectiveness of a process is monitored and approved. This helps protect the organization’s assets and reputation. A mutual understanding in terms of performance standards is determined so it builds a trustworthy relationship with all the partners involved in your dealings. However, crafting an SLA once is not enough, since your business needs change so should your SLA too. That is why you need to keep it updated according to your business ventures.

Why is an SLA needed?

1. Ensures both the parties are on the same page

An SLA is an integral part of a vendor contract and makes sure that all the agreed-upon services are put together in a single document. All the metrics, responsibilities, and expectations are mentioned so that in case any issues arise, both sides can mutually solve the misunderstandings without any breach of trust. This is why important contracts not associated with SLAs (reviewed by legal counsel) can be prone to misinterpretation either deliberately or not. The SLA needs to be in line with the technology and business objectives of an arrangement. If both the service provider and buyer are not in accordance with a common topic then this misalignment can have a negative impact on deal pricing, quality of service delivery, and customer experience. Through the SLA you can clear and measurable guidelines so you and your provider can conveniently work through your expectations. This will reduce the chances of disappointing your client and in turn offer your client a recourse if the obligations are not met.

2. Recourse for unmet service obligations

When your service provider fails to fulfill your obligations there may be some harmful effects on your organization’s reputation and brand image before potential clients and trouble you in retaining the loyalty of previous customers. The monetary penalties may also be included in the contract to mitigate the losses incurred by your organization. Your service provider will be rightly held accountable if any problem arises. To agree on the level of service for your customers, you will still have the minimum level of services to save your business when things go amiss. For example, financial penalties, such as credits for service time, may apply if the provider doesn’t meet the guaranteed terms. This can help to protect the stability of the service, protect company assets and hold the service provider accountable.

3. Keeps your data secure

The SLA affirms your ownership of the data you store on the cloud service provider’s system and details the security standards and infrastructure the service provider must maintain. The SLA is essential when working with cloud infrastructure so that the criteria for availability, performance, security, and disaster recovery expectations are set. This must include the location of data, access to it, and its portability or processes such as change management, dispute resolution, and an exit strategy. Since a company is responsible for its data security in case of loss or theft, the SLA must contain recourse strategies to address these issues. Strong user authentication, data encryptions, anti-virus/malware and patching as well as intrusion detection are all essential for handling security and privacy. Many regulations require data to be kept in specific regions with strict privacy guidelines applied and this must be referred to in the SLA. Thus, strong user authentication, data encryptions, anti-virus/malware, patching, as well as intrusion detection, are all essential for handling security and privacy. In contrast to regular mail, secure mail by GoAnywhere means employees can send messages to recipients who receive an email with a link to the message. They can then download it through a secure HTTPS connection. There is no limit to file size or file type restriction.

Metrics of an SLA

These are the key performance indicators (KPI) that you can monitor. These SLA metrics depend on the services being offered. Many items can be measured as part of SLA but the contract should be kept as simple as possible to avoid any confusion or extra cost on side of both the parties involved. The more complex the surveillance and remedy scheme the more likely it will be ineffective as no one will have the proper time to analyze it. Opt for ease of collection of metric data; automated systems are best, since the costly collection of manual data may not be reliable.

Some metrics to include:

1. Availability

The availability of a cloud resource is the length of time it is working for its users. In order to provide availability as close to 100% make sure to include the following.

• Uptime — This is the percentage of time an instance is up, running, and ready to use.
• Service Availability — the percentage of time that service requests return with an expected response. An example is an Azure web app service that your organization uses to respond to customers when they log in. If your monitoring reflects that this service is failing then the SLA performance is also deteriorating.

2. Response Time

The response time from any cloud resource is the amount of time it takes for a response to be received after a request or complaint has been made. Make sure that the response time is low as it affects the user experience.

• MTTR — Mean time to repair (or resolution) is the length of time concerned with how fast your provider or team fixes a specific problem.
• Transaction Response Time — this is the time interval in milliseconds that takes for a transaction request to return a response. E.g after clicking on the ‘sent’ button for an email, the time it takes to receive a confirmation of the sent email is the transaction response time.