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A
service level agreement (SLA) is a contract between a network service provider
and a customer that specifies, usually in measurable terms, what services the
network service provider will furnish, and what performance levels will be met
by these services. A network service provider may be an external company or
another department within the customer's company. Some metrics that SLAs may specify
include:
· What percentage
of the time services will be available
· The number of
users that can be served simultaneously
· Specific
performance benchmarks to which actual performance will be compared, such as
available bandwidth, average and peak response times, number and duration of
permanent and temporary failures, mean time to repair/correct a failure,
percent of messages lost or requiring retransmission, etc.
· The schedule for
notification in advance of network changes that may affect users
· Help desk
response time for various classes of problems and areas of expertise
· Dial-in access
availability
· Usage statistics
that will be provided
Advantages/Strengths
SLAs
are beneficial to both user and provider, and should be negotiated as part of
the original agreement. Otherwise, the user may not know exactly what the
provider is promising, and may have false expectations, leading to
dissatisfaction with the provider. At the same time, the provider must
understand the user's expectations so that these can be priced fairly, and
possibly negotiated to a mutually satisfactory level. Sometimes providers will
want to establish a "base line" period where SLAs are measured and
then negotiated. In many cases, this request is reasonable, especially if
provider has little to no understanding of a specific environment and the
implication of performance requirements.
Disadvantages/Weaknesses
However,
if SLAs are agreed to after a provider is already providing the service, the
users are in a weaker position to require the needed performance, unless they
can easily and inexpensively find and contract with an alternative provider.
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