SLA (service-level agreement)

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. Many Internet service providers (ISP) s provide their customers with an SLA. More recently, IS departments in major enterprises have adopted the idea of writing a service level agreement so that services for their customers (users in other departments within the enterprise) can be measured, justified, and perhaps compared with those of outsourcing network providers. Some metrics that SLAs may specify includes:

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 periodically compared The schedule for notification in advance of network changes that may affect users Help desk response time for various classes of problems Dial-in access availability Usage statistics that will be provided.

A service-level agreement (SLA) is a part of a service contract where the level of service is formally defined. In practice, the term SLA is sometimes used to refer to the contracted delivery time (of the service) or performance. As an example, internet service providers will commonly include service level agreements within the terms of their contracts with customers to define the level(s) of service being sold in plain language terms. In this case the SLA will typically have a technical definition in terms of mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair or mean time to recovery (MTTR); various data rates; throughput; jitter; or similar measurable details. SLAs commonly include segments to address: a definition of services, performance measurement, problem management, customer duties, warranties, disaster recovery, and termination of agreement.

Service level agreements at different levels

SLAs are also defined at different levels:

Customer-based SLA: An agreement with an individual customer group, covering all the services they use. For example, an SLA between a supplier (IT service provider) and the finance department of a large organization for the services such as finance system, payroll system, billing system, procurement/purchase system, etc. Service-based SLA: An agreement for all customers using the services being delivered by the service provider. For example: o A car service station offers a routine service to all the customers and offers certain maintenance as a part of offer with the universal charging. o A mobile service provider offers a routine service to all the customers and offers certain maintenance as a part of offer with the universal charging o An email system for the entire organization. There are chances of difficulties arising in this type of SLA as level of the services being offered may vary for different customers

(for example, head office staff may use high-speed LAN connections while local offices may have to use a lower speed leased line). Multilevel SLA: The SLA is split into the different levels, each addressing different set of customers for the same services, in the same SLA. Corporate-level SLA: Covering all the generic service level management (often abbreviated as SLM) issues appropriate to every customer throughout the organization. These issues are likely to be less volatile and so updates (SLA reviews) are less frequently required. Customer-level SLA: covering all SLM issues relevant to the particular customer group, regardless of the services being used. Service-level SLA: covering all SLM issue relevant to the specific services, in relation to this specific customer group.

Common metrics
Service level agreements can contain numerous service performance metrics with corresponding service level objectives. A common case in IT service management is a call center or service desk. Metrics commonly agreed to in these cases include:

ABA (Abandonment Rate): Percentage of calls abandoned while waiting to be answered. ASA (Average Speed to Answer): Average time (usually in seconds) it takes for a call to be answered by the service desk. TSF (Time Service Factor): Percentage of calls answered within a definite timeframe, e.g., 80% in 20 seconds. FCR (First-Call Resolution): Percentage of incoming calls that can be resolved without the use of a callback or without having the caller call back the helpdesk to finish resolving the case. TAT (Turn-Around Time): Time taken to complete a certain task.

Uptime is also a common metric, often used for data services such as shared hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated servers. Common agreements include percentage of network uptime, power uptime, number of scheduled maintenance windows, etc.Many SLAs track to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library specifications when applied to IT services.Specific examples:
Backbone Internet providers It is not uncommon for an Internet backbone service provider (or network service provider) to explicitly state its own service level agreement on its Web site.[2][3][4] The US Telecommunications Act of 1996 does not expressly mandate that companies have SLAs, but it does provide a framework for firms to do so in Sections 251 and 252.[5] Section 252(c)(1) for example (Duty to Negotiate) requires that ILECs negotiate in good faith regarding things like resale, access to rights-of-way, and so forth. WSLA

A web service level agreement (WSLA) is a standard for service level agreement compliance monitoring of web services. It allows authors to specify the performance metrics associated with a web service application, desired performance targets, and actions that should be performed when performance is not met.

WSLA Language Specification, version 1.0 was published by IBM on January 28, 2001.

Cloud computing
The underlying benefit of cloud computing is shared resources, which is supported by the underlying nature of a shared infrastructure environment. Thus, service level agreements span across the cloud and are offered by service providers as a service based agreement rather than a customer based agreement. Measuring, monitoring and reporting on cloud performance is based upon an end user experience or the end users ability to consume resources. The downside of cloud computing, relative to SLAs, is the difficultly in determining root cause for service interruptions due to the complex nature of the environment. As applications are moved from dedicated hardware into the cloud (alternatively, grid computing), these applications need to achieve the same or even more demanding levels of service as classical installations. SLAs for cloud services focus on characteristics of the data center and more recently include characteristics of the network (see carrier cloud) to support end-to-end SLAs. Any SLA management strategy considers two well-differentiated phases: the negotiation of the contract and the monitoring of its fulfilment in real-time. Thus, SLA Management encompasses the SLA contract definition: basic schema with the QoS (quality of service) parameters; SLA negotiation; SLA monitoring; and SLA enforcementaccording to defined policies. The main point is to build a new layer upon the grid, cloud, or SOA middleware able to create a negotiation mechanism between providers and consumers of services.[6] An example is the European Unionfunded Framework 7 research project, SLA@SOI,[7] which is researching aspects of multi-level, multi-provider SLAs within service-oriented infrastructure and cloud computing.

Outsourcing
Outsourcing involves transfer of responsibility from an organization to a supplier. The management of this new arrangement is through a contract that may include a service level agreement. The contract may involve financial penalties and the right to terminate if SLAs metrics are consistently missed. Setting, tracking, and managing SLAs is an important part of the outsourcing relationship management (ORM) discipline. It is typical that specific SLAs are negotiated up front as part of the outsourcing contract, and they are utilized as one of the primary tools of outsourcing governance.