Question

Explain what an SLA is, give examples of an SLA for one solution and explain how this relates to redundancy and uptime.

Answer 1

Answer:

SLA stands for service level agreements, and this is signed between the customer and the vendor. Both need to obey this, or else either of them can be questioned as per the clauses mentioned in the SLA. By redundancy it means when the SLA becomes useless, and by uptime we mean till when it remains operational. As an example, we can consider the prime service by Amazon. Amazon provides special facilities apart from the normal service list to the prime member. And this remains operational until the member uses the services or goods provided, and becomes redundant when the customer does not use the product anymore. The prime account in this process keeps on making SLA within uptime and redundant, as the customer, again and again, buy amazon product. Many more examples can be cited.

Explanation:

Please check the answer section.

Answer 2

Answer:

SLA is also known as Service Level Agreement. It is a commitment from the service provider to provide minimum services that are mutually agreed and it will also include the additional services to support the un-interrupted operation of the product. Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a memorandum of agreement which explains the commitment of critical operating functions of the services or products purchased from the vendor.  

A typical SLA will include following  

• Service Description
• Operation Uptime
• Performance Details
• Service Operation
• Compensations or Billing
• Exceptions

Explanation:

Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a memorandum of agreement (MOA) which includes the commitment between vendor and a client. This will cover the details of quality of service, availability of service and responsibilities of each party as per mutual agreement between client and vendor during negotiation of sale. SLA promises that the client’s services are not disrupted and performance levels are met as per commitment.  

For example : When a company purchases leased line or broadband services from Internet Service Provider (ISP). It will include following details

Service Description : This describes the committed service that ISP provides to its customers. This will include Network Availability Guarantee, Latency Guarantee, Packet delivery, Quality of Services( QOS).  

Network availability guarantee makes sure that customers will always be provided with the internet services without any downtime by ensuring redundancy. With High availability of the devices redundancy is maintained and the internet will be available to customers most of the time. This ensures the uptime of the network with the help of redundant routers even during service upgrades.  

Quality of Service (QOS) will ensure that each customer will be allotted with different latency, different bandwidth, different packet losses based on their choice. Priority will be given to customers who falls under elite/platinum/gold classes.  

Operation Uptime : This will include the provisioning and installation of the services at the customer premises and also support team working hours for the enterprise customers. Dedicated support and high priority resolutions will be taken care.  

Performance : This will include service availability, fault detection, fault tolerance, fault resolution time without affecting the committed performance levels.  

Service Operation: This will include the handling of customer issues, incident management, incident reporting, configuration settings management, escalations handling and issue resolution details.

Compensation/Billing : This includes the charges for the services and upgrade options based on the customer needs.  

Exceptions : This includes all the agreed exceptions for service unavailability and turn around time for the same. It will also include work around for certain scenarios.  

Overall, SLA will differ from each vendor and to the customers. However, generally most of SLA will cover above mentioned points.