What to expect from your SLA
Ideally, a customer would like an SLA to cover every risk, but realistically the ASP can guarantee only the services over which it has direct control. A good SLA will outline:
- specific metrics, as well as related industry ranges and calculation criteria, on key measures such as availability and performance
- a clear statement of purpose
- a description of the services and their duration
- installation timetables
- payment terms
- termination conditions and legal issues (that is, warranties, indemnities, and limitation of liability)
Usually, an SLA will last from one to three years. During that time, the scope of the service will probably expand, with new applications and new users, so it's important to anticipate growth and the impact that might have on service.
Your agreement might also state that the contract will hold even if the customer subscribes to additional applications or adds a certain number of users. And the SLA might require that the ASP and customer meet to discuss any configuration or network changes and then modify the agreement as necessary. This renogotiation is in everyone's best interest, since the real goal of the SLA is to articulate the service level with an eye toward creating infrastructure that meets the customer's needs and agreeing upon a level of service that is both acceptable to the customer and achievable by the ASP.
Many ASPs are working to create standard agreements while still giving their customers the flexibility they want. Many are creating multi-tiered plans that allow users to pick the plan that suits their needs and their budgets. Qwest Cyber.Solutions, for example, introduced its ProofPositive SLA in October, which guarantees application, performance, and disaster recovery. The company offers three levels of service: 99 percent, 99.7 percent, or 99.99 percent application reliability. Each level--Standard, Enhanced Response, and Business Critical--guarantees different degrees of customer service response time, CPU utilisation, and storage utilisation.
