EXPERT SPEAK
Sachin Bhardwaj is Director of Marketing and Business Development at eHosting DataFort
Building a service level agreement with your hosting services provider
The details in a service level agreement depend on the likely duration of the relationship but should contain some basic terms elaborates Sachin Bhardwaj at eHosting DataFort .
With the increasing adoption of managed cloud services , the need for unambiguous , easy to apply and easy to follow service agreements are becoming more important . The level of effort that goes into preparation of a service level agreement between a services provider and the end-customer , is usually proportionate to the duration of the engagement .
A service level agreement is defined as an undertaking between a hosting services provider and an end-customer . This agreement describes various aspects of the service including quality , availability , and responsibilities . The service level agreement converts the hosting provider ’ s services into a known function . This is particularly important where continuity and consistency of services from the hosting provider is of importance for the end-customer .
Another spin-off is the use of service level agreements by IT teams within an organisation to manage expectations of in-house stakeholders . This helps the IT team of the organisation to have its services justified , measured and benchmarked with other external IT service providers .
Hosting service providers need such agreements in order to manage customer expectations . They also need to define
the situations under which they are liable and not liable for deviations from the expected performance . For the end-customer having a prepared service level agreement allows the services of one provider to be objectively compared with another .
A well written and legally comprehensive service level agreement may include as many as two dozen different heads . Notwithstanding the number of clauses , a few of the more important ones appear below .
Services This is a detailed description of the services that will be provided and the end-customer groups that will receive specific services .
Availability This is a description of the uptime limits of a service . The service may also be described in terms of performance , business expectations and outcomes . The higher the availability requirement , the more expensive the service .
Downtime This is a description of the situation when the service is not available , exclusions for responsibility and force majeure , and the process of rebate linked to established failure .
Response time This is a description of the time to respond and rectify based on the nature of the failure or complaint .
Escalation For an externally hosted service , especially when there are time zone differences , this description is the most important for rectification of a fault . Going through a help desk or call centre repeatedly may not ensure timely rectification of the fault .
Notifications This describes the lead time required to be provided when there are any planned shutdowns or disruptions in the service . Planned maintenance cycles are usually known well in advance and can be built into business outcomes .
Benchmarks This is a description of the parameters used to gauge the upkeep of the service level agreement and the point of responsibility for producing , monitoring and escalating these benchmarks .
Help desk This is a description of how the help desk will respond based on the nature of the complaint or fault and the endcustomer flagging the complaint .
In conclusion , just because a service level agreement exists , it does not mean that the service provider and the end-customer will meet each other ’ s expectations . Leveraging the terms in the service level agreement must be the means of last resort . There is much that can also be accomplished without resorting to it .
56 Issue 04 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS