Project Management (U4)
Features of Service Level Agreements
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Availability of Service
This section of the Service Level Agreement outlines the period of time the services will be provided and the quality of service to be provided, including outlining any downtimes such as those from routine maintenance, planned outages or unplanned outages.
Examples of Availability of Service includes:
Amazon Web Services - Guarantee in its service level agreement for a montly uptime percentage of 99.99%.
Microsoft Azure - Guarantee in it's service level agreement an uptime of 99.99% or 99.95% for services deployed in two or more regions.
Guaranteed availability of service can bring confidence to a customer that the quality assurance will be met, otherwise a breach of contract will occur and potential compensation may be liable.
Types of Services
There are three main types of services for use under the Service Level Agreement:
Customer Service Level Agreement
A customer service level agreement is a contract between a service provider and an external customer. An external customer is someone who receives services in exchange for money.
Customer Service Level Agreements often outlines support services to be provided to the customer such as help desks, email/phone/online support.
Internal Service Level Agreement
An internal service level agreement is a contract for an internal customer, that is someone who works in a different department of the same organisation.
An Internal Service Level Agreement outlines the expected quality of services to be received by an internal service provider and outlines items such as response times.
Vendor Service Level Agreement
A vendor service level agreement is a contact between a service provider and a vendor. A vendor is someone who provides service to the company. For example, you could hire someone to provide ICT support and guarantees uptime of ICT services.