Software and platforms
Service level agreement
The document that turns a general promise to provide a service into something measurable. It defines availability and how it is calculated, sets response and resolution targets by severity, names what is excluded from the measurement — planned maintenance, the customer's own network, events outside anyone's control — and says what the customer gets when a target is missed. In most arrangements the remedy is a service credit, and the paper says whether that credit is the only remedy.
- In the catalogue
- Software and platforms
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Providers of hosted software and managed services selling to businesses.
- IT and infrastructure suppliers whose customers depend on uptime.
- Buyers who need the promise to be checkable rather than reassuring.
What you are deciding
- What availability means, and over what period it is measured
- What is excluded from the measurement
- Severity levels, and what each one means
- Response times and resolution targets by severity
- Support hours, channels and escalation route
- How performance is reported, and by whom
- What is credited when a target is missed, and how it is claimed
- Whether credits are the only remedy
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1Scope and definitions
- 2Availability commitment
- 3How availability is measured
- 4Exclusions
- 5Severity levels
- 6Response and resolution targets
- 7Support hours and escalation
- 8Reporting
- 9Service credits
- 10Review of the levels
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- sla
- service level agreement
- uptime agreement
- support sla
- availability commitment
- response time agreement
Questions people ask
- What is a service credit?
- A reduction of the fee when a target is missed, usually calculated as a proportion of the charges for the affected period. Papers of this kind say how it is claimed and whether it is the customer's only remedy.
- Is planned maintenance usually excluded from uptime?
- Commonly yes, provided it is announced in advance and kept inside an agreed window. The exclusions are where an availability figure gets its real meaning.
- What is the difference between response time and resolution time?
- Response is how quickly somebody acknowledges and starts work; resolution is when the problem is fixed. Most providers commit firmly to the first and describe the second as a target.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds