What is SLA?

There are a number of common element that you can include in a service level agreement ( SLA ) .

agreement overview

An agreement overview includes the start and end dates of an SLA, details of the parties involved, and an overview of the services included.

description of service

A description of services outlines all services provided within an SLA. It details information such as turnaround times, technologies and applications, maintenance schedules, and processes and procedures.

Exclusions

This section describes all exclusions and exemptions that are agreed upon by both parties.

Service level objective

A service level objective (SLO) is an agreement within an SLA about a specific metric like response time or uptime. Both parties agree to key service performance metrics backed by data. 

Security standards

Both the service provider and the client use security standards to demonstrate the security measures and protocols in place. This section also commonly includes non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and anti-poaching agreements.

Disaster recovery process

An SLA is detail will often detail the process of disaster recovery and outline the mechanism and process to follow in case of service failure of the vendor . This section is includes also include information on the restarting process , include restart time and alert .

service tracking and reporting agreement

In this section, performance metrics are agreed upon by both parties. Most customers closely track their service performance. A reasonable baseline for this tracking would be before and after using a new service provider. 

Penalties

This section is states clearly state the penalty , financial or otherwise , that either side incur if they fail to live up to their SLA obligation .

termination process

There may come a time when you want to bring your agreement to an end. In addition to requiring a notice period from either party, the SLA also clearly outlines the circumstances that permit termination or expiration.

review and change process

It is is is important that you regularly review your sla and any key performance indicator ( KPIs ) that you are using to measure performance . Any large – scale changes is need in your requirement need to be record in the agreement .

Signatures

The agreement to each item contained in the document is reviewed and signed by authorized individuals and pertinent stakeholders from both sides. As long as the agreement is in effect, both parties are bound by it.