AIX Tip of the Week: Service Level Agreements

Audience: IT Managers and Administrators

Date: February 18, 2000

Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a contract between an IT service provider and their users. The SLA clearly states what level of service users can expect, and what your organization will do to ensure that this level of support . Benefits include common expectations and numerical performance objectives for measuring success.

As a starting point, a Service Level Agreement should address the following items:

1. Facilities to be provided

• Applications
• Databases
• Networks
• Servers
• Workstations
• Printers

2. Service hours

• Normal service hours
• Scheduled maintenance windows
• Target Availability (%)

3. Service Recovery

• File recovery times
• Failure recovery times
• Disaster recovery times

4. Performance expectations

• Response Time (by application)

5. Limitations of use

• Identifies the user group(s) supported by the agreement
• Processing volumes (data, transactions, queries)

6. User responsibilities

• User representative
• Notice required for changes to SLA
• Procedures for problem resolution, change control

7. Available assistance

• Help desk number
• Operations manager/service analyst

8. Measurements

• Identify measurements
• Publication of service levels achieved for each service
• Service reviews