Service Level Agreements Key Terms

Learn terminology for service level agreements

Any company that has outsourced its services is likely to have signed a service level agreement. Service level agreements are contracts that force network providers to provide quality service to their customers. These contracts usually contain the network provider’s services, responsibilities, priorities, guarantees, and warranties. If network providers do not live up to their end, they can be penalized. To learn about the process, it’s essential to understand service level agreements key terms.

 

Service level agreement

A service level agreement (SLA) consists of a contract that's signed between the customer and network service provider. The service level agreement defines the terms, such as the percentage of the time the service will be available, technical support, and performance measurement.
Try: Visit Webopedia for a description of a service level agreement.

ITIL

ITIL or Information Technology Infrastructure Library comprises of a series of best practices for information technology service management. The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), which is based out of the United Kingdom, established ITIL for business goals and needs. ITIL consists of service design, service transition, service strategy, service operation, and service improvement.
Try: EMC Infra provides comprehensive information about ITIL. In addition, it discusses the service level agreement. You will have to scroll down on the page to get to this section.

Uptime

Uptime is when a computer system is functioning and is also available for a period of time. This is a metric and network service providers usually include it in their SLAs.
Try: Learn how Apollo Hosting tries to have 100% website availability and uptime.

Network performance management

Network performance management involves measuring, planning, modeling, and optimizing the network. This guarantees that network traffic is reliable.
Try: Cisco has a white paper describing their IOS IP SLA, which focuses on improving network performance.

QoS

QoS or Quality of Service consists of being able to measure and improve error and transmission rates. QoS plays significant roles in continuously transmitting multimedia and high-bandwidth data.
Try: Read a paper at Inderscience Publishers about QoS. The authors developed a QoS model which consists of attributes such as throughput, reliability, and response time.

Disaster recovery

Disaster recovery consists of a business process contingency plan (BPCP) or business continuity plan (BCP) of how to handle probable disasters. Disaster recovery plans are designed either to keep the systems operating or get them up and running as soon as possible after the disaster has occurred.
Try: Get an understanding of how to develop a disaster recovery plan by visiting DevX.

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