Defining SLAs

An SLA is a promise made to a user of a service to indicate that the availability and reliability of the service should meet a certain level of expectation. An SLA details a certain level of performance or expectation from the service.

Key jargon

There are certain components that go into defining which agreements can be considered as an SLA. These are referred to with specific jargon and are elaborated, as mentioned, in the following sections.

Service provider and service consumer

The party that represents the service provider and service consumer can differ based on the context and nature of the service. For a consumer-facing service such as video streaming or web browsing, a service consumer refers to the end user consuming the service and a service provider refers to the organization providing the service. On the other hand, for an enterprise-grade service such as a human resource (HR) planning system, a service consumer refers to the organization consuming...