SLA commitment – a conversation, not a number

An SLA is often advertised as a single percentage, such as 99.9% uptime. This singular view of an uptime metric for providing service is a simplified view that is riddled with exceptions.

Internal partner SLAs

SLAs should be viewed as the commitment to service that starts at a business level and discusses a technical process. By bringing the business into this discussion, we learn the importance of the processes our technical solutions implement. Those discussions often include multiple partners, each with their own agenda and technology and business needs. The preference is to always include SLA discussions as part of the initial planning of new services or features, but it’s often overlooked, or worse, assumed that the service will always be available.

Starting these discussions opens a discovery into individual services, assets, and external partnerships. For example, a database often stands apart from the services...