SLAs: What They Are and What They Aren’t

A service level agreement or SLA, is an agreement between a customer and the provider of a service. It outlines what is expected from the each party and, in the case of web hosting, it addresses issues like down-time, recovery time, and data backup and storage. It also details the pricing structure for the services provided, and specifies the length of the agreement. An SLA may or may not be a legally-binding document, like a contract, depending on its use and structure. For example, non-contractual SLAs are often used between departments in large organizations to clarify areas of responsibility and to benchmark the quality of services actually provided. When you […]