4 Responses Dec 09

Laxmikanth Work

A cloud application Service Level Agreement (SLA) is, at its core, a formal method of setting expectations between a vendor and a customer. No service is perfect, and SLAs spell out exactly how a vendor will plan for and respond to interruptions in cloud application access or downgrades in cloud service performance. “In the strictest sense, SLAs refer to the availability of cloud services for your company”( Stephanie Overby,2019). Depending on how critical uptime is for a certain application, you might pay for three, four, or even five nines of availability. But you can’t just sign an SLA based on service availability. While availability is a critical aspect of any cloud services SLA, there’s much more you should be paying attention to if you want to maximize your experience. Below are a few of the most critical components you should look for in a cloud SLA.

 

Mean Time to Respond/Repair: Your SLA should include specifics about when the service provider will respond to disruptions. This is typically broken into tiers of severity, but make sure you have a say in determining the definitions of those tiers. Escalation Path for Troubleshooting: Every time you take an application out of your data center in favor of a SaaS platform, you sacrifice a certain level of control. “One consequence is that you can’t call your in-house system admin for any troubleshooting scenarios. Instead, you’re often left to call the service provider’s contact center” (Michael Cooney, 2018). Use your SLA to define an escalation path that gets you in contact with a manager for the service provider who can quickly address your issues.

 

Ownership of Cloud Data: When you’ve implemented a cloud service, it’s easy to grow so comfortable with it that you feel a sense of ownership. However, some service providers (especially in a licensing scenario) will limit what you can do with data collected through its platform. Check to see if your SLA allows you to use data the way you expect to. Software Security Standards: There’s an inherent understanding that your service provider will take ownership of system infrastructure and security. However, “you may want your SLA to include the right to audit service provider compliance to ensure your company is protected” (Joe Michalowski, 2019). Disaster Recovery Guarantees: Availability is one thing, but your SLA should clearly detail how the service provider will react to a worst-case scenario. Even the best availability guarantees can be diminished by inefficient disaster recovery plans.

 

Implementing cloud services is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. If you want to keep your cloud service providers accountable, you need an SLA that offers clear details of what type of user experience is owed to you. One problem with sustaining accountability is that tracking metrics and end-user experience for cloud services can prove challenging.

 

References

 

Joe Michalowski. 2019. What Goes into a Cloud Services SLA? Retrieved from https://www.appneta.com/blog/what-goes-into-a-cloud-services-sla/

 

Michael Cooney. 2018. 10 Best Cloud SLA Practices. https://www.networkworld.com/article/3053920/10-best-cloud-sla-practices.html

 

Stephanie Overby. 2019. What is an SLA? Best practices for service-level agreements. Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/2438284/outsourcing-sla-definitions-and-solutions.html

Naren Work:

Service Level Agreement

In particular, a service level agreement (SLA) outlines or states the customer's responsibilities and the provider in terms of the use of service (Chowdhury & Das, 2018).  Cloud SLAs "clearly state metrics, responsibilities, and expectations so that, in the event of issues with the service, neither party can plead ignorance" (Greiner et al., 2017). Each provider has a unique SLA, although there are details that must be included in every SLA. These details are vital for the cloud user and the provider, such that they are both able to maintain healthy relationships. There are five crucial details that a cloud SLA must cover to enhance its effectiveness and enhance relationships between users and providers. These details offer essential knowledge about what is needed by potential customers before any commitment.

First, the provider's guaranteed availability is the most significant quality of service that cloud SLA should cover. The availability could be broken down based on the time frame. A notable example is a provider's promise that availability during business hours will be 99.99 percent (Hein, 2019). Secondly, data possession is an understanding of the owner of data in the cloud.  Several enterprises are reluctant to move to the cloud, especially when the privacy or sensitivity of data is involved. Hein (2019) asserts that it is ideal that an SLA states that "all ownership rights stick with the user." Nonetheless, the provider's inability to offer an explicit statement regarding its policies regarding data ownership in a cloud SLA implies a lack of guarantee in the safety or security of information.

Thirdly, cloud software and hardware are a vital component of cloud SLA since the cloud provider requires them to operate its services (Chowdhury et al., 2018). It is fundamental for a provider to indicate the hardware that services in the cloud are dependent, including servers and devices. Notably, the knowledge of software and equipment specification in the cloud helps or fosters an understanding of specifics related to the cloud environment's construction (Suneel et al., 2015). The fourth detail is recovery and backup of disaster, whereby disasters compel cloud providers to have or develop a plan that ensures the total loss of data is prevented. As such, there should be a section in the SLA that provides a distinct and detailed description of recovery during disasters along with backup solutions. Providers determine if "they may provide automatic backups and snapshots of your data" (Hein, 2019).

While backup systems may not be particular about how the systems are activated, it is necessary that users are aware of how to activate them or not. Lastly, a cloud SLA encompasses customer responsibilities since it is an agreement that dictates the obligations of the customer and the provider (Greiner et al., 2017). As such, the cloud provider should inform the client of the possible liabilities when entering into an agreement. In so doing, customers will understand and acknowledge what the provider manages, including what they need.

 

References

    Chowdhury, A. G., & Das, A. (2018). Importance of SLA in Cloud Computing. In Big Data Analytics (pp. 141-147). Springer, Singapore.

    Greiner, L., Overby, S. & Paul, L. (2017). What is an SLA? Best Practices for Service-Level Agreements. Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/2438284/outsourcing-sla-definitions-and-solutions.html. Accessed 8 December 2020.

    Hein, D. (2019). 5 Things to Look for in a Cloud Service Level Agreement. Retrieved from https://solutionsreview.com/cloud-platforms/5-things-to-look-for-in-a-cloud-service-level-agreement/. Accessed 8 December 2020.

    Suneel, K. S., & Guruprasad, D. H. (2015). A Novel Approach for SLA Compliance Monitoring in Cloud Computing. International Journal of Innovative Research in Advanced Engineering, 2(2), 154-159.