A service level agreement (SLA) is a contract between a service provider and customer that defines the level of service expected. SLAs are used to define expectations for outsourced, cloud, or other services where responsibility is transferred. If terms of the SLA are breached, such as missed payments or illegal activities, services may be terminated. New insights include organizations coding customer accounts green, amber, or red based on payment and term compliance, with red indicating danger of termination if issues aren't addressed.

1. INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT
Service Level Agreements
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2. Introduction
■ What is a Service Level Agreement?
■ Why do organisations use them?
■ What happens if these are breached?
■ Any new insights to the SLA?
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3. What is a Service Level Agreement?
(SLA)
■ A contract between a service provider and the end user
– The service provider can be either internal or external
■ These define the level of service expected from the provider
■ Also proves useful for larger organisations
■ Common uses in Service Level Agreements include:
– Outsourcing, Cloud Computing, and other areas where the responsibility of an
organisation is transferred
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4. Why do Organisations use them?
■ Organisations use Service Level Agreements; these help them with:
– Offering the user with more opportunities with getting more out of their contracts
– Offering a Real-time Service Oriented Infrastructure: look at
http://dl6.globalstf.org/index.php/joc/article/viewFile/907/970 for more detail
■ Some organisations are based in the cloud, so this allows users to:
– Store more data based on the SLA of that organisation
– Look at http://www.mdpi.com/2073-431X/3/1/1/htm for more detail
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5. SLA: If they are breached
■ There are different examples for when an SLA is breached, including:
– If a client/organisation miss payments on a regular basis
– If a client/organisation perform illegal activities within their project scope
– When a client exceeds the maximum time allowed in a frame
■ These timeframes are required for effective responses in a website of an organisation
■ Should a client/organisation breach any terms in their Service Level Agreements
and/or subscriptions, their services face termination
– This can also happen if the client/organisation fails to pay their invoice in full by
a given timescale
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6. New insights to the SLA
■ The organisations agreeing to the SLA update their databases with a three way
colour code
– Green to show which clients/organisations are up to date with their terms/payments.
– Amber to show when payments are due, or when some of the terms are not met.
These are the clients/organisations who need to be kept an eye on, and have
reminders sent.
– Red to show when either payments are missed, or when the terms are not met
generally. These are the clients/organisations who are in danger of being terminated
if they don’t take immediate action.
– These colour codes are not just applied to the name of the client/organisation, they
are generally applied to the whole row
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7. THANKS FOR
LISTENING
Do you have any questions?
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8. References
■ www.paloaltonetworks.com/resources/learning-center/what-is-a-service-level-
agreement-sla.html
■ http://dl6.globalstf.org/index.php/joc/article/viewFile/907/970
■ http://www.remsys.com/sla
■ http://www.smewebdesign.net/sme-website-design/service-level-agreement.asp
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