CIO Wisdom II: More Best Practices

A Word on Service-Level Agreements

Now that we have become familiar with the common metrics and tools to measure the metrics, it is time to discuss the service-level agreement (SLA) and how it relates to running mission-critical applications over the WAN. An SLA can specify bandwidth availability, response times for routine and ad hoc queries, and response time for problem resolution (network down, machine failure, etc.). SLAs can be very general or extremely detailed and should include the steps to take in the event of a failure. Obviously, putting in place contractual obligations to meet predefined and pre-agreed-upon levels of service is smart business. The CIO should apply rigor when reviewing and negotiating an SLA with an Internet service ...