←  All terms
S
Enterprise & Governance

Service Level Agreement

A service level agreement defines measurable service commitments such as availability, response time, or recovery time.

A service level agreement creates clear, measurable standards for evaluating the performance and reliability of a service. Depending on the agreement, these may include guaranteed availability, response times for incidents, and defined recovery targets. Clear measurement methods, responsibilities, and documentation are essential for verifying whether the agreed service levels are being met. The concept is closely related to Uptime and Monitoring.

Read more

Uptime

Monitoring

Hosting

SOC 2

FAQ

Service Level Agreement

What should be considered when evaluating a service level agreement?
Points to check are the measurement period, the definition of downtime, excluded periods, response versus resolution time, and the type of remedy. A high availability figure helps little if exceptions are generous. Contractual assessment belongs with procurement and legal; technically, measurability and fit with one's own risk count.
Does a service level agreement guarantee that there are no outages?
No. An SLA describes a target and the remedy for missing it, such as service credits, but it does not prevent disruptions. Exceptions and maintenance windows are common as well. Where outages are barely tolerable, additional measures such as redundancy and contingency plans are needed.
Is a service level agreement the same as uptime?
No. Uptime is a measured metric, while the SLA is the contractual commitment around it. An SLA also states conditions, exceptions, and consequences of deviations. Actual uptime can be higher or lower than promised, which is why independent monitoring complements the provider's figures.
What typically belongs in a service level agreement?
Typical elements are an availability target, measurement method, response and recovery times, support hours, exceptions such as maintenance windows, and rules for missed targets. The measurement method is decisive: a percentage without a definition of what counts as downtime is hardly comparable.