You may recall the old pizza delivery commercials, “delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free.” When I was younger, I used my dad’s stopwatch to time the pizza delivery driver from the time my parents ended the phone call to the time the pizza man rang our doorbell. I grew up in a relatively large town so the delivery driver could have realistically encountered obstacles and not made the delivery on time. Thinking back on it, I don’t recall a time when the pizza arrived late or we didn’t receive exactly what we ordered. I was too young to realize the entire behind-the-scenes work that it took to get the pizza from their oven to the Ward family doorstep. All I knew was the pizza was always delivered on time when my parents would call and place an order. I did not realize what Service Level Agreement (SLA) really meant. I was just happy to have pizza. Today, I still want my pizza in a reasonable time; however, the term Service Level Agreement (SLA) means more than pizza delivery to me.
Now that I am older, I hardly go a day without discussing or reading about Service Level Agreements. In the field of Information Technology, usually the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will meet with the managers of all departments and make arrangements for their specific systems and data to be available for a specified amount of time. Usually, “5 nines” or 99.999% will be implemented as the agreed upon SLA standard. This agreement means systems and data must be available 99.999% of the defined hours of operation. This could be much more challenging in hospitals where hours of operation are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An SLA can also measure the amount of time it takes from when an issue is reported until it is resolved. I have worked in some environments where the SLA of resolved tickets is as low as 98% and as high 99.999%. Service Level Agreements are set within a company to ensure within each department every measure is taken to make sure the data and systems will be available when they are needed.
Service Level Agreements do not just exist internally to an organization. If you rely on a vendor for a service, like an internet connection or specific software, it is a good idea to understand the SLA they have entered with you as their customer. For example; if the LEC, or Local Exchange Carrier, is unable to provide a stable internet connection there is a good chance your IT department is not meeting the 99.999% SLA with their internal customer. Usually approaching the vendor with statistics showing they are not meeting the SLA will motivate them to quickly correct the issue.
Information Technology is a customer service position. The customer is the department or organization an SLA agreement affects, and no matter the reason, an unmet SLA is never a good thing. These events cause mistrust between leadership, disruption, and often times halt critical business operations. When setting a Service Level Agreement make sure it not only benefits all parties involved, but that it is also reasonable and attainable.
Stay tuned, Blog 7: Active Directory Users and Computers
Happy Hacking,
JW