The biggest advantage to Cloud Computing is that the company eliminates costs by outsourcing software, hardware, and network capacity provision. It allows the business to perform its core business objectives in an optimal manner. The provision of cloud software and infrastructure needs a binding contractual relationship to determine the nature of services provided. These are in the form of SLAs. SLA stands for Service Level Agreement; it is an element of service contracts where the nature of service to be provided is defined. This explains to the party sourcing the services what they are expecting of the cloud company in the simplest terms possible.
The language of Cloud SLAs will be sourced from technical terminology prevalent in this particular field. As a matter of necessity, SLAs employ the use of technical jargon that a reasonable individual versed in the field would understand clearly. The SLAs come in different varieties; one, Customer based SLA – this deals with the service issues of an individual customer group. For example, it can be used where a company needs a private and personalized cloud. Two, Service based SLA – this addresses the service agreement for a particular service for all customers.
The cloud SLA enables the provider to set service provision targets that are within his capacity to deliver. This is because it defines Service Level Management SLM, practices. SLM are specific to Information Technology infrastructure and provide for monitoring, reviewing, and continuous identification of service delivery levels specified in the SLA. SLM ensures adequate service delivery in a timely fashion by providing service continuity mechanisms. It organizes the crucial aspects of service availability management, service capacity, and management of incidents and problems. Finally, SLM produces the service catalogue to ensure that clientele is aware of the current services available from the cloud solutions provider.
The metric defined in cloud service SLAs are such as; one, server uptime and downtime. The former is the time duration the server is operational and available while the latter is time the server needs to be offline for maintenance and upgrades. Two, Mean Time to Recovery MTTR; this is the amount of time service restoration will take when the component systems or subsystems fail. There are other service delivery metric specific to cloud hosting, all covered by the SLA. The main benefit of the SLA is it defines the exact contractual obligations undertaken in clear terms for the parties contracting. When enforcing service delivery this is the document one uses.
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