What does SLA mean in ITeS/Telecom and Data Center Industry?
Service Level Agreement in Data Center Industry
SLA or Service Level Agreement defines the service quality delivered by the providers in IT/ITes/Telecom industry. Network availability is the most important concern for the clients and this acts as one the most important factors in choosing the data center providers. Web hosting and data center providers represent their service level in terms of SLA guarantee. It is a kind of commitment by the providers to the user where the web hosting/data center services provider defines its service quality levels and responsibilities in terms of:
- Actual Uptime/actual downtime: Uptime in IT/ITeS/Telecom and data center industry refers to the time when the server or computer is actually up, working, functional and available. In data center and IT management industry, 99.99% uptime is considered as the highest SLA guarantee. This means the data center providers will take maximum 8 hours of downtime yearly, for troubleshooting, repair, facility maintenance, hardware replacement etc. to upkeep processes.
- Network: A redundant network again is crucially important in IT/ITES/Telecom and data center industry. Back up options for server, power, hardware, software, applications and other such resources ensure that if a resource is failed/down, the other back up resources can be beckoned upon. N+1 redundancy is the service standard where the web hosting companies make sure to keep their data centers equipped with more than one service back up resources to ensure business continuity for its clients.
- Emergency Maintenance: It is very important to keep the data center facility equipped with strong disaster management services like modern-aged emergency management systems including fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, scanning system, technical and manual security staffs,
- Rapid Action Support: Support services are the critical part of web hosting providers. 99.99% SLA guarantee by web hosting server providers also covers a 24x7x365 rapid action support so that the users can avail technical support whenever required irrespective of global time zone differences.
- Infrastructure: The data centers must have a leading-age infrastructure for delivering services to meet the guaranteed 99.99% SLA. Latest technologies for climate controlling, cooling and ventilation and likewise latest security systems, disaster recovery systems, N+1 redundancy etc. should be deployed in the data center facilities to ensure business continuity.
