What are Service Level Agreements (SLA) and how are they relevant in web hosting?
In its broadest sense, an SLA is contract between the provider and the user that specifies the level of service that is expected during its term and could either be very general or extremely detailed. In the context of hosting however, SLAs typically cover server-based resources rather than server performance levels according to Jim Carr in his Network Magazine article Service Level Agreements, and covers three critical areas. Server availability – a minimum of 99.0% uptime (based on a rolling 30-day period) is usually guaranteed and although a 100% uptime is every host’s goal, a 99.5-99.9% is more realistic. Server administration – this includes the host’s management responsibilities, acceptable response times for the restoration of failed servers, metrics for data backup performance, etc. Data backup & storage media handling – details the percentage and frequency of scheduled data backups that will be conducted (99% planned backups should be completed according to the ASP Industry Co
