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SLAs: If 6 Turned Out to Be 9, I Don't Mind
The risk of overconfidence awaits Web managers, whether they're negotiating their first hosting service level agreement (SLA) or their fortieth. The good news is that vendor investment in new network technologies lets them offer more reliable performance, resulting in sweeter promises for hosting and related services. Smart Internet enterprises are learning to deploy a tool long used by both network managers and customers of big-iron outsourcing services to specify the performance levels expected from their infrastructure vendors. The bad news? It's still tough to understand, specify, and then enforce what you're getting out of the deal. If you're a savvy buyer you will:
- Understand the definitions in the marriage contract before partnering with your vendor. What is the availability? Is it measured end-to-end or just within your particular vendor's proprietary network? How broad and deep is that network? "SLAs have little meaning to the customer if the provider is only connected to one network—its own," says Ron Yokubaitis, chairman of DataFoundry.net, an Austin-based managed hosting center.
- Find out how uptime is calculated. If there are many short outages, rather than downtime meeting a stated minimum length, will that nagging accumulation of little glitches count? Are performance averages calculated only from the first to the last day of the month? This omits bunched disappointments that straddle the month-end and that would have been caught by daily or weekly rolling 30-day averages.
- Run the numbers. Translate the monthly cost difference between 99.5 percent and 99.8 percent, and other uptime measures. If your host hits the holy grail of six nines (that is, 99.9999 percent uptime), is it worth any applicable price difference?
- Watch for motion. Vendors are revising their SLAs in response to customers' and prospects' pressures, and increasing sophistication. I had a publicly traded hosting company replace its supposedly standard, "unchangeable" SLA twice while I was negotiating a recent deal. Just because an SLA is distributed in PDF format doesn't mean it's locked in stone.
- Get granular: Try to supplement the rules. Quantify, define quality of service, and aggregate impacted user minutes and mean time to service
- restoration. Add rules whereby the vendor's log data can be verified by a third-party expert if necessary.
- Negotiate the processes. After outages occur, will the vendor automatically apply credits against your next bill? Or must you write up, file, and then bird-dog a petition to get credits you're owed for substandard performance? And must you chase down and annoy the ever-elusive responsible person at the vendor's accounts payable organization?
- Toss the TLAs: Acronyms are inadequate for procurement contracts. Industry jargon changes faster than marketing messages.
- What's force majeure? How will that funky act of God and major disaster clause be interpreted? Is the vendor absolved from its failure to hire and train sufficient staff? Or to create and safely store adequate technical documentation? Better to negotiate the rules up front than to incur years of litigation costs and the unpredictability of a jury verdict.
- Lock and load your options now. Some hosts offer more services and higher-priced plans. "Frequently customers later discover that they really did want that stronger security package or other extra features, especially after the new site gets traction," says Scott Rehling, regional alliances manager at Exodus' Austin facility. Will the same features and prices be available down the road? They will, if you specify them up front in your contract. Otherwise, expect higher prices and perhaps new caveats.
Remember, an SLA is only what you and your team make it. Sharp, early reviews, detailed discussions within your team, and persistent negotiations with the vendor's representatives are all needed to refine your contract. Deploying extra effort and specialized expertise in both network technology and contracting can make your deal more successful. Nailing SLA text—with its real deal specifications—is both an opportunity and a requirement for building a solid foundation for your site and operations. —HJ
