Again, I think it is important not to conflate the business service (loosely, the capability) with the SOA service (the mechanism for access). Hosting and element support sounds like a business service, and what you describe sounds like all the typical things that go into a business contract. SOA does not replace (although it may introduce reasons to modify) the entire legal infrastructure surrounding business contracts, and it would be a mistake to have it subsume that domain.
Still need to read more and chew on this.
Ken
On Jan 24, 2007, at 4:56 AM, Jones, Steve G wrote:
There is probably a question here of the difference between a consumers SLA with a service and a producers SLA with its environment. Taking our outsourcing business as an example there tends to be a difference between the SLA that applies to end-users (consumers) and the one that we give to the client around the hosting and support. The hosting and support element includes specific details around number of calls, what type of calls, DR policy, backup policy etc etc which I guess could be called the service owners SLA, or you could consider the infrastructure et al as being a service in its own right and the DR et al being its SLA for providing hosting services to the business service. The consumer SLA will have availability, response times and not much else.
The amount of content in an SLA is massively dependent on the business value and the business impact of a service. So taking something like a production line management service that directly impacts the company financially when it fails then the SLA will be pretty complete, something around monthly HR reporting will have a best endeavours style of SLA.
Steve
From: Ken Laskey [mailto:] Sent: 24 January 2007 05:19To: Danny ThorntonCc: : Re: [soa-rm-ra] definition of SLA
Danny,
Thanks for the pointer. I was out of the office today and didn't have a chance to look at this beyond your summary below, but my first impression is that definition includes every possible aspect of a service, and that doesn't make sense. Do you really expect the SLA of every service (or even a significant number) to go into the details of disaster recovery? I may want some assurance a critical service will be there during times of extreme duress, but I probably do not care (and would not appreciate) the details of how the provider will do it.
But let me read this and the other responses to my SLA definition question and let me see if I migrate to a more enlightened view.
Ken
On Jan 23, 2007, at 12:47 AM, Danny Thornton wrote:
The following link is one description:
http://www.sla-zone.co.uk/index.htm
It lists the following pieces to the SLA:
Definition of Services
Problem Management
Performance Management
Customer Duties and Responsibilities
Warranties and Remedies
Service quality
Indemnities
Third party claims
Remedies for breaches
Exclusions
Force majeure
Security
Information Security Policies
Security Audit and Internal Audit
Disaster Recovery
Termination
Several parts of the SLA can translate into policies
and configurables for services and devices. The
policies created from the SLA can result in automated
run time adjustments to services and devices to meet
the requirements in the SLA. A failure in ability to
meet the SLA in the SOA results in an elevation of the
problem which might have legal ramifications.
In terms of the service description, we could state
that Interactions Policies and Contracts can contain
an aggregation of one or more SLAs. We could then
extend the SLA to include the above types of
information in a separate diagram.
Danny
--- Ken Laskey <> wrote:
This will probably need to be tackled at some point
and I have the
question biting me now. Is there an accepted
definition of a service
level agreement? How would we define it? For what
purposes is it
used? When should someone care?
Answer these and I have more questions?
Ken
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Ken Laskey
MITRE Corporation, M/S H305 phone: 703-983-7934
7515 Colshire Drive fax:
703-983-1379
McLean VA 22102-7508
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Ken Laskey
MITRE Corporation, M/S H305 phone: 703-983-7934
7515 Colshire Drive fax: 703-983-1379
McLean VA 22102-7508
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McLean VA 22102-7508
