Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in Cloud Questions and Answers for Viva

Answer-1: An SLA is a formal contract between a cloud service provider and the customer defining the expected level of service, including uptime, performance, and responsibilities.

Answer-2: SLAs provide clear expectations, accountability, and legal protection regarding service quality and reliability.

Answer-3: Uptime/availability, response time, throughput, support response time, and data durability.

Answer-4: Uptime is the percentage of time a service is operational and available for use during a defined period.

Answer-5: Availability = (Total time - Downtime) / Total time * 100%, usually expressed as a percentage.

Answer-6: 'Four nines' means 99.99% uptime, which translates to roughly 52.6 minutes of downtime per year.

Answer-7: 99.9% (three nines), 99.95%, or 99.99% uptime guarantees depending on service level.

Answer-8: Customers may receive service credits, refunds, or other compensation as specified in the SLA.

Answer-9: A service credit is compensation given to customers when the provider fails to meet SLA guarantees, often a percentage discount on the monthly bill.

Answer-10: Yes, SLAs differ for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS due to different responsibilities and service layers.

Answer-11: SLA is a contract with penalties, while SLO (Service Level Objective) is a target metric without penalties.

Answer-12: SLAs outline what the provider guarantees and what the customer must do to maintain service, such as usage policies and incident reporting.

Answer-13: Uptime guarantees determine the reliability level you can expect from a cloud service.

Answer-14: Exclusions specify situations where SLA guarantees do not apply, like scheduled maintenance or force majeure events.

Answer-15: SLA is between provider and customer; OLA (Operational Level Agreement) is internal between teams within an organization.

Answer-16: Regularly, ideally annually or when service needs change to ensure continued relevance.

Answer-17: Yes, especially for enterprise agreements or custom contracts.

Answer-18: These are measurable parameters like latency, throughput, and error rates used to assess service quality.

Answer-19: Providers typically have defined processes and timelines for notifying customers about downtime.

Answer-20: MTTR is the average time taken to restore a service after an outage.

Answer-21: Some SLAs specify data loss limits or backup frequency to ensure data integrity.

Answer-22: Consistency across providers, integration of SLA terms, and centralized monitoring.

Answer-23: To verify compliance and ensure service quality meets agreed standards.

Answer-24: Cloud provider dashboards, third-party monitoring tools like Datadog, New Relic, or custom scripts.

Answer-25: SLA defines recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) critical for DR.

Answer-26: An event causing service unavailability or degradation beyond acceptable limits.

Answer-27: No, penalties may include service credits, termination rights, or increased support.

Answer-28: When the provider fails to meet one or more SLA guarantees during the agreed period.

Answer-29: SLA terms must align with regulatory standards for data security and availability.

Answer-30: Public cloud SLAs are standard, private cloud SLAs may be customized per customer.

Answer-31: SLAs help set performance and availability expectations for the migrated environment.

Answer-32: Defined periods where downtime is allowed without violating SLA terms.

Answer-33: Through monitoring tools, audit reports, and regular reviews with providers.

Answer-34: A predefined sequence of actions taken when an SLA breach occurs, including reporting and remediation.

Answer-35: Some SLAs include commitments to encryption, access controls, and incident response.

Answer-36: An SLA is part of the contract specifically focused on service quality metrics.

Answer-37: By providing transparent service commitments and remedies for failures.

Answer-38: Usually 1 year, but can vary depending on contract terms.

Answer-39: Yes, APIs often have specific availability metrics in the SLA.

Answer-40: Dynamic scaling and distributed architectures make strict SLA definitions complex.

Answer-41: Higher SLA guarantees often come with premium support tiers.

Answer-42: A maximum limit on the total penalties a provider must pay for SLA breaches.

Answer-43: Most SLAs exclude downtime caused by events outside provider control like natural disasters.

Answer-44: Details about services covered, performance standards, availability, and support.

Answer-45: Storage SLAs often focus on durability and data availability, compute SLAs on uptime and performance.

Answer-46: To define conditions under which parties can exit the agreement without penalties.

Answer-47: Yes, SLA terms can be legally enforceable and used in litigation.

Answer-48: Higher SLA guarantees often result in higher costs.

Answer-49: Some SLAs specify backup frequency, retention periods, and recovery capabilities.

Answer-50: Regular reviews, clear documentation, monitoring compliance, and establishing communication channels.