Cloud Management - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 97

Service-Level Agreements
The service-level agreement (SLA) is the most important document that exists between the
service provider and the customer or user. It defines all of the levels of service that the pro-
vider is promising to provide to the customer in exchange for their compliance with some
policies and, of course, for their hard-earned cash. The SLA will highlight the offered services
in measurable terms like these:
■ The percentage of uptime for a service
■ The amount of user traffic that can be served at one time
■ The data rate and bandwidth limitations
■ Performance and capacity of resources
■ The schedule of notifications for events like planned maintenance and outages
■ Help desk response times and scope and limitations
The SLA serves as a binding contract that a customer can use for litigations whenever
those promises are constantly missed. It provides assurance to the user that they will get
their money's worth.
The SLA can be a good tool for evaluating a provider because you know exactly what you
are getting. And if the provider cannot make good on its promises or deliver the expected level
of service, the customer can look to the SLA to see what kind of compensation is offered. It is
often in the form of refunds or discounts for the period in question.
Aside from the usual details like bandwidth, security, privacy, and availability, you
should look at the provider's exit strategy. You must always avoid vendor lock-in because
the business environment is constantly changing, so make sure the service provider offers
a way for you to get out.
Also, see if the provider has other availability zones where you can offload some of your pro-
cesses and even use as backups just in case your main availability zone fails. If the provider is
just rebranding the bigger cloud providers, you have to ask if you have access to the availability
zones of their larger partner. And as an added bonus, it would be good if the provider offers
some form of help in the area of disaster recovery.
Policies and Procedures
Policies and procedures are the core elements of an organization; they are the epitome of the
term organize . The hardware and software and their respective configurations are the tools
that enable a business to drive the functionality they desire from their IT services. Policies
and procedures enable the development, implementation, maintenance, and ongoing support
for those functionalities.
Policies are the rules that everyone in the organization, including the users and admin-
istrators, abide by, and methodologies are the set procedures that these same individuals