Blog / The Nitty Gritty of Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
We take a peek at some of the lesser known details of SLAs.
Service level agreements (also known as SLAs) aren’t a particularly new concept, though in case you’re unaware, they layout the services, costs, and time frames for rectifying problems, among other things. They’re used to help ensure both sides understand exactly what to expect, and although they’re certainly not exclusive to IT service providers, they’re certainly commonplace in the industry. Please feel free to read more about the basics of SLAs, but this week we wanted to take a deeper dive and look at the details and some common clauses that aren’t such common knowledge.
- Indemnification
- Transferability
- Verification
Indemnification
The first clause you’re likely to run into in your SLA without expecting it is an indemnification clause. Hopefully you’ll immediately recognize why, as pretty much every business these days takes reasonable measures to limit their liability should things go wrong, and if you’ll allow a just a touch of anecdotal evidence, that was my experience the first time coming across one; a note of surprise, followed by a shrug of understanding. Of course there’s going to be an indemnification clause, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just make sure you read it and understand exactly who’s going to be on the hook for what if things go awry.
Transferability
Like most sectors of the economy, the IT MSP industry is highly-competitive, and that’s good; it brings new and better products and services. On the other hand, when there’s competition, there’s always winners and losers. So what happens when the winners gobble up the losers and your MSP gets bought out? You might think you’d just get automatically become a customer of the new, larger provider, and most companies will honor previous agreements their new subsidiaries held, but that’s not necessarily the case. Make sure you check your SLAs for transferability clauses (if any) and be prepared to renegotiated the terms of your agreement with new management.
Verification
No one wants to be taken advantage of, nor should they expect it. Rather, you should expect—nay, demand!—honesty and transparency from your provider. Most provide monthly reports and stats about the quality of your infrastructure, how many attacks were blocked, and so on, usually via an online portal clients can check at any time. While the exact details of the services provided and the metrics being used to ensure they’re being met will vary, it’s important to ensure there’s a clear understanding of how service provisioning can be verified. For absolutely critical services and services, you may even want to invest in 3rd-party monitoring tools to help ensure objective performance measurements.
To be clear, none of these are particularly problematic, and seeing indemnification clauses or verification standards shouldn’t be considered red flags. Contrary to popular belief, most IT MSPs aren’t trying to rip you off. Nevertheless, if you’re considering signing an SLA, just like any other legal document, you’d be well advised to make sure you understand the specific details of what you’re getting into.
If you’re concerned about the content of your Service Level Agreement, or if you’d like to discuss what TRINUS offers as part of our standard SLAs, please contact one of our IT experts today and get yourself some stress-free IT.
Sincerely,
The TRINUS Team
trinustech.com
