Glossary · S
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Service Level Agreement
An agreement about measurable service levels
What it means
A service level agreement defines service commitments, how they are measured and what happens when they are not met. It may cover availability, response times or support responsibilities. The measurement period, exclusions and remedies depend on the contract.
What it means for a business
When agreeing support for a system, the client and supplier should define service hours, incident priorities, response targets and measurement rules. An SLA describes agreed responsibilities; no availability or response target should be assumed unless it is part of the agreement.
In practice
How we deliver Q-Dev projects