Dictionary · Certification Terminology
Service Level Agreement
SLA — Service Level Agreement
Practice · Intermediate
A commitment that defines the service a provider will deliver, often including uptime, response time, and what happens if the target is missed.
It turns 'we will be reliable' into a number. A 99.9 percent uptime target still allows a measurable amount of downtime, so read the exclusion list.
Example: A contract promises a four-hour response for a critical outage and a service credit if that response is missed.
Common misconception
- An uptime percentage is not a promise that you will never notice an outage. The math still leaves room for downtime.