Are you SLA-ing?

17th November 2023

Have you been SLA-ing?

I need to start by saying that at some point all equipment will fail. I’ll repeat that: ALL EQUIPMENT WILL FAIL and it does that at the most inconvenient time.

We spent a good 20 minutes during this week’s training session (Training Courses | Practical and Interactive Equipment Training (vanwalt.com )  discussing data criticality and redundancy and how we might mitigate the repercussions of data delay or loss. Not enough time was dedicated to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and this prompted me to write these few paragraphs. We’ve made a note to introduce this subject at our next session in February.

Van Walt Training Course 14-16 November 2023

Let’s take an example. I have a 3-year old laptop and it fails. I have a couple of options. If we have an IT department I can ask them to fix it but more likely as not it will be easier (and cheaper) to contact Dell or Lenovo or Microsoft or another vendor and order a new one which will arrive tomorrow. A couple of hours configuration time with our IT and I’m good to go. I don’t need extended warranty or a detailed SLA because it’s an easy fix. It’s quite a bit different if your server fails. You then also have two choices. Contact your IT department if you have one or make use of your SLA. You have one of those for your server don’t you? That SLA will have a detailed scope with (hopefully) a comprehensive and rapid response.

It’s taken a while but we are starting to see more and more subscriptions to our SLA options.  There’s bronze, silver and gold and we can even offer bespoke SLAs. Go for the super platinum one if your data is that critical.

Most suppliers offer a return to base facility during the warranty period. The supplier will promise to fix or replace the item (as long as they are satisfied that the fault is due to a manufacturing error) and they will do that as quickly as possible but it is likely to take upward of one week for simple issues and considerably longer for complex ones. If you have complex networks this could be very inconvenient and you may have to pay for a technician to attend your site. These costs become substantially magnified if your item or system malfunctions outside of a warranty period.

An effective SLA should cover you for unforeseen costs and delays. Yes, they can be expensive but you’ll sleep better if you have one in place.

You can of course leave things to luck but I’m wondering if this is a prudent strategy.

If you want to discuss this subject in further detail, give us a call.

Vincent van Walt

Haslemere, November 2023

Training Courses | Practical and Interactive Equipment Training (vanwalt.com)