Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are so-called "maintenance" agreements. These are typical contracts, quite common in the IT industry. The essence of an SLA is to guarantee a certain "basic" (minimum) scope of services provided to a given client. In other words, SLAs guarantee the maintenance of a certain level or scope of services agreed upon between the parties, i.e., the client and the service provider (e.g., through monitoring, reporting, verification, etc.). SLAs provide security for both the client and the service provider when, after the implementation of a given project, its maintenance and support of the client are crucial. In other words, an SLA is a contract for the "maintenance" of a given system.
What should be included in an SLA?
First and foremost, a detailed description of the subject matter of the agreement—but also a description of the error categories and the rules for reporting and resolving them (the essence of SLAs is precisely the timely removal of errors). However, it is also crucial for the service provider to determine the level of system availability (availability can be measured in various time periods, e.g., day/month/year, etc., but is most often defined simply as the period in which no critical errors occur, i.e., those that would prevent the use of the system).
Equally important is ensuring the appropriate performance of the system, as well as specifying the service provider's responsibilities and, for example, software updates in the SLA. Not to mention other important provisions, such as the contract duration and billing. Of course, such an agreement may also include many other additional provisions, to ensure proper maintenance (servicing) of the system.
Other problematic issues that may arise in SLAs include copyright issues, which can sometimes arise in this type of agreement (especially if the subject of such an agreement also includes, for example, the development of a given system and its modifications, e.g., graphics, etc.). In such a case, it is necessary to define the SLA and include provisions concerning, for example, licensing or simply transferring such copyrights under the SLA.
These are, of course, just a few of the main (most important) issues related to this type of contracts – if you have any questions, are simply curious about this issue, or need help or consultation, please feel free to contact us and follow the next posts in our series related to IT contracts.
This alert is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Legal status as of February 29, 2024
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