CIOs unsure about SLAs

A recent survey conducted by global services provider, Dimension Data has thrown up an unusual, and potentially rather alarming, factoid about CIOs in the UK: that despite their having high expectations of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for cloud services, the majority – some 63 percent are not clear on what constitutes a failure of their cloud service provider’s SLA.

The survey, undertaken by Vanson Bourne earlier this year, shows highlights the fact that there is now strong acceptance of public and private cloud adoption in the UK. It also confirmed the importance of SLAs when purchasing cloud services. Some 95 percent of respondents indicating cloud SLAs are a priority, with 55 percent considering SLAs right upfront in the negotiation process.

The survey covered 200 IT decision makers and multiple industry sectors in the UK featuring respondents from cloud-using organisations with over 501 employees.

It also showed that 76 percent of IT decision makers said their organisation has purchased private or public cloud IaaS; 49 percent are running SaaS or PaaS; and 25 percent have hybrid cloud IaaS. More than half of respondents confirmed they are running internal web applications in the cloud, while 48% are using it for client-facing web applications.  A significant 39 percent of those polled are deploying enterprise applications in the cloud. 

When it comes to CIO expectations of SLAs, 69 percent believe the most important measure is a 99.9 percent guarantee for minimum server uptime, which equates to 8.7 hours downtime per year, while 59 percent expect a 99.9 percent guarantee for minimum network availability.

However, 65 percent  of respondents admitted they are not clear on what constitutes a failure or violation of their cloud service provider’s SLA and almost all, 97 percent, felt that cloud SLAs are difficult to decipher to some degree.

The has lead Dimension Data to draw up some Best Practice recommendations for when a business is evaluating cloud service providers. These include looking for a provider that can help with both public and private cloud solutions, looking for a provider with SLAs of at least 99.73% for both servers and networking, and demanding clear SLAs that are available online.

“The survey highlights the continued growth of cloud services as well as the often misunderstood issue of cloud SLAs, but this should not be viewed as a deterrent to cloud adoption,” said Andy Lancaster, Director of Cloud Services at Dimension Data. “We advise our customers to consider the SLA when evaluating the cloud marketplace to ensure that they find an appropriate SLA from the right cloud provider for their business. These considerations include; uptime commitment, how uptime is calculated, what the SLA covers (what is excluded), what constitutes failure and what violation penalties exist.”