Friday 16 September 2011

The Reasons It Is Important To Have A Superior SLA And Uptime For Business Web Hosting Functions

By Sheri Guy


When a business and a business web hosting provider agree on the level of service that the host will provide to the business this is known as a service level agreement (SLA). Levels of service can include a variety of different aspects, for example an estimate of the time between failures, the time it takes to do a system recovery and how fast data transfer will occur. Bear in mind the differences between the minimum service levels and the target service levels as defined in the SLA.

A minimum level of service is what the business class hosting provider guarantees to the customer whereas a target level of service is what the customer should expect of the provider in terms of provider performance. In order for the SLA to be effective the customer must be compensated in some manner if the host does not provide the minimum service levels as defined in the SLA.

For example in terms of a minimum level of service a provider may guarantee 100% cloud web hosting uptime. If downtime occurs then the customer should be compensated, for example by being refunded a certain percentage of the hosting fee for each hour of downtime experienced. Alternately with a target level of service, such as replacing faulty hardware within two hours, if the hardware is only replaced within five hours the provider has not violated the SLA because two hour replacement is a target, not a minimum guarantee.

Business web hosting customers need an effective SLA in place because low quality service and extensive downtime will reduce business revenues. Whether the business is providing a service or a product, if customers cannot access the business website or are experiencing problems with it then they will choose to go elsewhere for the product or service. Just a short duration of downtime or associated website problems can mean a business loses out on a great deal of potential revenue.

Large and small businesses alike require an effective SLA from a business hosting provider so that they know they will receive good uptime and technical support. If a business web hosting company gives bad service and there is a lot of downtime then small business customers will find it extremely difficult to make their business thrive and large business customers will miss out on lots of potential revenue. It is important for a business to develop customer loyalty.

Businesses may for example want to develop customer loyalty through cloud hosting as it is reputed to be reliable in terms of uptime and also very flexible. Businesses can also develop customer loyalty through having access to round-the-clock technical support which means website disruption problems are sorted out quickly and therefore customer inconvenience is kept to a minimum. It's no good to a business if 100% cloud hosting uptime is a target but not a guarantee or that 24/7 technical support means a problem can be brought to the attention of the business hosting provider at any time but it may take several days to fix the problem. Although high target levels of service are good in an SLA it is more important to have high minimum levels of guaranteed service.




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