The Value of Service Level Agreements: Maybe Not So Much?

August 12, 2010

Whip out your iPad and load up “Inside American Eagle Outfitter’s 8-Day Website Nightmare.” If this information is on the money, In America, back to school starts in the middle of summer. When a company selling trendy stuff to school age people, big money is at stake. Like many outfits, the top dogs are not chewing on computer chips. These outfits go with big names in the warm embrace of an American TV drama. Pretty crazy stuff for 40 minutes and then, bang, everything is okay again. Well, life does not work that way. Service Level Agreements or SLAs are not written like US couch potato snacks.

Big outfit inked deals with IBM and Oracle. Bang. Problems. Here’s the key passage in the story:

atypical and concurrent failures with IBM’s hosting servers and backup plans as well as with Oracle’s Data Guard utility program ultimately proved to be the sources of problems.

If true, will outfits like Amazon and Google pitch American Eagle? What about the old saw that big vendors can offer SLAs that mean something? As long as the “something” is ambiguous, what’s not to like? Err, the outage? The time required to get back online? What’s the value of an SLA with a big vendor? Maybe not so much?

Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2010

Unlike an SLA, the write up is free, has minimal downtime, and won’t put you out on a limb.

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Enterprise, Legal matters, News, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.