Something I should perhaps never do is slag off the company who are providing live services to coolsmartphone.com. However, I need to comment on an all-new SLA that has been introduced my the co-lo provider we use. You may remember our connectivity problems some months back and the down-time it caused. The issue was a network failure with rapidswitch.com and, after several days of choppy service it was rectified.
They apologised and they explained exactly what had gone wrong. This is brilliant. I appreciate when companies do this and it’s part of the reason why we’ve stuck with them. Things go wrong, it’s life. You can’t always say that everything will be perfect all the time because there’s simply too many factors to consider.
However, today they’ve sent me an email about a new SLA (Service Level Agreement). It’s annoyed me purely because I hate it when unrealistic figures are mentioned. They now state that I will receive a 100% SLA by stating..
“RapidSwitch shall guarantee the availability will be 100% in any calendar month.”
Fantastic huh? I wish I could buy cars and appliances that were available for 100% of the time, I’d have a much easier life. It’s annoyed me because you simply can’t give a 100% SLA – what would happen if a bomb dropped on the facility ? It should be 99.9% or something similar, but you just can’t say 100%. At least, you can’t unless you have a massive list detailing what ISN’T covered by the 100% uptime guarantee, and this is exactly what they’ve done in the new T’s and C’s. They offer a “credit” if they fail to meet this new guarantee EXCEPT where..
– Outage periods due to any cause other than faults by RapidSwitch, including faults or negligence of the Client or problems associated with equipment connected on the Client’s side of RapidSwitch delivery point,
– Outage periods reported by the Client in which no fault is observed or confirmed by RapidSwitch,
– Any fault period during which service is suspended under provision in this Agreement,
– Downtime when RapidSwitch technical staff cannot have access, when the Client is requested to do so for the purpose of investigating the problem and restoring the service, to Client premises and equipment pertaining to the service in case the service should include the management of equipment on the customer site by RapidSwitch,
………..and it goes on and on and on….
This isn’t a 100% SLA, it’s just marketing rubbish. I’m annoyed, so I’ve decided to write my own SLA with a load of exclusions in. I could say that I’ll attend my job 100% of the time, then list a load of exclusions like..
– Except when I’m ill
– Except when I don’t fancy it.
– Except when I’m drunk
There. Sorted.