A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a critical component of a service contract that formally defines the level of service a client expects from a supplier. For a data centre outsourcing arrangement, the SLA must contain specific, measurable performance metrics. System availability (uptime percentage) and mean time to recover (MTTR) are fundamental technical metrics that quantify the service's reliability and the provider's responsiveness to failure. Furthermore, a robust SLA includes governance clauses to manage the relationship, making a dispute resolution procedure essential for addressing disagreements over performance or other contractual terms. These elements establish clear expectations and a framework for performance management.

The actual number of on-time service delivery: This is a historical performance metric (a Key Performance Indicator result) measured against the SLA, not a component written into the SLA document itself.

1. CIPS L4M3 Commercial Contracting

Study Guide (2018). Chapter 5

Section 3

"Performance Management

" details the use of SLAs and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It specifies that SLAs should contain clear metrics for service delivery

such as availability and response/recovery times

as well as clauses for managing the contract

which includes escalation and dispute resolution procedures.

2. Lacity

M. C.

& Willcocks

L. P. (2013). Advanced outsourcing practice: Rethinking IT

business processes

and cloud services. Palgrave Macmillan. In Chapter 4

"Structuring and Managing the Deal

" the authors emphasize that effective SLAs for IT services must include precise service level metrics (e.g.

system availability

downtime

mean-time-to-repair) and governance mechanisms

explicitly mentioning dispute resolution as a key contractual safeguard (pp. 98-102).

3. University of California

Berkeley. (n.d.). Service Level Agreement (SLA) Content. Information Services & Technology. Retrieved from https://technology.berkeley.edu/services/service-level-agreement-sla-content. This university guide outlines the essential components of an SLA

listing "Service Availability

" "Problem Management" (which includes recovery time objectives)

and "Dispute Resolution" as standard and necessary sections.