Question

Q77

Explain the negotiating of a service level agreement with an ISP. [2 Marks]

Answer 1

When you negotiate with an ISP for wireless service, you’ll need a comprehensive service level agreement (SLA). An SLA between a company and an ISP will be defined by two factors:

1. Is the ISP’s pipe for transferring company data big enough?
2. Will the ISP be able to provide you with the level of availability you need?

The most important elements to negotiate in an Service level agreement with your ISP are the following:

1. Uptime : Uptime is the percentage of time the ISP's service is running properly. Establish what uptime figure the ISP claims for its services. Will it guarantee this uptime and discount your account if it fails? Consider the level of availability you need against what you can afford. Maximum availability often comes at greater cost, so make sure you don’t pay excessive fees for services that you don’t need.

2. Response times in case of failure :Outages will inevitably occur so find out what the ISP’s policy is if their network goes down. Will you be informed, or will you find out as your internet connection fails? Is there a help desk you can reach? How long you can afford to have your internet connection interrupted or your website down? Ensure that any details regarding ISP's uptime and failure response commitments are put down in writing. Will your ISP reimburse you for the time that you are down?

3. Redundancy : Redundancy refers to the number of connections that an ISP has to the internet. High redundancy means more connections, which means if part of its system fails the ISP will simply be able to switch over without affecting your connection.

4. The level of throughput you need : Do you need 3 MB or 8 MB? While you might be tempted to get the biggest “pipe” into your business, is it more than what you need or can pay for?

​5. The level of security the ISP will provide. Does the firewall your ISP uses provide enough security? What security measures are in place - such as firewalls and anti-virus programs - to prevent the ISP's services being compromised by a security attack from a hacker or fraudster

6. Your ISP’s frequency rate of checking your performance. Will your ISP give you any kind of diagnostic tools to assess the performance of your Internet connection or will that be left to your network administrator?