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Does the SLA cover hardware failure?
I had a recent extended outage with one of our providers. It apparently was caused by some hardware failure and they didn't have spare parts/machines around to get the containers up and running until the box had been repaired.
Though they claim "99.9% uptime Guarantee", I was told that didn't include hardware failure. That seemed a bit odd to me.
I spot checked some of our other providers and they all cover hardware failures in their SLA or 'Uptime Guarantee'.
My question: Do SLAs typically cover hardware failures?
I'm just curious, not ranting or on a soapbox.
Do SLAs typically cover hardware failures?
- Do SLAs typically cover hardware failures?59 votes
- Yes - hardware is covered47.46%
- No - hardware is an exception27.12%
- Depends on the phase of the moon and how much sleep I've had.25.42%
Comments
A lot of SLA have stupid fine print. Ive seen quite a few that exclude hardware failure or network issues. What is left at that point?
It seems this provider has a generalized "catch all" SLA. If a provider wants to be specific, they will have a network SLA, power SLA, hardware SLA, etc.
The generalized SLA's typically do not mention hardware, in which case it wouldn't be covered.
Some says like 4 hrs Hardware replacement SLA or something similar.
Excluded unless other wise stated.
I think it should be included due to Service Level Agreement which should cover hardware since that is were the service is. Unless they state HARDWARE not included in the agreement.
Uptime means how long it stays up. Are we talking about a VPS or Dedi? I think that makes a difference. If it's a VPS the hardware isn't something to do with you. If it's a dedi then maybe.
There is in almost every sla hardware replacement policy. For example 4 hours replacement guarantee. As i know no one gives sla on dedicated server hardware. Sla covers network and power.
in the case of VPS sla covers all aspects. HW, power and network
Of course if the hardware of a dedicated server fails and this results in a downtime for the customer, we have to compensate the customer under our SLA.
SLA doesn't mean you can never get downtime, it only means you get compensated for the downtime.
For colo it's a different story. It's not our hardware and not our responsibility if it breaks.
Most of the SLA's I have had are hardware excluded but the providers did have parts on hand to have the machine back on in < 1hr.
@NodePing In my understanding, Service Level Agreement refers to the agreed level of delivery/accomplishment of the whole service, no matter what, except if otherwise stated. It doesn't matter if hardware failed, software failed, someone had a bad day, quoth the raven or the chicken crossed the road.
If someone failed to deliver the agreed service level then a penalty follows.
SLA covering everything, except Vis mayor, but i think the hardware failures not included in it.
Unless specified otherwise, no.
It's not something that happened due to the provider's incompetence (In most cases), why should they be forced to lose money for no reason?
It's different for companies with hardware replacement SLAs, but nobody is going to enter into a SLA contract with you guaranteeing hardware reliability -- for hardware is inherently unreliable.
I don't think it should be covered directly however I think a hardware replacement time should be under SLA.
You cant stop hardware failing, no matter how great at your job you are a motherboard can blow at any time from dead on arrival to 10 years later so it would not be fair to assume you are owned some compensation if such an event happens, however I do believe that there should be a standard response/ replace time under SLA for hardware failures, 4 working hours is fair for diagnosis and replacement.
I had a bad experience with those idiots over at root nerds who left a server down for 12 - 18 hours while telling me it was up, they blamed the whole thing on the power supply blowing because of a failure of the UPS and power outage at the DC, I later found out they are not customers of accelerated and are actually just resellers of ip-projects and accelerated were less than impressed with them claiming they caused the problem.
Anyway long story short they wrecked the server, I never found out the truth and they removed the 99.9% uptime promise when I questioned it.
Some companies policies are jokes, not worth the data they are written on so if you want hardware covered on an SLA make sure it is a real SLA, stating we promise to do XYZ in 4 hours is great but worthless, because when they fail they just have to say sorry.
Having it will be replaced within 4 hours, failure to do so will result in xyz compensation for the client is much more clear and can be trusted more.
Yes
I've never seen an SLA like that in my life. SLAs pretty much universally exclude "acts of god" or force majeure.
Indeed. Otherwise it would be a gorgeous guarantee.
If you want a host to guarantee 99.9% uptime even in events of hardware failure, think of what kind of service level and response time you'd need for that to happen. You would need very pro-active server management.
If your server drops offline someone would need to be physically at your server investigating the cause within minutes. You'd blow past a 99.9% uptime SLA after just the first 45 minutes. That kind of server management isn't cheap!
Our SLA is 100% network uptime and 4 hour hardware replacement SLA.
That's a good example of how useless a SLA can be. A single DC realistically at best does five nines. But the SLA can be written as 100% and give you money back on that 0.001% which will still be far less than your lost revenue (if you really couldn't withstand the five minute loss to begin with)
I understand your POV. The common misconception is that an SLA should be an insurance policy that makes you whole if an outage occurs; that's not the case. An SLA is intended to provide a refund in the event that service is not available based on a multiplier for your inconvenience. For example we pay 24 times credit per each time of payment. So if you pay $3000/month for your hosting, and your offline for 1 hour you'll receive $100 in credit even though it only cost you $4.16 for that hour.
Nonetheless, it depends on the agreed terms between parties involved.