Definition
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a formal contract between a service provider and a customer that defines the expected level of service and the consequences of a breach. Typical SLA parameters include availability (e.g. 99.9% uptime = maximum ~8.7 hours of downtime per year), support response times (P1 incidents: 1 hour, P2 incidents: 4 hours), recovery time objective (RTO) and maximum data age (RPO). SLAs are standard in SaaSSoftware as a Service - software delivered as subscription service over the internet. contracts and cloud infrastructure - cloud providers such as GCPGoogle Cloud Platform - Google's cloud platform, particularly strong in data and machine learning. and AWSAmazon Web Services - Amazon's cloud platform with over 200 services; the leading cloud provider globally and widely used in the Norwegian energy sector. publish SLAs per service. In critical infrastructureSystems and facilities necessary for society's basic functions - including power supply, water systems, telecommunications, and transport. such as energy, SLA requirements are particularly stringent: an integration platform against ElhubNational hub for metering data and market processes in the Norwegian electricity market. that goes down during a supplier switching process can block thousands of customers. Breaches of SLAs typically result in credits or penalties. For grid companies and electricity suppliers it is important to require SLAs from their system vendors and integration partners that mirror the regulatory requirements they themselves are subject to from NVENorway's Directorate of Water Resources and Energy - regulates the electricity and water resources sectors..