Typically, service-level descriptions are used to codify expectations with respect to storageefficiency. It’s as if vendors are seeking to apply the old Supreme Court definition ofpornographic materials — “I know it when I see it” — to storage efficiency.
Of course, service-level agreements (SLAs) are legal fictions created in contracts that, from a consumer’s perspective, set goals or minimum requirements for the delivery of services by a contracted vendor. Ideally, these statements are intended to reassure consumers that vendors understand their needs and possess the capabilities to do an effective job of delivering the required services. However, the specification of service levels is sometimes intended to provide the basis for exiting the arrangement. Some outsourcing vendors complain that a storage SLA does little more than sow the seeds of contract failure by establishing impossible service delivery expectations (and inflexible methods for remediating missed goals). What those SLAs wind up guaranteeing is the dissolution of the agreement on the first occasion of a missed service level.
Typically, storage service levels will cover at least six distinct areas:
1. Capacity:
2. Performance:
3. Allocation efficiency:
4. Utilization efficiency:
5. Availability:
6. Protection:
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