(SLA) Overview
Confidence Built‑In
Service Level
Every workload is different. Our flexible SLA framework adapts to your risk profile, compliance requirements, and budget—so you get exactly the coverage you need without paying for what you don't.
Azure
Agreement
Our approach to Service Level Agreements isn’t about rigid templates or one-size-fits-all metrics. We believe effective SLAs should be living documents that align technology performance with business impact. Our SLA framework is built on three core principles that ensure your cloud services deliver the reliability and responsiveness your business demands.
Partnership First
We co-design your SLA with you, focusing on what matters most to your business. Rather than imposing standard metrics, we work collaboratively to identify the specific service levels that align with your operational requirements and risk tolerance. This partnership approach ensures that your SLA reflects your unique business context—whether that’s 24/7 mission-critical operations or standard business hours with defined maintenance windows.
Our SLA workshops bring together technical teams and business stakeholders to establish shared understanding and mutual commitments. We focus on creating agreements that foster collaboration rather than contractual penalties, building a foundation for long-term success rather than adversarial relationships.
Transparency & Accountability
Effective SLAs require complete visibility into service performance and clear accountability for results. We implement comprehensive monitoring and reporting systems that provide real-time dashboards and detailed monthly scorecards, ensuring you always know exactly how your cloud services are performing against agreed targets.
Our transparency extends beyond metrics to include incident response processes, escalation paths, and continuous improvement activities. When issues occur—as they inevitably will in complex systems—we provide clear communication, root cause analysis, and actionable remediation plans. This accountability builds trust and ensures that service levels consistently improve over time.
Continuous Improvement
Cloud environments and business requirements evolve rapidly, and your SLA should evolve with them. We conduct quarterly SLA reviews to assess performance, identify improvement opportunities, and adjust targets as needed. These structured governance sessions ensure your service levels remain aligned with your changing business priorities and technology landscape.
Our continuous improvement approach includes proactive recommendations for architecture optimizations, operational enhancements, and cost-efficiency improvements. We track trends over time, benchmark against industry standards, and implement best practices to ensure your cloud environment delivers increasingly better performance, reliability, and value.
Ready to discuss an SLA framework tailored to your specific business requirements? Let’s design a service level agreement that gives you confidence without unnecessary costs.
Effective SLAs balance multiple dimensions to create comprehensive coverage that addresses both technical performance and business impact. Our framework incorporates these key dimensions, each customized to your specific requirements and priorities.
Availability Targets
System availability directly impacts business operations, customer experience, and revenue. We establish clear, measurable uptime objectives based on workload criticality and business impact. While individual agreements vary, most clients choose baseline uptime objectives of 99.9% (standard) or 99.95% (mission-critical), with higher targets available for systems requiring exceptional reliability.
Our availability framework goes beyond simple uptime percentages to address planned maintenance, disaster recovery capabilities, and resilience testing. For critical workloads, we can implement active-active architectures with geographic redundancy to achieve the highest levels of availability, ensuring your business continues operating even during significant disruptions.
Response & Resolution Times
When issues occur, rapid response and efficient resolution minimize business impact. Our SLAs include tiered response commitments based on incident severity, typically starting with 30-minute response for Priority 1 incidents and graduated timelines for lower severities. Resolution targets are negotiated based on workload complexity, technical dependencies, and existing in-house support capabilities.
Our incident management process includes clear definitions of severity levels, structured escalation paths, and comprehensive communication protocols. For critical systems, we provide dedicated on-call resources with direct access to senior engineers, ensuring the fastest possible resolution when minutes matter.
Service Credits & Remediation
Accountability requires meaningful consequences when service levels aren’t met. We establish fair, transparent service credit structures that provide appropriate compensation when aggregated monthly availability or response targets fall short. The credit formula and cap are established during contract negotiation to keep incentives aligned without creating adversarial relationships.
Beyond financial remediation, our SLAs include commitments to root cause analysis, corrective action plans, and preventive measures. This focus on systemic improvement ensures that service issues drive positive change rather than simply triggering penalties, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous enhancement.
Our flexible support tier structure provides a starting point for customizing your SLA. Select a preset tier as a foundation, then mix-and-match elements to craft the exact coverage your business requires.
Your cloud estate evolves, and your SLA should evolve with it. We implement a structured governance process that ensures your service level agreements remain aligned with your changing business requirements and technology landscape.
Quarterly Governance Sessions
Our formal quarterly reviews bring together technical teams and business stakeholders to assess SLA performance, discuss changing requirements, and plan for upcoming changes. These sessions include detailed analysis of incident metrics, root cause patterns, and resolution efficiency. We review uptime vs. cost trade-offs, update response matrices and on-call rosters, and plan for upcoming releases and scaling events.
Continuous Monitoring & Reporting
Between governance sessions, our comprehensive monitoring and reporting systems provide continuous visibility into service performance. Real-time dashboards show current system status and alert status, while weekly and monthly reports provide trend analysis and performance against SLA targets. This ongoing visibility ensures that both teams can quickly identify and address emerging issues before they impact service levels.
Proactive Optimization
Rather than waiting for issues to occur, our proactive approach identifies and addresses potential problems before they impact your business. We conduct regular architecture reviews, capacity planning exercises, and security assessments to identify improvement opportunities. Our recommendations focus on enhancing reliability, performance, and cost-efficiency while maintaining or improving service levels.
Our approach to service level agreements delivers meaningful business value beyond basic uptime guarantees. Here’s why organizations trust Branch Boston to protect their critical cloud services:
Tailored Protection Without Over-Engineering
Our flexible framework allows you to apply appropriate protection levels to different workloads based on their business criticality. This targeted approach ensures you get robust coverage where it matters most without paying for unnecessary service levels on less critical systems. The result is comprehensive protection that maximizes value while optimizing costs.
Direct Access To Senior Expertise
When critical issues arise, you need immediate access to experienced problem-solvers. Our escalation paths connect you directly to senior engineers with an average of 15+ years of experience, bypassing typical tier-one support queues. This direct access dramatically reduces resolution times for complex issues, minimizing business impact during critical incidents.
Comprehensive Visibility
Our monitoring and reporting systems provide unprecedented visibility into your cloud environment's performance and health. Real-time telemetry via Azure Monitor, Microsoft Sentinel, and custom Grafana dashboards gives both teams immediate insight into system status, while detailed historical reporting enables trend analysis and continuous improvement.
Compliance-Ready Processes
For regulated industries, our SLA framework incorporates compliance requirements from the start. Our SOC 2-aligned processes ensure auditability, with comprehensive documentation of all service activities, security controls, and performance metrics. This integrated approach simplifies compliance reporting and reduces audit overhead while maintaining robust service levels.