nanog mailing list archives
Re: Network SLA
From: Zartash Uzmi <zartash () gmail com>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:19:31 +0500
As I gather, there is a mix of answers, ranging from "building the resources according to requirements and HOPE for the best" to "use of arguably sophisticated tools and perhaps sharing the results with the legal department". I would be particularly interested in hearing the service providers' viewpoint on the following situation. Consider a service provider with MPLS deployed within its own network. (A) When the SP enters into a relation with the customer, does the SP establish new MPLS paths based on customer demands (this is perhaps similar to "building" based on requirements as pointed out by David)? If yes, between what sites/POPs? I assume the answer may be different depending upon a single-site customer or a customer with multiple sites. (B) For entering into the relationship for providing X units of bandwidth (to another site of same customer or to the Tier-1 backbone), does the SP use any wisdom (in addition to MRTG and the likes)? If so, what scientific parameters are kept in mind? (C) How does the customer figure out that a promise for X units of bandwidth is maintained by the SP? I believe customers may install some measuring tools but is that really the case in practice? Thanks, Zartash On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Stefan <netfortius () gmail com> wrote:
Saqib Ilyas wrote:Greetings I am curious to know about any tools/techniques that a service provider uses to assess an SLA before signing it. That is to say, how does an administrator know if he/she can meet what he is promising. Is it based on experience? Are there commonly used tools for this? Thanks and best regardsNot necessarily as a direct answer (I am pretty sure there'll be others on this list giving details in the area of specific tools and standards), but I think this may be a question (especially considering your end result concern: *signing the SLA!) equally applicable to your legal department. In the environment we live, nowadays, the SLA could (should?!? ... unfortunately) be "refined" and (at the other end - i.e. receiving) "interpreted" by the lawyers, with possibly equal effects (mostly financial and as overall impact on the business) as the tools we (the technical people) would be using to measure latency, uptime, bandwidth, jitter, etc... Stefan
Current thread:
- Network SLA Saqib Ilyas (Feb 19)
- RE: Network SLA Andreas, Rich (Feb 19)
- RE: Network SLA isabel dias (Feb 19)
- Re: Network SLA david raistrick (Feb 19)
- RE: Network SLA Holmes,David A (Feb 19)
- Re: Network SLA Stefan (Feb 19)
- Re: Network SLA Zartash Uzmi (Feb 23)
- RE: Network SLA Andreas, Rich (Feb 19)