An SLA, or Service Level Agreement, is a contract between a service provider and a customer that defines the expected performance standards — most commonly uptime percentage. For example, a 99.99% SLA guarantees no more than 52.6 minutes of downtime per year.
SLAs typically specify the uptime target, how uptime is measured, what counts as downtime, the reporting period, and the remedies or credits available when the provider fails to meet the target. Breaking an SLA can result in service credits, contract termination, or reputational damage.
SLAs should not be confused with SLOs (internal targets) or SLIs (the actual measurements). An SLA is the external commitment to customers, while SLOs and SLIs are the internal mechanisms used to ensure the SLA is met. Hyperping's SLA calculator helps teams understand the downtime budget implied by any SLA percentage.
