Service-level agreements (SLAs) are what protect managed services providers (MSPs) from being hassled by customers to do more than what was agreed upon at the start, protecting both parties from a legal mess. For MSPs with managed data backup and disaster recovery (BDR) offerings, disclosing terms in an SLA can especially be useful in eliminating any grey areas of responsibility. But what should MSPs include in an SLA?

First things first: Find an attorney who can assist you with SLAs. The advice here is to get things rolling, instead of waiting for a customer complaint.

“To me the SLA protects both parties by clearly stating joint responsibilities and eliminates any gray areas of responsibility,” BlackPoint IT Services Senior Infrastructure Consultant Andrew Hutchinson told us via email.

Along with normal response and resolution times, Hutchinson provided us with a list of items to define in an SLA:

Hutchinson said that the company uses the same SLA for every managed BDR customer to eliminate any confusion between agreements.

“We have found that the it is too difficult to track SLAs that differ from client to client,” he said.

What terms do you include in your BDR SLAs? Have you had an experiencs where an SLA could have solved the issue at hand?