SLA stands for Service Level Agreement, which is an agreement between two parties regarding the level of service quality that the service provider commits to provide to the user. The agreement specifies the standards or performance metrics that the service provider will provide, including response time, service uptime, level of technical support responsiveness, and other metrics.

For example, an SLA between a computer company and its customer may commit to:

  • A response time of within 4 hours from receiving a technical support request.
  • Service uptime of at least 99.9% in a month.
  • Technical support responsiveness must achieve an average of 90% within 24 hours of receiving a support request.

These standards ensure that the customer receives a certain level of service quality and also help the service provider have a specific commitment level to ensure that they meet the customer's requirements.