Slim Technologies and Altek Engineering Service Level Agreement

This document is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between Slim Technologies and Altek Engineering, detailing the IT support services Slim Technologies will provide. The agreement covers various aspects including user support and training, troubleshooting, system maintenance, upgrades, and application support. It defines availability levels, priority levels for issues, and response times based on severity. Communication methods, costings, and penalties for not meeting service levels are also outlined. The SLA also addresses customer responsibilities, service level monitoring, and review meetings to ensure effective IT infrastructure management. Warranties, exclusions, and procedures for purchasing new equipment are included to provide a comprehensive framework for the IT service relationship between the two companies. The agreement aims to ensure efficient and reliable IT support for Altek Engineering's operations.

Service Level Agreement
Slim Technologies
10-06-2019
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Service Level Agreement (SLA)
By (Name)
Name of the Course
Title of the Instructor
Institutional Affiliation
City and Date
The final date of Submission

Service Level Agreement
Slim Technologies
10-06-2019
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Customer Details
Business Name
Address
Contact Details
Business Contact
Overview of Support Requirements
1. Duration of the Contract.
This document outlines agreement between Slim Technologies and Altek Engineering. Slim Technologies is
a global Information Technology company with offices across the world and a corporate history that goes back
40years ago. Slim Technologies delivers Information Technology solutions to governments, corporate and
private sectors, offers ICT training, business information systems, maintenance of company IT infrastructure
and ICT consultancy1. Slim Technology’s mission is to deliver the best value to our customers by tapping into
competent and highly skilled workforce that will ensure competence and professionalism in delivering our
services.
Altek Engineering provides civil engineering and construction services for shopping centre development and
subdivision with expertise spanning across initial design up to final construction of car parks and roads. It relies
heavily on the advancement of Information technology through the implementation of a robust computer
network to facilitate efficiency and coordination in the discharge of their services2. The current computer
network is composed of five workstation computers with two computers running CAD and A1 plotter whiles
1 Andrade, Antonio Diaz, and Bill Doolin. Information and communication technology and the social inclusion of refugees. (3rd Ed, Derik 2016)
68
2 Heeks, Richard. Do information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to development. (5th Ed, Peterson 2016) 82

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the remaining three workstations running office-based software. All the five computers are connected to a
standard laser printer. The two computers running CAD and A1 plotter are majorly used for engineering
purposes such as design work while the rest are used to accomplish general office tasks. All the five computers
are connected to a Microsoft Server 2016.
Altek Engineering contracted Slim Technologies to maintain its Information Technology Infrastructure and
thus the purpose of this Service Level Agreement. This agreement will be effective upon the agreement of both
Slim Technologies and Altek Engineering. It will be effective from the date of signing until either of the parties
decides to terminate the contract upon prior communication with the prior party to enable smooth transition for
both parties.

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2. Areas of Support
Slim Technologies is to offer the following services to Altek Engineering:
Services Explanation Instances
Support and
Training of Users
Slim technologies will provide support and
user training on the best practices of
Information technology to employees of
Altek Engineering.
 Provide help desk support to Altek
employees.
 Train users on best password
practices.
 Answer queries about
applications.
 Receive complains and requests
from Altek employees.
Troubleshooting This involves Slim technologies offering
either a permanent or a temporary fix to
problems and bottlenecks in Altek
Information Technology Infrastructure.
 Reconnecting nodes to the
network.
 Fixing computers attacked with
viruses.
 Restoring forgotten passwords and
helping authorised locked out user
to login to the system.
 Restore the system to normal after
a system failure.
 Regular replacement of hardware
and software that have failed.
 Replacing faulty networking
cables in the network.
System
Maintenance
Slim technologies will ensure that all
systems in the company’s infrastructure are
up to date and patched to enable smooth
running of the operations in Altek
engineering.
 Patching up software to prevent
attack by cybercriminals.
 Installing software updates
regularly.
 Scanning the workstations using
antiviruses’ regularly.
 Carrying out vulnerability
assessment on the network
regularly to deter cyber criminals.
 Backing up critical information
regularly.
System Upgrade Slim technologies will be responsible for
carrying out all major system upgrades for
Altek engineering.
 Upgrading of both the workstation
Operating System and the Server
Operating System.
 Upgrading of the antivirus
software in the system.

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 Upgrading all office applications
in the infrastructure.
 Upgrading the network in case of
expansion of the company.
Application
Support
Slim Technologies will provide application
support to all applications critical to Altek
Engineering operations.
 Customising applications to fit
Altek Engineering operations.
 Regular upgrade of the
applications.
 Troubleshooting problems
experienced in the applications.
 Installation of applications on new
computers.
3. Methods and Levels of Support.
Availability is the capacity of an end user to access all applications functionality at any given time during the
day to day running of the business from a live host connected to the intranet in Altek Engineering IT
infrastructure. This requires that all its supporting systems be operational to facilitate the smooth operation of
application.
Application
Level
Availability Time Expected Off-Hours Planned
Downtime
Definition Monday-Friday
8.00.am- 6.00.pm
Monday-Friday 8.00.pm- 6.00.am and
Saturday-Sunday 8.00am-8.00am
Critical 99.5% 99.5% Sunday 12.00am-
8.00am
Important 98% 98% Sunday 12.00am-
8.00am
Supportive 95% 95% Sunday 12.00am-
8.00am
 Any other outages must be planned in advance and must inform responsible parties in Altek
Engineering unless there is an emergency.
The table below shows the level at which availability of different applications will be required.
Application
Level
Availability Penalty
Critical Availability exceeds 99.5% every day in a one month period N/A
Availability falls below 99.5% for more than 2 days of the month during 10% of monthly

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regular business hours. fees
Important Availability falls below 98% for more than 2 days of the month during
regular business hours.
10% of monthly
fees
Supportive Availability falls below 95% for more than 2 days of the month during
regular business hours.
5% of monthly
fees
4. Hours of Support.
The service provider will give hours of support in accordance with the nature of the fault whether the
application that has a problem is critical, important or supportive.
5. Definition of Priority Levels.
Slim technologies will use the following procedure to address problems received at the help desk.
All requests and complains received will be assigned a severity code. The severity code ranges from 1-4 in
accordance with its relation with the core business of Altek Engineering. This will determine how fast the
request or the problem will be handled and how much resource will be allocated to the particular problem or
request.
Severity
Level
Explanation
1 A fault that cripples the function of a critical application and there is no solution around the
problem.
2 A fault that cripples the function of a critical application and there is solution around the
problem.
Or
A fault that cripples the function of an important application and there is solution around the
problem.
3 A fault that diminishes the throughput of a critical or important application but the application
core functionality still remains though it performs inefficiently and ineffectively.
4 A fault that has diminished the performance of applications that are supportive to the core
operations of the company.

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The table below will clarify the meaning of critical, important and supportive applications as used in the
table above.
Application
Functionality
Level.
Explanation Instance
Critical This application functionality is core to ensuring business
profitability of Altek Engineering and maintenance of its reputation
in the industry. Extended failure will impact profit margins and result
in damage of reputation.
CAD, Microsoft
Server.
Important This application functionality is essential to business operations, but
do not affect to a great extent the profitability of Altek Engineering
or its reputation.
MS Office Suite.
Supportive This application functionality support the core business applications
but are not essential when it comes to business productivity.
Adobe Reader,
Mozilla Firefox,
Skype.
6. Response Time according to Priority.
Severity levels are used in order to enable the support team to determine the appropriate response and
resolution times. The response and resolution times are counted immediately the system logs the support as
having received and seen the complaint or fault reported by the customer. The following table shows defined
timeframes for response and resolution times.
Severity
Level
Response Time Update Minimum Update Frequency Resolution time
1 20 minutes 3 hours Every 45 minutes. 5 hours
2 30 minutes 3 hours Every 3 hours. 9 hours
3 2 hour 8 hours Every 5 hours. 5 calendar days
4 2 hour Next business day Weekly. 25 calendar days
 Response Time is when a complaint is received and opened by the support staff.
 Update Minimum is when the user that had a complaint is informed of the update frequency on the
problem received.
 Update Frequency is the frequency with which the user that had a complaint or a problem is updated
on the resolution time.

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 Resolution time is when the problem or the complaint received is solved and the application
functionality restored to normal.
7. Communication Methods.
The following communication mediums will be provided to the customer by the service provider: VOIP via
skype, voice call, Instant messaging and communication via email. The customer will choose a communication
medium of his preference to log his complains to the service provider.
8. Costings.
The following table shows resolution times according to severity levels.
Severity Level
Resolution
Measurement Penalty
Severity 1
resolution
All severity 1
problems are
resolved in
less than 3
hours
N/A
One or more
severity 1
problems are
resolved in
over 6 hours
10% of monthly fees
Severity 2
resolution
Less than 90%
of severity 2
problems are
resolved in 8
hours.
10% of monthly fees
Severity 3
resolution
Less than 90%
of severity 3
problems are
resolved in 4
calendar days.
5% of monthly fees
Estimated
response time
Less than 90%
of agreed
upon response
5% of monthly fees

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time frames
are met.
User Ratings More than
90% of
response
timeframes
metrics have a
rating of
satisfied to
very satisfied.
N/A
Less than 70%
of response
timeframes
have a rating
of satisfied or
very satisfied.
10% of monthly fees
Unresolved
Problems
There are
always less
than 3
unresolved
problems
N/A
Maximum
Unresolved
Problems
No problem is
older than 60
days.
 User ratings are the rating provided by Altek employees after their problems have been resolved.
 Unresolved problem is the maximum number of unresolved problems.
 Maximum unresolved problems tracks unresolved problems that are older than 60 days.
The following procedure will be used to purchase new equipment like computer, switches and printer upon
recommendation by either Slim Technologies or Altek Engineering:
 Analysis of the recommendation by either of the companies to determine the return on investment of
the purchase.
 Upon agreement by both parties a tender advertisement will be published by the company.
 The tender applicants will then be vetted to select the most suitable supplier based on price and
quality of service.

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9. Warranties and Exclusions.
The service provider will facilitate improvement of Altek Engineering Applications and assist in maintaining
the applications. This will happen as the service provider gains more business knowledge about Altek
Engineering operations. The following are excluded from the service level agreement:
 Losses in company due to an extensive cyber-attack or breach in the system.
 Losses due to natural disaster such as fire and earthquake.
10. Customer Responsibilities.
The customer is expected to hold the best practices in IT to avoid unnecessary system breakdowns. The
customer is expected to:
 Have strong passwords for accessing the system.
 Not access websites that are not related to work to avoid cyber-attacks and viruses.
 Avoid accessing business applications in an unsecure network such as public Wi-Fi.
11. Methods for Service Level Monitoring.
Slim Technologies will provide a weekly report to Altek Engineering entailing the following:
 Current activities in the company’s Information Technology Infrastructure.
 Vulnerability patching
 risk assessment and mitigation measures.
 On-going activities.
 Upcoming goals and objectives.
 Recommendations.

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Slim technologies and Altek engineering will have monthly review meetings where all the necessary
stakeholders will meet and review different metrics tracked by slim technologies throughout the month. This
will help in:
 Resolving problems related to maintenance of the company’s network.
 Resolving critical issues that hinder smooth operations of the system.
 Resolve any challenges in regards to cost of technology vis-à-vis the impact on the operations of
Altek Engineering.
Additionally, there will be quarterly review meeting between the two parties of this service level agreement,
Slim Technologies and Altek Engineering. The quarterly review will entail the discussion below:
 The agreement will be reviewed by both parties for its effectiveness and efficiency.
 Additional amendment will be added to the SLA where necessary upon discussion and agreement
from both sides.
 Slim Technology will provide a review document that will consist of project status, metrics
reporting, supporting reasons for metric deviation and recommendation to Altek Engineering.
Type Measurements Penalty
Weekly
Report
Submitted before the elapsing of 7 calendar days. 10% of monthly
income.
Monthly
Report
Submitted at calendar monthly intervals and two calendar days prior to
monthly review meeting.
10% of monthly
income
Quarterly
Report
Submitted at every quarter of the business calendar and five calendar days
prior to the quarterly business review meeting.
10% of monthly
income

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12. Process for Handling Complaints or Concerns.
All concerns and complains shall be logged on to the system and shall be reviewed at every weekly review
meeting, monthly review meeting and quarterly review meeting to ensure effectiveness and efficiency of the
service level agreement.
A case study is when John, an employee of Altek Engineering experiences a windows blue screen. He will
contact slim technologies via phone, email or instant messaging application. John’s complain will be logged in
to Slim technologies customer support system. Upon receiving John’s concerns the customer support will then
assign an expert to John’s case. The expert will then attend to John’s problem as soon as possible. In the end
customer support will contact John and do a follow up on the quality of service John received.
From the case study above we can see that customers are able to log in complains and concerns they are
experiencing and also provide a rating on the quality of service they have received. This ensures all problems
and concerns are tackled in the best way possible.
13. Process for changing the contents of SLA.
At the end of every quarter both the customer and the service provider will have a review meeting to
determine the effectiveness of the SLA and determine the appropriate changes to be made to the SLA to
streamline business processes and ensure maximum profitability for both companies.
A case study is when company A was heavily reliant on information technology for its operation since it was
an e-commerce company. The company had a service level agreement with an IT company that stipulated the
response time for critical application problems response time was 3 hours. At the quarterly review meeting it
was realized that this response time was too long and resulted in huge losses wherever there was a breakdown
in the system due to failure of critical operations. After discussion and recommendation from both sides in the