Companies must read the small print of service level agreements
offered by application service providers in order to get value for
money, analysts have warned.
Nick HuberThe 99.9% guarantee for the availability of application service
provider (ASP) services has become a staple of the market. But
analysts have warned users that a worthwhile service level
agreement should be more complex and focus on the priorities of
each individual company.
"Businesses need a business service level agreement," said Elena
Chris- topher, senior analyst at Gartner Group. "In billing, for
example, the most important time for billing applications to be up
and running is at the end of the month when you are sending bills
out to customers and suppliers.
"If your service goes down at this time, the service provider
could still be meeting its service level agreements."
ASP service level agreements involving a number of suppliers
should also address who is responsible for the recovery of data
when IT systems fail, Christopher said.
Users' IT systems are often less reliable than those of the ASP
and can therefore require extra support from ASPs, suppliers have
claimed.
"The availability of ASP services is usually far higher than
internal IT department levels," said David Angwin, worldwide ASP
marketing manager at ASP Vistorm. "An availability level of 80% to
95% is typical [for IT departments]."
Users often requested help from their ASP to recover data that
has been accidentally deleted, he added.
nick.huber@rbi.co.uk