This documentation supports the 22.1 version of BMC Service Level Management.To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Agreements

An agreement is a documented understanding between two parties. An agreement defines the compliance targets, review periods, penalties and rewards, and milestones, as well as the associated service targets. An agreement is used to group service targets and define the overall terms of the service offering and to measure compliance against those terms.

Related topic

Configuring-agreements

Defining-the-service-offerings-by-using-agreements

Agreement types

There are three types of agreements: Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Operational Level Agreements (OLAs), and Underpinning Contracts (UCs).

Agreement

Definition

Service level agreements

SLAs are external agreements between a service provider and a customer. They allow you to track performance and progress against your commitments to the customer so that you can react quickly to ensure that the goals defined in the SLAs are met. SLAs can consist of one or more service targets.

Operational level agreements

OLAs are internal agreements that a service provider defines for internal users to meet SLAs. OLAs can also contain one or more objectives or service targets. The OLAs are used to track internal service commitments such as the following service targets:

  • Response time for incidents or problems assigned to IT groups
  • Availability of servers supporting various applications

Underpinning contracts

UCs are agreements that are used to track performance between an external service provider and a vendor.

Components of agreements

An agreement must include a compliance target and at least one service target. Optionally, an agreement can include one or more milestones with one or more actions associated with each milestone. 

For example, an SLA milestone can have one action that sends email notifications and another that sends a pager notification. Penalties or rewards, other SLAs, OLAs, UCs, or an association with one or more contracts can also be part of an agreement.

Required agreement components

Optional agreement components

Compliance target

One or more milestones with one or more actions associated with each milestone. For example, an SLA milestone can have one action that sends email notifications and another that sends a pager notification.

Service target (at least one)

Penalties or rewards, or other SLAs, OLAs, or UCs. An association with one or more contracts.

Milestones for agreements

You can set escalation procedures that you would like to take effect if the compliance target misses a specified threshold or is at risk. These proactive milestones and actions allow you to prevent lagging performance over time. For example, if the compliance target falls below 98 percent or the At Risk compliance target falls below 99 percent, notify the SLA Manager. 

You can set up milestones for a specific review period, and specify the conditions under which the agreement milestone runs.


 

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