On the Implicit Cost Structure of Service Levels from the Perspective of the Service Consumer

摘要

As services are ubiquitous in the modern business landscape, there is the need to define them in a binding legal framework, the Service Level Agreement (SLA). The most important aspect of a SLA is the agreed service level, which specifies the availability of the service. In this work, we discuss a simple mathematical service model, where the availability of a service is based on a singular resource. In this model one can relate the parameter of a linear cost structure to the purchased service level. Based on this relation we formulate a rule of thumb enabling a service consumer to check if an agreed service level fits their cost structure.