Cloud Outages Make the Case for Better SLAs

One of the most significant concerns about cloud (right up there with security) is the issue of potential outages. For organizations still debating whether they want to shift to cloud-based services for storage or other technological needs, recent outages including Windows Azure, Salesforce and Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) (AWS) certainly don’t help build the case for cloud.

What these outages do build a case for is the need for improved service level agreements (SLAs), as Amy DeCarlo pointed out in a recent Current Analysis (News - Alert) blog post. “Are cloud providers doing enough to address the underlying issues and reassure enterprises?” asked DeCarlo. “The answer, at least for now, seems to be no.”

A series of service interruptions have knocked offline some of the most popular services, setting some corporate users into a tailspin. While the roots of these of failures differ, service providers typically issue the same kind of apologies, citing avoidable issues as the reason for the failure versus a natural disaster or some other unanticipated and unavoidable event. This modus operandi leaves enterprises, already leery about cloud, even more skittish about moving to the cloud anytime soon.

“Though most providers have tried to explain the source of the failure, few are doing enough to regain the confidence of their users,” DeCarlo said. “The first step to reassuring corporate clients, beyond the obvious need to restore service as swiftly as possible, is to clearly acknowledge the outage and, as much as possible, identify the source and explain not just how it is being fixed but also what steps are being taken to prevent future issues.”

In addition to proactively handling an outage situation, cloud providers also need to take a long-term approach to build customer confidence and improve service level agreements that focus on consistency.

Although some providers may consider being more aggressive with credits in the event of an outage, DeCarlo said, what customers really want isn’t money off their bill but rather the assurance that their service will be accessible, reliable and high performing.

For cloud vendors, providing reliable service to meet the requirements of mission-critical systems in the business world is of the utmost importance. Availability is one area where organizations cannot afford to compromise when it comes to cloud-based services. Availability translates into dollars and cents for most businesses – any potential disruptor to that will likely be taken off the table for consideration despite other possible benefits it might bring.

In fact, a total of 568 hours of downtime at 13 well-known cloud services since 2007 had an economic impact of more than $71.7 million, according to a new report released by the International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency (IWGCR).

OVH and NaviSite (News - Alert) had the greatest number of unavailability hours, according to the report, which lists Amadeus and Facebook as having the greatest availability. Other vendors cited in the report are: ServerBeach, PayPal, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, Hostway (News - Alert) and Blackberry.

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