The MPLS WG Archive

[Mooney Sherman <Mooney.Sherman@gov.ab.ca>]

I agree with some of your comments . It can be a marketing tool (gimmick?)
but normally a client has certain expectations or need - such as a certain
level of bandwidth requirement for the acceptable performance by an
application - say video streaming. So the Telco guarantees a certain
bandwidth that is acceptable or perhaps a maximum downtime in the form of
SLA. SLA is simply an agreement that a vendor or supplier can and will
deliver to a client. It can also be used in the context of an application
i.e. an application can process/ redirect at least Xnumber of tags for
instance in MPLS. Then this would be the SLA for it.

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Kuhtz [mailto:ck@arch.bellsouth.net]
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 2:45 PM
To: Fabris Sergio
Cc: mpls@UU.NET
Subject: Re: SLA



On Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 04:34:09PM -0300, Fabris Sergio wrote:
> Is SLA (Service Level Agreement) a term for DiffServ networks only?
> Can it be used in an MPLS network?

Sergio,

You can define an SLA for literally anything, including the performance of
your dry cleaner.  

And an MPLS network can be a 'DiffServ network'; I presume you intend to 
describe a network in which differentiated services of some kind are 
offered...

SLA per se has nothing to do with differentiated services, other than that 
differentiated services with methods and tools as proposed by IETF DiffServ 
can be used to provide a service as described by an SLA.  Note also that
many 
SLAs actually have little to do with a direct link to the technology
underneath; it is possible that the service you purchase w/ SLA is identical

to the service you purchase w/out SLA, or the service w/ SLA may be very 
different than the one w/out SLA.  An SLA can be a marketing gimmick,  a 
financial tool, a technology constraint, or any combination of the above.

The term SLA is a very much abused term, often driven more by marketecture
and
marketeering than technology.  And then there's the set of issues around
SLA's 
with teeth..

But, I'm rambling..  What specifically are you looking for?

Cheers,
Chris

-- 
Christian Kuhtz <ck@arch.bellsouth.net> -wk, <ck@gnu.org> -hm
Sr. Architect, Engineering & Architecture, BellSouth.net, Atlanta, GA, U.S.
"I speak for myself only.""