Report: Service level agreements critical for cloud services

Cloud computing offers organizations flexibility, scalability and an efficient ways to reduce IT costs while improving performance. For many companies, however, storing data on servers owned and operated by another organization presents a complicated set of issues.

For this reason, service level agreements are crucial for the reliable implementation of managed cloud services, according to a recent Law.com report.

A responsibly formulated SLA presents the terms and conditions under which the cloud service is provided. A number of important issues should be addressed in an SLA, according to the report.

One key area of stipulation is data ownership. An SLA should articulate who owns the data under all circumstances - including, for example, in the case of a billing dispute.

Similarly, the physical location of the client's data can be mentioned in an SLA, according to the report. While cloud services may render the physical server invisible to the end-user, the location of cloud servers may have implications if data needs to be moved across international borders to countries with different data compliance rules.

The report reiterates the conclusions drawn in a recent U.S. Daily report. According to that report, organizations launching a large-scale deployment of managed cloud services should ensure they utilize service level management tools.