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An uptime service-level agreement (SLA) is a conditional promise about a defined service, measurement period and remedy. It does not guarantee that your application will never fail. If the provider’s measured availability falls below the SLA threshold and you satisfy the agreement’s prerequisites, the usual remedy is a service credit applied to future bills—not a cash refund.
What an uptime SLA actually promises
Microsoft describes an SLA as “a set of conditional commitments.” That wording matters. The provider commits to a measurable service level only when the customer uses the service in the way the agreement specifies. The promise normally covers a named service component, a geographic scope and a billing period. It also defines what counts as unavailability and what compensation is available if the threshold is missed.
An SLA is therefore different from a general reliability claim or a guarantee that your own application will remain reachable. Microsoft cautions that SLAs do not guarantee application reliability, prevent every failure or ensure that users avoid downtime. Your code, DNS, identity provider, network, databases and third-party dependencies can fail even while the covered service meets its SLA.
What “99.9% uptime” means
A 99.9% target means the provider’s measured availability must be at least 99.9% during the stated measurement period. Equivalently, up to 0.1% of that period may be classified as unavailable under the SLA’s definition. The number of minutes represented by that percentage changes with the length of the billing period, and the provider’s calculation—not a generic monitoring formula—controls eligibility.
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Why the percentage alone is insufficient
Two services can advertise the same percentage while offering materially different protection. One may cover only a single instance in one region; another may cover a multi-zone deployment. One may count loss of external connectivity; another may measure successful requests, transaction latency or a narrower set of components. Always read the scope, signal, aggregation rules and eligible charges beside the headline percentage.
How providers measure downtime
Measurement is service-specific. AWS EC2, for example, calculates Monthly Uptime Percentage by subtracting from 100% the proportion of minutes in the month during which EC2 was unavailable. For an EC2 instance, “unavailable” means that the instance has no external connectivity. A region-level calculation uses a stricter condition: qualifying instances in multiple Availability Zones must simultaneously lack external connectivity.
That distinction means an external synthetic monitor may show an outage without proving that an SLA event occurred. A failed test could be caused by your monitoring route, credentials, application configuration or a dependency outside the covered service. Conversely, a provider’s internal measurement may qualify an event that your monitor did not observe. Preserve both kinds of evidence, but use the SLA’s stated measurement method when deciding whether to file a claim.
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- Service component: identify whether the commitment covers a virtual machine, database, API, storage layer or an entire platform.
- Geography: confirm the region, zones or global scope named in the agreement.
- Period: determine whether availability is calculated per calendar month, billing month or another window.
- Aggregation: check whether simultaneous failures, qualifying resources or request-level errors are required.
- Eligible charges: verify which line items can receive a credit if the threshold is missed.
Credits are usually not refunds
The standard SLA remedy is a service credit. A credit reduces future charges for the covered service; it is not normally a cash payment for lost revenue, staff time or consequential damages. AWS EC2 states that approved credits are applied against future EC2 payments. Google Cloud Spanner likewise applies approved financial credits to future use.
Some provider agreements describe the credit as the sole and exclusive remedy for an SLA failure. That language can limit other contractual claims, so procurement and legal teams should review the governing agreement rather than assume that a credit creates a right to damages or termination. The practical question is not simply “Was there downtime?” but “What remedy does this exact SLA make available, against which charges, and subject to what cap?”
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AWS EC2 example: target and credit tiers
AWS publishes separate region-level and instance-level EC2 commitments. The percentages below are the published tier structure for the current EC2 SLA. Credits are calculated against eligible monthly EC2 charges in the affected region and applied to future EC2 payments.
| EC2 SLA scope | Commitment | Measured monthly availability | Service credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Region level | 99.99% | Below 99.99% but at least 99.0% | 10% |
| Region level | 99.99% | Below 99.0% but at least 95.0% | 30% |
| Region level | 99.99% | Below 95.0% | 100% |
| Instance level | 99.5% | Below 99.5% but at least 99.0% | 10% |
| Instance level | 99.5% | Below 99.0% but at least 95.0% | 30% |
| Instance level | 99.5% | Below 95.0% | 100% |
The table illustrates why a percentage cannot be evaluated in isolation. The region-level and instance-level commitments use different thresholds and scopes, even though their credit tiers are similar. Your deployment must also satisfy the qualifying-resource and connectivity conditions in the applicable EC2 definition.
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Providers commonly make an SLA conditional on configuration, deployment topology and customer behavior. Microsoft notes that customers must meet specified preconditions, which can include required configurations, redundancy or operational practices. A service may therefore miss its advertised percentage for a deployment that does not meet the agreement’s architecture requirements without creating an eligible claim.
Exclusions are equally important. AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery, for example, excludes events outside AWS’s reasonable control, customer actions or inaction, customer equipment or software, and failures to follow documentation or best practices. Other SLAs may exclude scheduled maintenance, force-majeure events, quota exhaustion, beta features or failures in third-party services. The exact list varies by product; never transfer exclusions from one provider or service to another.
Questions to answer before treating an incident as eligible
- Was the affected resource inside the covered region, zone or service tier?
- Did the deployment meet the required redundancy, configuration and supported-version conditions?
- Does the provider’s definition classify the observed symptom as unavailability?
- Was the incident caused by customer software, credentials, networking, equipment or an excluded dependency?
- Was the affected feature generally available rather than preview, beta or otherwise excluded?
How to claim an uptime credit
Claim procedures differ, and some agreements do not issue credits automatically. Follow the service-specific SLA rather than a generic support workflow. A disciplined process reduces disputes over timing, scope and evidence.
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- Open the SLA before filing. Record the covered service, region, commitment, downtime definition, credit schedule, eligible charges, exclusions and notice deadline.
- Confirm the incident window. Record start and end times in a consistent time zone. Separate the provider’s outage window from any longer period during which your application remained impaired.
- Collect aligned evidence. Save provider incident identifiers, status notices, monitoring data, connectivity tests, affected resource IDs and billing records. Explain how each item maps to the SLA’s measurement method.
- Check eligibility and calculate the tier. Use the provider’s measured availability where available. If you estimate availability, label the result as an estimate and apply the agreement’s aggregation rules.
- Submit through the required channel. Use the specified support portal, account contact or claim form. Include the account, service, region, billing period, incident times, evidence and requested credit tier.
- Meet the deadline and keep the case number. Late notice can forfeit the credit even when the outage itself qualifies. Retain the submission, correspondence and final credit decision.
- Verify the next invoice. Confirm that the approved amount was applied to the covered service and billing account. If it is missing, reference the case number and the SLA clause in a follow-up.
Google Cloud Spanner: deadline and credit cap
Google Cloud Spanner’s 2026 SLA illustrates two terms customers often miss. An eligible customer must notify technical support within 30 days from the time the customer becomes eligible for a financial credit. Failing to notify support within that window forfeits the credit.
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The same SLA caps aggregate financial credits for a billing month at 50% of the amount due for the covered Spanner service. Approved credits apply to future use. The cap is calculated against the covered service amount, not automatically against every charge on the invoice, so identify the precise billing line items before estimating the value of a claim.
How to compare uptime SLAs
Use the following checklist when evaluating providers, products or contract renewals. A higher percentage is not automatically better if its scope is narrower or its prerequisites are harder to meet.
| Comparison point | What to verify | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Target and scope | Percentage, service component, region and billing period | Defines what is actually promised |
| Downtime definition | Signal that counts, connectivity or request test, aggregation rules | Determines whether your evidence matches the contract |
| Architecture prerequisites | Multi-zone, multi-region, redundancy and configuration requirements | A nonqualifying design can lose eligibility |
| Exclusions | Maintenance, force majeure, customer faults, quotas, beta features and third-party dependencies | Removes events from the provider’s liability |
| Credit schedule and cap | Percentage of which charges, maximum amount and future-use restrictions | Shows the remedy’s real financial value |
| Claim mechanics | Evidence, support channel, deadline and automatic-versus-manual processing | Determines whether a valid event can be recovered |
| Remedy language | Whether the credit is the sole and exclusive remedy | Sets expectations for refunds, damages and termination rights |
Why composite uptime cannot be multiplied
It is tempting to multiply the SLA percentages for a web front end, database, identity service and network to produce an end-to-end guarantee. That calculation is not contractually reliable. Microsoft warns that composite calculations can ignore each service’s definitions, exclusions and dependency correlation. Failures may occur simultaneously, or one service may remain available while your application is unusable because of another dependency.
For architecture decisions, map the complete request path instead: list every dependency, identify its own SLA scope and exclusions, model shared failure domains, and design retries, fallbacks and multi-zone or multi-region redundancy where the business requires it. Treat individual SLAs as inputs to a resilience plan, not as a promise that the whole system inherits their percentages.
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Evidence and operational practices that improve claims
Keep an incident record while the event is occurring. Capture timestamps, affected regions and resources, health checks, error rates, connectivity results and provider communications. Preserve raw logs before retention policies delete them. Record which tests came from inside the affected environment and which came from an independent network, because the distinction can explain apparent differences between your measurements and the provider’s.
Maintain a register of SLA deadlines and eligible billing accounts. Assign an owner for each critical service, document the support channel and store the current SLA version with procurement records. After a claim, reconcile the approved credit to the invoice and update the incident runbook with any interpretation the provider supplied. These controls prevent a valid credit from expiring simply because nobody knew the notice window.
Frequently asked questions
Does a 99.9% SLA mean I can demand a refund?
No. The percentage establishes a measured threshold. The agreement normally specifies a service credit, often limited to future use and eligible charges. A cash refund or damages claim requires separate contractual language.
Can my monitoring dashboard prove an SLA breach?
It can support a claim, but it may not be conclusive. The provider’s definition may require a particular connectivity test, qualifying resources or simultaneous failures. Align your evidence with that definition.
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Eligibility is determined by the SLA’s measured service condition, not by the duration of your application’s symptoms alone. Document both windows and explain any difference.
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Can an excluded customer mistake still qualify if the provider also had an outage?
The agreement controls. If the exclusion applies to the event or prevents the covered condition from being established, the provider may deny the claim even when a broader incident was occurring.
Are credits issued automatically?
Do not assume so. Some services require a customer-initiated notice within a stated deadline. Check the claim section for the exact process.
Does a credit cover all charges on my account?
Usually not. Credit calculations commonly refer to eligible charges for the affected service, region and billing period. Confirm the covered line items and any aggregate cap.
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The practical takeaway
Judge an uptime SLA as a contract, not as a promise of perfect availability. Start with the measurement definition and scope, then check architecture prerequisites, exclusions, credit tiers, caps, deadlines and remedy language. When an incident occurs, preserve evidence that matches the provider’s test, file within the claim window and verify the credit on a later invoice. That approach turns an advertised percentage into a realistic expectation of what protection your service actually provides.
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