Business reliance on ever more complex computer systems increases every year. These systems are at the heart of business success and many are regarded as mission-critical, meaning that any downtime will have a severe impact on business performance. As a result, ever more stringent Service Level Agreements (SLA) are being placed on the availability of the computer systems themselves.

This paper details the reason to why it is imperative that SLA’s are defined from a business centric perspective and that the most appropriate solution is employed, to ensure that service availability can be delivered enabling compliance with the SLA.