Establishing service levels

Service-level definitions are a contract between a service provider and the organization it serves that defines particular aspects of the service, such as quality, availability, and responsibilities. Service-level definitions consist of service-level objectives (SLOs), service-level agreements (SLAs), case priority levels, and incident response times. When Splunk is operated as a service offering, service-level definitions provide all teams and organizations assurance that Splunk operations and response models meet their needs without impacting other areas.

Audience

Developer
Engineer
Search expert
Program manager
Project manager
User community

For more about these roles, see Setting Roles & Responsibilities.

Key terms

Mission critical: An outage impacting revenue, ability to hit agreed SLA/OLA, or a noted mission-critical data source or app.

Core service: Indexing, Searching, or Alerting.

Routine change: A low-impact, low-risk change not requiring a change review.

Emergency change: A change required to resolve a P1/P2 condition.

Service request: A request to add new capacity of lower complexity than a project, for example, new inputs or new add-on installs.

Guidelines for implementing service level definitions

There are many factors to consider when making a service-level commitment. The table below lists some guidelines to follow.

Don't over-commit	Consider what might be too fast for delivery. Don't make a commitment that's unreasonable or unfair to your team members.
Don't under-commit	The requester should never feel that the response time is unreasonably long. Be as accommodating as possible when setting goals for turnaround
Consider the time it takes to gather the necessary information	Many types of requests require follow-up with the requester. Recognize that there may be a waiting period for this additional information. Have reasonable expectations when requesting additional information. Make sure to communicate your expectations to the requester. The requester should be aware that a slow response time will have an impact on expected turnaround time.
Think about the process for incoming requests	Think about your engagement model for incoming requests. Optimize the request process so teams can work together effectively. Create a process that is straightforward and effective.

SLO templates

SLOs provide expectations for maintenance planning, release planning, and communication with business partners. You can divide SLOs into administrative tasks (day-to-day activities) and implementation tasks.

Use the example provided below or make any updates as necessary.

Administrative SLOs (day-to-day activities)	Target
Delete new user	5 business days
Add new user	5 business days
Uplifting user	25 business days
Dashboard creation support	10 business days
Report generation support	5 business days
Alert creation and changes support	5 business days
Create a new Active Directory group for access (External dependencies)	25 business days
Create new role	15 business days

Implementation SLOs	Target
First response to new support request	1 day
Data ingest (standard add-on)	5 days
Data ingest (custom add-on)	10 days
New app install	1 day
Universal forwarder deployment (Does not include change control SLO)	10 business days
Data source monitor (http, WMI, TCP/UDP)	2 days
Implement new global knowledge object	1 day
Upload data into Splunk (for example, static log, file, CSV)	5 business days

SLA templates

SLAs are key service definitions for platform availability and incident response.

Use the example provided below or make any updates as necessary.

SLAs	Target
Platform availability	99.9% uptime for all core services (< 8.76 hours unplanned downtime per year)
Incident first response	Based on priority
Incident status update	Based on priority
Restore loss of data feed (ingestion)	1 business day
Restore universal forwarder not reporting (standard)	5 business days
Restore universal forwarder not reporting (mission critical applications)	1 business day

Case priorities

Case priorities are assigned based on the technical importance of the problem. The following case priorities are intended only as examples.

Use the examples provided below, or make any updates as necessary.

Case priority levels

Case priorities may vary by service or source. The following are general guidelines.

Case priority level	Definition
P1	A mission critical outage for which there is no workaround. This may be a complete service outage of a core service.
P2	A mission critical outage for which a less than ideal workaround exists. This may be a partial service outage of a core service.
P3	An outage or issue impacting a single user.
P4	Standard service requests or routine changes. For example, access requests, data onboarding, app installation, etc.

Incident response times

Incident response	P1	P2	P3	P4
First response	1 hour	2 hours	4 hours	1 business day
Communicated updates	Every 2 hours	Every 4 hours	Every business day	Every 5 business days
Resolution time	Within 4 hours	Within 2 business days	Within 3 business days	Agreement with the customer
Business hours	24 hours / 7 days per week	8:00am to 5:00pm / 5 days per week excluding holidays	8:00am to 5:00pm / 5 days per week excluding holidays	8:00am to 5:00pm / 5 days per week excluding holidays