Service level agreements (SLA) are well-known and used on a regular basis by telecom operators. But, when it comes to contracting professional media contribution links, they are not always adapted. Typically, broadcast media organizations expect services to always be up when prime content is “on air.” However, service availability is usually defined using a finite number of ‘nines’ (e.g. 99.99 per cent uptime is a ‘four nines’ service and each additional ‘9’ tends to increase the cost of the service as it requires additional support and design). As a result, a new solution was needed.
Mutual understanding
The EBU Service Level Agreement Project Group, led by Yuan-Xing Zheng from the BBC, is an example of the types of challenges that come with the convergence of IT/networks and broadcasting. In this group, technical experts from network operators and broadcasters came together to share their business requirements. It was not always easy, but mutual understanding was necessary to come up with an adapted and innovative solution – and luckily, the EBU provided a neutral platform for the discussions!
From an insurance policy to a communications tool
A conventional SLA is a bit like an insurance policy (based on a partial refund of the total cost of the service when there are faults). However, to be refunded for part of the cost of the service has little importance to broadcasters who need to have, for example, their sports content available "on air" to stay reputable. To make this easier, the EBU SLA Group developed a communications tool that would translate the business needs of a broadcaster into the language of a network service provider.
Tech 3361-3 is born!
The third document in a series, Tech 3361-3: SLA Technical parameters, was born. This document outlines the different media and data transport services and suggests a number of technical parameters and considerations to be taken into account when qualifying the service level. It does so by giving reference to existing standards. To complement the new document, Tech 3361-1: SLA High level guidelines and Tech 3361-2: Glossary of terms were updated for coherence.
All good things must end...
With this last publication, the SLA Project Group has successfully accomplished it objectives and therefore has been closed by its parent Strategic Programme on Future Networked Systems (FNS).