time.lex produces a template for cloud computing SLAs for the European Commission

The European Commission recently asked time.lex and Spark to conduct a study on 'Standards terms and performances criteria in Service Level Agreements for cloud computing services'. This study aimed to identify and map the national rules with respect to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in each of the Member States, specifically with respect to cloud computing, and to determine the provisions and approaches which are used in practice.

A second objective of the study was to provide suggestions of model SLA provisions that could provide some further stability, certainty and transparency in the cloud market. The final report of the study has now been published, and can be downloaded here. It includes not only a summary of the main findings, but also a template for cloud SLAs along with a convenient legal checklist to assess such SLAs.

The report can be used as a starting point for creating appropriate SLAs, or for checking whether an SLA has appropriately covered all concerns.

For more information on this topic, contact time.lex' study author Hans Graux.

This report was prepared by time.lex and Spark from January 2013 to June 2015. It contains an overview of the legal landscape, rules and policies with respect to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in each of the Member States. Furthermore, it provides a model that can be used to create new SLAs for cloud computing, and a checklist that can be used to assess the adequacy of existing ones.

The model SLA clauses and a checklist, with explanatory comments are also part of the final study report. The explanatory comments clarify which choices were made in the drafting, why these choices were made, and when a user may wish to make other choices. The checklist and the model SLA provisions along with the explanatory comments can raise awareness among cloud users about the legal specificities of a cloud offer and help them to understand and assess these offers.

In view to the above, we publish separately in addition to the final report:

• The overview of the legal landscape, rules and policies with respect to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in each of the Member States (first interim report of the study). This overview will enable the reader to better understand national legislations in EU Member States in relation to cloud computing contracts and SLAs.
• A table enabling you to easily compare the different country reports (this is an extract from the above report (first interim report))