Azure SLAs Promise Robustness but Bring Burden and Limits

• Azure service level agreements (SLAs) allow customers to receive credits for future service usage when certain service metrics, such as uptime, are not met.
• SLAs could help organizations evaluate Azure services, understand service downtimes, and reduce Azure expenditures when SLAs are unmet.
• The burden is on customers to determine when SLAs are not met and submit claims to receive service credits.

Azure SLAs are Microsoft promises of uptime and other qualities for Azure services. If these are not met, customers can submit claims to the company and potentially receive credits toward future service usage. However, there are many limitations to the types of service interruptions that can be claimed against SLAs. For example, Microsoft-planned maintenance time for services and downtime caused by non-Microsoft factors, such as network providers and equipment and the way customers work with services, do not qualify. Customers have two months after an incident occurs to determine that an SLA was not met and submit a claim. Paid fees are never refunded for approved claims, but service credits for the same service are offered for future use.