What a streaming platform SLA covers
- Availability: the percentage of time the service is up, measured monthly
- Scope: which components count, such as playback, sign-in, the CMS and the API
- Support: how quickly the vendor responds, by severity of the problem
- Resolution or escalation targets for critical incidents
- Remedies: service credits when a target is missed
- Exclusions: planned maintenance, third-party failures and events outside the vendor's control
What uptime percentages mean
- 99.5%: up to about 3.6 hours of downtime in a 30-day month
- 99.9%: about 43 minutes
- 99.95%: about 22 minutes
- 99.99%: about 4 minutes
How to read an SLA
Look at what is measured and how. Availability of a status page is not the same as viewers being able to play video. Check whether maintenance windows are excluded, whether you must claim a credit yourself, and whether the credit is capped at a fraction of the monthly fee.
An SLA compensates; it does not prevent. For a live event that cannot be repeated, the vendor's architecture, monitoring and event support matter more than the credit you would receive afterward.
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