Olivia’s cloud service provider claims to provide zero data loss from storage, and Olivia’s company wants to take advantage of that service because loss of data would be extremely costly for the business. What business agreement can Oliva put in place to help ensure that the reliability that the vendor advertises is maintained?

Olivia should establish a service level agreement (SLA) with her provider to ensure that they meet the expected level of service. If they don’t, financial or other penalties are typically included. Olivia should ensure that those penalties are meaningful to her vendor to make sure they are motivated to meet the SLA. An MOU is a memorandum of understanding and explains the relationship between two organizations; an MSA is a master services agreement, which establishes a business relationship under which additional work orders or other documentation describe the actual work that is done; and a BPA is a business partners agreement, which is used when companies wish to partner on efforts and may outline division of profits or responsibilities in the partnership.