ISO/IEC 19086-3:2017

Information technology - Cloud computing - Service level agreement (SLA) framework - Part 3: Core conformance requirements

ISO/IEC 19086-3:2017 specifies the core conformance requirements for service level agreements (SLAs) for cloud services based on ISO/IEC 19086‑1 and guidance on the core conformance requirements. This document is for the benefit of and use by both cloud service providers and cloud service customers. ISO/IEC 19086-3:2017 does not provide a standard structure that would be used for cloud SLAs.

Technologies de l'information — Informatique en nuage — Cadre de travail de l'accord du niveau de service — Partie 3: Exigences de conformité essentielles

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 19-Jul-2017
• ICS: 35.020 - Information technology (IT) in general
• ICS: 35.210 - Cloud computing
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38 - Cloud computing and distributed platforms
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38/WG 3 - Cloud Computing Fundamentals (CCF)
• Current Stage: 9093 - International Standard confirmed
• Start Date: 05-Dec-2022
• Completion Date: 30-Oct-2025

Relations

• Amended By: ISO/IEC 19086-3:2017/Amd 1:2025 - Information technology - Cloud computing - Service level agreement (SLA) framework - Part 3: Core conformance requirements - Amendment 1
• Effective Date: 21-Sep-2024

Overview

ISO/IEC 19086-3:2017 - "Information technology - Cloud computing - Service level agreement (SLA) framework - Part 3: Core conformance requirements" defines the core conformance requirements and guidance for cloud service level agreements (SLAs). Built on ISO/IEC 19086-1, this part is intended for both cloud service providers and cloud service customers, helping parties specify and assess SLA conformance. The standard clarifies what core SLA elements and content areas should cover but does not prescribe a single SLA structure.

Key Topics

The standard addresses core technical and contractual topics critical to cloud SLAs, including:

• Conformance and relationship between cloud service agreements and cloud SLAs (how SLAs fit into broader contractual arrangements).
• Cloud SLA management and governance obligations for providers and customers.
• Roles of objectives, metrics, remedies and exceptions - defining service level objectives (SLOs), qualitative objectives, measurement metrics, remedies and allowable exceptions.
• Cloud SLA components such as:
  • Covered services and formal definitions
  • Service monitoring: monitoring parameters and monitoring mechanisms
  • Roles and responsibilities
• Content areas for SLAs:
  • Accessibility (standards and policies)
  • Availability (availability objectives and reporting)
  • Performance (response time, capacity, elasticity)
  • Protection of PII and information security
  • Termination of service (data/log retention, notifications, return of assets)
  • Support (support hours, incident notification, first response and resolution times, support methods/contacts)
  • Governance (regulation adherence, audits, standards)
  • Service changes (notification periods, deprecation timelines)
  • Service reliability (resilience, backup/restore, disaster recovery)
  • Data management (IPR, customer/provider/derived/account data, portability, deletion, location, law enforcement access)
  • Attestations, certifications and audits

Applications

ISO/IEC 19086-3 is practical for:

• Drafting or reviewing cloud SLAs to ensure they include core conformance elements.
• Vendor selection, procurement and contract negotiations where measurable SLA requirements are needed.
• Risk management, compliance and audit teams assessing provider commitments for availability, data handling and security.
• Cloud architects, legal counsels and service managers aligning operational metrics with contractual remedies.

Using this standard helps organizations create clearer SLAs, compare vendor offerings, and reduce ambiguity around monitoring, reporting and remedies.

Related Standards

• ISO/IEC 19086-1 - SLA framework overview and concepts (foundation for Part 3)
• ISO/IEC 17788 - Cloud computing - Overview and vocabulary
• Other parts of the ISO/IEC 19086 series cover complementary SLA topics and profiles.

Standards Content (Sample)

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 19086-3
First edition
2017-07
Information technology — Cloud
computing — Service level agreement
(SLA) framework —
Part 3:
Core conformance requirements
Technologies de l’information — Informatique en nuage — Cadre de
travail de l’accord du niveau de service —
Partie 3: Exigences de conformité essentielles
Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2017
© ISO/IEC 2017, Published in Switzerland
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior
written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below or ISO’s member body in the country of
the requester.
ISO copyright office
Ch. de Blandonnet 8 • CP 401
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]
www.iso.org
ii © ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Abbreviated terms . 1
5 Conformance . 2
6 Relationship between the cloud service agreement and cloud SLAs .2
7 Cloud SLA Management . 2
8 Role of cloud service level objectives, cloud service qualitative objectives, metrics,
remedies, and exceptions in the cloud SLA . 2
9 Cloud SLA components . 3
9.1 General . 3
9.2 Covered services component . 3
9.3 Cloud SLA definitions component . 3
9.4 Service monitoring component . 3
9.4.1 General. 3
9.4.2 Monitoring parameters . 3
9.4.3 Monitoring mechanisms . . 3
9.5 Roles and responsibilities component . 3
10 Cloud SLA content areas and their components . 4
10.1 General . 4
10.2 Accessibility content area . 4
10.2.1 Accessibility component . 4
10.2.2 Accessibility standards . 4
10.2.3 Accessibility policies . . . 4
10.3 Availability content area . 4
10.3.1 Availability component . 4
10.3.2 Availability. 4
10.4 Cloud service performance content area . 4
10.4.1 General. 4
10.4.2 Cloud service response time component . 4
10.4.3 Cloud service capacity component. 5
10.4.4 Elasticity component . . 5
10.5 Protection of personally identifiable information (PII) content area. 6
10.6 Information security content area . 6
10.7 Termination of service content area . 6
10.7.1 Termination of service component . 6
10.7.2 Data retention period . 6
10.7.3 Log retention period . 6
10.7.4 Notification of service termination . 6
10.7.5 Return of assets . 6
10.8 Cloud service support content area . 7
10.8.1 Cloud service support component . 7
10.8.2 Support hours . . 7
10.8.3 Service incident support hours . 7
10.8.4 Service incident notification time . 7
10.8.5 Maximum first response time . 7
10.8.6 Maximum incident resolution time . 7
10.8.7 Support plans . 7
10.8.8 Support methods . 7
10.8.9 Support contacts . 7
© ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved iii

10.8.10 Service incident reporting . 7
10.8.11 Service incident notification . 8
10.9 Governance content area . . 8
10.9.1 Governance component . 8
10.9.2 Regulation adherence . 8
10.9.3 Standards adherence . 8
10.9.4 Policy adherence . 8
10.9.5 Audit schedule . 8
10.10 Changes to the cloud service features and functionality content area . 8
10.10.1 Changes to the cloud service features and functionality component . 8
10.10.2 Minimum service change notification period . 8
10.10.3 Minimum time before feature/function deprecation . . 9
10.10.4 Service change notification method . 9
10.11 Service reliability content area . 9
10.11.1 General. 9
10.11.2 Service resilience/fault tolerance component . 9
10.11.3 Customer data backup and restore component .10
10.11.4 Disaster recovery component.11
10.12 Data management content area .11
10.12.1 Intellectual property rights (IPR) component .11
10.12.2 Cloud service customer data component .11
10.12.3 Cloud service provider data component .11
10.12.4 Account data component .12
10.12.5 Derived data component .12
10.12.6 Data portability component .12
10.12.7 Data deletion component .12
10.12.8 Data location component.13
10.12.9 Data examination component .13
10.12.10 .
Law enforcement access component .14
10.13 Attestations, certifications and audits content area .14
10.13.1 General.14
10.13.2 Cloud service attestations .14
10.13.3 Cloud service certifications .14
10.13.4 Cloud service audits .14
Bibliography .15
iv © ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www .iso .org/ directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent
rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the
Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www .iso .org/ patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see the following
URL: w w w . i s o .org/ iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 38, Cloud computing and distributed platforms.
A list of all the parts in the ISO 19086 series can be found on the ISO website.
© ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved v

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 19086-3:2017(E)
Information technology — Cloud computing — Service
level agreement (SLA) framework —
Part 3:
Core conformance requirements
1 Scope
This document specifies the core conformance requirements for service level agreements (SLAs) for
cloud services based on ISO/IEC 19086-1 and guidance on the core conformance requirements. This
document is for the benefit of and use by both cloud service providers and cloud service customers.
This document does not provide a standard structure that would be used for cloud SLAs.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 17788, Information technology — Cloud computing — Overview and vocabulary
ISO/IEC 19086-1, Information technology — Cloud computing — Service level agreement (SLA)
framework — Part 1: Overview and concepts
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/IEC 17788 and ISO/IEC 19806-
1 apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— IEC Electropedia: available at http:// www .electropedia .org/
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at http:// www .iso .org/ obp
4 Abbreviated terms
CSC cloud service customer
CSP cloud service provider
CSA cloud service agreement
ICT information and communications technology
IPR intellectual property rights
PII personally identifiable information
RTO recovery time objective
© ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved 1

RPO recovery point objective
SLA service level agreement
SLO cloud service level objective
SQO cloud service qualitative objective
5 Conformance
A cloud SLA that conforms to this document shall implement at least the following components, as
described in ISO/IEC 19086-1:
— covered services;
— cloud SLA definitions.
ISO/IEC 19086-1 includes one or more cloud service level objectives (SLOs) or cloud service qualitative
objectives (SQOs) for each cloud SLA component (Clause 9) or content area (Clause 10). When using
a component from Clause 9 or a content area from Clause 10, a conforming cloud SLA is not required
to use the SLOs or SQOs described in those components or content areas. A conforming cloud SLA is
recommended to use SLOs and SQOs from ISO/IEC 19086-1, when appropriate. Regardless of whether
an SLO or SQO is used, a CSP shall not redefine any term in such a way that it contradicts the terms and
definitions in ISO/IEC 19086-1 or this document.
ISO/IEC 19086-2 defines a model for specifying metrics for cloud service level agreements (SLAs).
Conforming cloud SLAs are encouraged to use the model in ISO/IEC 19086-2 when specifying metrics
for SLOs and SQOs.
A conforming cloud SLA may use a subset of the components (Clause 9) or content areas (Clause 10)
described in this document or it may include components or content areas outside the scope of this
document. However, a conforming cloud SLA shall adhere to the definition of the terms, components
or content areas, as stated in ISO/IEC 19086-1 and the requirements as stated in this document.
Conformance for a specific component or content area means that the SLA shall adhere to all the
requirements for that component or content area. Conformance to this document does not require
implementation of any specific technology.
6 Relationship between the cloud service agreement and cloud SLAs
The relationship between the cloud service agreement and cloud SLAs is covered in ISO/IEC 19086-1.
There are no conformance requirements for the relationship between the CSA and cloud SLAs.
7 Cloud SLA Management
Cloud SLA management is covered in ISO/IEC 19086-1. There are no conformance requirements for
cloud SLA management.
8 Role of cloud service level objectives, cloud service qualitative objectives,
metrics, remedies, and exceptions in the cloud SLA
The role of cloud service level objectives, cloud service qualitative objectives, metrics, remedies, and
exceptions in the cloud SLA is covered in ISO/IEC 19086-1. There are no conformance requirements
for role of cloud service level objectives, cloud service qualitative objectives, metrics, remedies, and
exceptions in the cloud SLA.
2 © ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved

9 Cloud SLA components
9.1 General
The cloud SLA components in this clause and the cloud SLA content areas in Clause 10 define the
requirements of the SLOs or SQOs that may be used within a cloud SLA.
9.2 Covered services component
The covered services component shall identify the cloud service(s) that are covered by the cloud SLA.
A given cloud SLA may cover more than one cloud service and each cloud service may have its own
components, content areas, SLOs and SQOs.
9.3 Cloud SLA definitions component
The cloud SLA definitions component shall define terms that are unique to the SLA or that are
particularly important to the understanding of the cloud SLA.
Cloud SLAs should use definitions from industry standards, when possible.
A conforming cloud SLA shall not redefine a term defined by ISO/IEC 19086-1, ISO/IEC 19086-3 or
ISO/IEC 19086-4 in a manner that contradicts the original meaning.
9.4 Service monitoring component
9.4.1 General
A service monitoring component shall specify the monitoring mechanisms that are available to the
cloud service customer.
The service monitoring component shall specify one or more SQOs for cloud service monitoring (see
ISO/IEC 19086-1 for SQOs).
For each of the service monitoring SQOs chosen, the SQO shall conform to the requirements listed below
for the SQO.
9.4.2 Monitoring parameters
A monitori
...