Service availability

I am in the process of agreeing some service levels with a supplier and have reached a sticking point I would appreciate your thoughts on.

We have 5 service desk priority levels 1 being the highest. The service provider is suggesting the service is unavailable when there is an active priority 1.

My concern with this approach is 2 fold.

1) If the definition of availability typically is the ability of the system to perform its core function inline with the OBS then a priority 2 could also mean it is not available.

e.g. I can't login or access the system due to a fault this is a priority 1. if I can access the system but the print module has failed this might be a priority 2 but a core component is not function inline with the OBS.

2) the supplier is resistant to us have incidents that in our view have high business impact and are priority one if the system is considered available.


In your experience how acceptable is the general approach they are proposing and how widely used. How would you recommend this be handled. In particular with reference to ITIL/similar.

If you wouldn't mind telling me about your experience in service management that would be helpful.