Which statement best describes a service level agreement?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 7. Seven ITIL practices in detail easy
Machine-checked — no person has signed for it. This question was read against the source cited below by an automated pass, which found no contradiction. That is a weaker claim than it sounds: the same kind of process wrote the question, so it can confirm its own mistake.
Treat it as a good draft rather than as settled fact, and read the source below before you rely on it. It is not used in mock exams here — only questions a person has signed for are.
How these questions are written — where each question comes from, what the verification ledger records, and what happens when one is found wrong.
The options
Not correct A record of the resources, configurations and dependencies that make up a service
That is closer to configuration information held about a service. It is technical description, not an agreed performance commitment.
Not correct A structured list of all live services the provider offers, with details of how they can be requested
That describes a service catalogue. A catalogue advertises what is available; an SLA commits to how well a named service will perform.
Correct A documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that identifies both the services required and the expected level of service
Correct. That is the definition: it names the services in scope and the level of service both parties have agreed to expect.
Not correct A statement of the maximum time a service may be unavailable before a penalty is applied to the supplier
A penalty clause may appear inside an agreement, but an SLA is the whole documented agreement about services and service levels, not just an availability threshold and its consequence.
Why
An SLA has two essential halves: it identifies which services are covered, and it states the expected level of service. Options that describe only a list of services, only technical composition, or only one target with a penalty each miss one of those halves.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 7
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a short set from objective 7 and space the ones you get wrong.
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