Jeremy's cloud service provider declares to offer "five nines of uptime," and his company wishes to use this service because their website suffers significant financial losses for every hour it is offline. What type of business agreement can Jeremy establish to ensure that the vendor's claimed reliability is upheld?

To ensure that his provider delivers the expected level of service, Jeremy must establish a service level agreement (SLA) that includes financial or other penalties for non-compliance. He should ensure that the penalties are significant enough to motivate the vendor to fulfill the SLA. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) defines the relationship between two organizations. A Master Services Agreement (MSA) creates a business arrangement under which additional work orders or documentation describe the actual work to be performed. A Business Partnership Agreement (BPA) is used when companies desire to partner on projects and may outline the division of profits or responsibilities in the partnership.