Question 1

What is a cloud SLA credit, and am I entitled to one?

Accepted Answer

A cloud SLA (Service Level Agreement) credit is a financial compensation issued by a cloud provider (such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Microsoft 365, or GitHub) when the provider fails to meet its contractually guaranteed uptime or availability thresholds. If your cloud services experience downtime that breaches the SLA, you are legally entitled to a service credit. Entitlement is not automatic: you must file a claim within your provider's specified window (typically 30–60 days of the incident), provide documentation of the disruption, and meet configuration eligibility requirements.

Question 2

What is the difference between an SLA credit and a cash refund?

Accepted Answer

Cloud SLA credits are not cash refunds. They are account credits applied toward your future cloud service invoices with that provider. AWS, Azure, GCP, Microsoft 365, and GitHub all operate this way: credits offset upcoming charges but are not disbursed as money.

Question 3

Do cloud providers automatically issue SLA credits when there is an outage?

Accepted Answer

No. None of the major cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Microsoft 365, and GitHub, automatically issue SLA credits. You must proactively identify the outage, measure its impact on your services, document the downtime with supporting log data, and submit a formal credit request within the provider's claim window.

Question 4

What is the deadline to submit an SLA credit claim?

Accepted Answer

Claim deadlines vary significantly by provider. AWS requires claims by the end of the second billing cycle following the incident. Azure allows two months from the incident date. GCP allows 60 days from eligibility for Compute Engine and 30 days for Cloud Run. Microsoft 365 and GitHub Enterprise both require claims within 30 days of the end of the applicable period.

Question 5

How much downtime is required before I qualify for an SLA credit?

Accepted Answer

Eligibility thresholds vary by provider and service tier. AWS EC2 (Multi-AZ) guarantees 99.99% monthly uptime. Microsoft 365 Business Premium guarantees 99.9% uptime. GitHub Enterprise Cloud guarantees 99.9% quarterly uptime. GCP Compute Engine guarantees 99.95%. Azure VMs in Availability Zones guarantee 99.99%.

Question 6

What is AWS's uptime SLA for EC2 and core services?

Accepted Answer

AWS provides tiered SLA guarantees depending on the service and deployment architecture. Amazon EC2 in a Multi-AZ or multi-region configuration is guaranteed 99.99% monthly uptime. Single EC2 instances carry a 99.5% instance-level SLA. AWS Lambda is guaranteed at 99.95%. Amazon S3 and CloudFront are guaranteed at 99.9%.

Question 7

What is Microsoft Azure's SLA for Virtual Machines and key services?

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual Machines carry tiered SLA guarantees based on deployment architecture. VMs deployed across two or more Availability Zones are guaranteed 99.99% monthly uptime. VMs in an Availability Set carry a 99.95% guarantee. Single-instance VMs using Standard SSDs are guaranteed at 99.5%.

Question 8

What is Google Cloud's uptime SLA for Compute Engine and core services?

Accepted Answer

Google Cloud Compute Engine guarantees 99.95% monthly uptime in a multi-zone configuration. Cloud Run and Cloud Functions are guaranteed at 99.95%. Google's SLA credit structure allows for up to 50% of the monthly charges for the affected service.

Question 9

What is Microsoft 365's uptime guarantee, and how are credits calculated?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft 365 Business Premium carries a 99.9% uptime commitment per calendar month. Microsoft applies a tiered credit structure: 25% credit for uptime between 99.0% and 99.9%, 50% credit for uptime between 95.0% and 99.0%, and 100% credit for uptime below 95%.

Question 10

What is GitHub Enterprise Cloud's SLA uptime guarantee?

Accepted Answer

GitHub Enterprise Cloud guarantees 99.9% quarterly uptime, measured on a quarterly rather than monthly cycle. If quarterly uptime falls between 99.0% and 99.9%, customers receive a 10% credit. If uptime falls below 99.0%, credits are calculated at 25 times the monthly charge for time exceeding the SLA breach.

Question 11

How does SLA credit recovery fit into a FinOps framework?

Accepted Answer

Within the FinOps Framework, SLA credit recovery falls under the Optimize phase, specifically under cloud vendor cost governance and financial accountability. Unclaimed SLA credits represent a direct drag on cloud unit economics. Next Signal makes SLA credit recovery a native component of a mature FinOps operating model.

Question 12

What is the ROI of automating cloud SLA credit recovery?

Accepted Answer

The ROI is driven by three factors: (1) the volume of credits recovered that would otherwise be forfeited; (2) the elimination of engineering and finance team hours spent manually researching incidents and filing support cases; and (3) the governance value of continuous SLA performance tracking as an input to vendor negotiation and contract renewal decisions.

Question 13

How long does it take to see the first SLA credit claim?

Accepted Answer

Most Next Signal customers see their first automated SLA credit claim within one week of connecting their cloud provider. The platform monitors continuously, identifying and queuing SLA-eligible incidents in near real time.

Question 14

Does Next Signal access or modify our billing account?

Accepted Answer

No. Next Signal operates exclusively on read-only permissions and never modifies your cloud billing configuration, makes purchases, or alters account settings in any way.

Question 15

Which cloud providers does Next Signal support?

Accepted Answer

Next Signal supports AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft 365 (O365), and GitHub. Coverage is comprehensive across billed services for each provider.

Question 16

How does Next Signal protect our data and meet enterprise security requirements?

Accepted Answer

Next Signal is aligned with SOC 2 Type II compliance standards. The platform supports Single Sign-On (SSO) and two-factor authentication (2FA), and enforces a zero data retention policy beyond 90 days.

Question 17

What is Next Signal's pricing model, and are there long-term contracts?

Accepted Answer

Next Signal uses a simple two-part commercial model: a flat, predictable platform license scaled to your infrastructure footprint, plus a success fee applied only to the credits we actually recover. No per-seat licenses, no flat tax on cloud spend, no upfront fees, and no retainers. You keep 100% of recovered credits and we invoice our share. Agreements can be canceled with 30 days' notice, so there is no long-term lock-in.

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about cloud SLA credits, provider-specific claim processes, and how Next Signal automates credit recovery.

Cloud SLA Credits: The Fundamentals

AWS SLA Credits

Microsoft Azure SLA Credits

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) SLA Credits

Microsoft 365 (O365) SLA Credits

GitHub Enterprise Cloud SLA Credits

FinOps, Governance, and Cloud Vendor Accountability

Next Signal Platform: Getting Started

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