-: Common Agreements. 2 2
In this video, we're going to discuss 3 3
common types of agreements that are used 4 4
in our enterprise networks. 5 5
Some common agreements are things 6 6
like non-disclosure agreements or NDAs, 7 7
a memorandum of understanding or MOU 8 8
and a service-level agreement, an SLA. 9 9
First we have non-disclosure agreements or NDAs. 10 10
Now, a non-disclosure agreement 11 11
is a document agreement between two parties 12 12
that define what data is considered confidential 13 13
and cannot be shared outside of that relationship. 14 14
Now, NDAs are often used by organizations 15 15
to protect their intellectual property, 16 16
and they're either going to be between two different 17 17
organizations or between an organization and its employee. 18 18
Now, why would an organization require their employee 19 19
to sign an NDA? 20 20
Well, it's because those NDAs can be a form 21 21
of non-competitive clauses inside 22 22
of an employment agreement, 23 23
or the company might fear that that employee 24 24
might take the information 25 25
they're learning from the organization 26 26
and go off and start their own business 27 27
or disclose it to their competitors. 28 28
Now, if two organizations are working jointly 29 29
on a project system or network, 30 30
they can also utilize a non-disclosure agreement. 31 31
This allows the companies to share the type of data 32 32
they need to in order to develop this product 33 33
without fear that the other company is going to steal 34 34
their trade secrets. 35 35
Keep in mind though, a non-disclosure agreement 36 36
is an administrative control not a technical control. 37 37
There is nothing in the system that is going to prevent 38 38
one of these people from sending data to the others, 39 39
if all you have is an NDA, 40 40
they only have the word and signature on that piece of paper 41 41
that promises not to do it. 42 42
Now, if you want to get some technical controls involved 43 43
with an NDA, you can do that using a DLP 44 44
or data loss prevention system, 45 45
but the DLP is the technical control 46 46
not the NDA in that case. 47 47
An NDA is considered a legally binding agreement 48 48
and it carries penalties for breaking the NDA, 49 49
including fines, forfeiture of intellectual property rights, 50 50
or even jail time in some extreme circumstances. 51 51
Next, we need to discuss an MOU 52 52
or memorandum of understanding. 53 53
A memorandum of understanding is a non-binding agreement 54 54
between two or more organizations 55 55
to detail what common actions they intend to take. 56 56
Essentially, this is a formal version 57 57
of a gentleman's agreement, 58 58
because it's actually written down and signed 59 59
by both parties and it isn't really legally enforceable. 60 60
Essentially, this is like a handshake deal, 61 61
but slightly more formalized because we wrote it down 62 62
and we both signed it. 63 63
For example, if you and I both agree 64 64
that we were going to go into business together 65 65
on a joint project, we could create an MOU 66 66
that outlines what things each of us 67 67
is going to be responsible for doing. 68 68
So, you might say that you're going to do A, B and C 69 69
and I'm going to handle X, Y and Z. 70 70
We would write that down inside of an MOU, 71 71
we could sign it and then at anytime we can look back 72 72
on that document, if we have a disagreement in the future 73 73
and say, "But Hey, you said you were going to handle item B, 74 74
"and I said, I was going to handle item Y." 75 75
But if I didn't do item Y, you can't sue me 76 76
just because I didn't finish it, 77 77
because this agreement is non-binding. 78 78
Now, a memorandum of understanding 79 79
is often referred to as a letter of intent. 80 80
Because again, it's an intent to do something 81 81
it's not a requirement to do it. 82 82
It's often going to be used within an organization 83 83
by two or more smaller internal divisions 84 84
because of this non-binding legal status. 85 85
So, for example, I used to be the director 86 86
of an IT department for a really large organization. 87 87
And I was responsible for managing the service desk 88 88
as part of my responsibilities. 89 89
Now, my service desk provided assistance 90 90
to several thousand employees across multiple countries. 91 91
There was one critical business unit that wanted to have 92 92
at least one tier two service desk agent located 93 93
in their specific building at all times 94 94
because their building was a little bit further away 95 95
than our headquarters was. 96 96
Now, this way, if something went offline in the network 97 97
that tier two agent didn't have to get in their car 98 98
and drive from the headquarters to this branch office, 99 99
which was about an hour away, 100 100
and that way they could immediately start 101 101
the restore process because they're already sitting 102 102
in the building. 103 103
Now, I thought this was a pretty good idea. 104 104
So, we agreed to it and we wrote up an MOU. 105 105
The leader of that part of the organization and I 106 106
both wrote down what we were going to do. 107 107
I said, "I'm going to provide one full-time 108 108
"tier two service desk agent and I'm going to have them do 109 109
"all their daily functions out of your building." 110 110
In return, they said they would provide 111 111
my tier two agent with a small office 112 112
and a dedicated parking spot. 113 113
We both wrote all this up, 114 114
we put it in the MOU and we signed it. 115 115
This way we were able to minimize the time 116 116
to repair for lots of critical issues 117 117
that happen at this business unit, 118 118
because the guy was already sitting in that building 119 119
as a tier two agent. 120 120
Now, this wasn't a binding agreement on either of our parts. 121 121
At any time I could have said, 122 122
"You know what, I think I need Tom to come back 123 123
"to the main office and I can't have him sit 124 124
"in your office five days a week anymore." 125 125
Or "Maybe I need to have Tom work out of the headquarters 126 126
"for Mondays and Tuesdays but on Wednesday, 127 127
Thursday and Friday he can work in your unit." 128 128
Now, the other business unit leader couldn't really complain 129 129
because he had no way of forcing me to keep Tom 130 130
in that building for all 40 hours every single week, 131 131
because we had this MOU, which is non-binding. 132 132
Now, this MOU does give us some formality to our agreement 133 133
that we had made between the two directors. 134 134
This was the director of operations 135 135
and myself as the IT director. 136 136
But at any time we could modify it or break it 137 137
without any serious consequences. 138 138
As I said, MOUs are usually used internally 139 139
between two business units as in my previous example, 140 140
but they can also be used externally 141 141
between your organization and one or more 142 142
other organizations. 143 143
There are some consortiums out there 144 144
that have multi-party MOUs with five or six 145 145
or seven organizations that all come together 146 146
to do a common thing or a common goal. 147 147
But remember it is not legally binding 148 148
when you're dealing with MOUs. 149 149
So at any time these partner organizations 150 150
could simply leave and there'll be no consequences. 151 151
Next, we have a service-level agreement or SLA. 152 152
Now, a service-level agreement is a document commitment 153 153
between a service provider and a client 154 154
where the quality, availability and responsibilities 155 155
are agreed upon by both parties. 156 156
Service-level agreements are primarily concerned 157 157
with the ability to support and respond to problems 158 158
within a given timeframe while providing 159 159
the agreed upon level of service to your end users. 160 160
If you work in the IT service management realm already, 161 161
you are probably already familiar with SLAs. 162 162
SLAs are going to be used to provide a written agreement 163 163
for not only the security priorities 164 164
but also more importantly, your operational priorities. 165 165
It also is going to outline the responsibilities, guarantees 166 166
and warranties for a given service and its components. 167 167
For example, in one of my previous organizations, 168 168
we didn't want to keep a bunch of extra switches and routers 169 169
in our supply closet in case one of them broke. 170 170
This would be really expensive 171 171
to have all this extra gear just sitting there. 172 172
So, we opted to have a service-level agreement 173 173
in place with our supplier. 174 174
And that agreement said, "If a router or switch failed 175 175
"and we couldn't get back online within 10 minutes, 176 176
"they would bring us a new device 177 177
"within four hours of the outage." 178 178
Now, these service-level agreements can really help bring 179 179
some predictability to an otherwise hard to predict area, 180 180
like when will a device fail? 181 181
SLAs can be really good in this case, 182 182
but only if your service provider is going to live up 183 183
to their end of the agreement. 184 184
Now, another place you're often going to see SLAs 185 185
is in regard to your internet connections, 186 186
or when dealing with internet service providers 187 187
or cloud service providers. 188 188
For example, my internet service provider 189 189
has a service-level agreement with us 190 190
that says they're going to maintain an uptime of 99.999%, 191 191
which equates to having no more than five minutes 192 192
of downtime per year. 193 193
Now, because it's a service-level agreement, 194 194
if they don't meet that uptime requirement, 195 195
what's going to happen? 196 196
Well, that depends on your agreement 197 197
and your underlying contracts. 198 198
In our contract, we actually get a refund 199 199
for the entire monthly service fee 200 200
if they can't maintain the uptime they promised in the SLA. 201 201
This is their penalty for not meeting the SLA 202 202
and it works essentially like a fine 203 203
that they pay back to us. 204 204
Some contracts have these and some contracts don't, 205 205
it just depends on how you negotiate your deal. 206 206
So, remember when it comes to agreements used 207 207
in our a network management we have three main types. 208 208
We have non-disclosure agreements, 209 209
memorandums of understanding and service-level agreements.