> Alternatively, AWS does publicly provide legally binding availability guarantees, but I have never seen any prominently displayed legally binding durability guarantees. Are these published somewhere less prominently?
I read that page and it does not provide any contractual durability guarantees as far as I can see. It provides "designed for availability" and then contractual availability SLA guarantees. It provides "designed for durability", but presents no contractual durability guarantee as far as I can see.
Given that their lawyers clearly indicate that "designed for availability" is not what they are contractually obligated to provide, only the letter of the SLA does that; "designed for durability" is similarly a marketing statement that does not incur any contractual obligations. Is there some specific statement in that document that I am missing which indicates that data durability is not fully at their convenience?
SLAs are more of a financial construct than anything else. Once the payback cost of missing an SLA is built into the contract then it just becomes a conversation about money. I've been at plenty of shops that obviously tried to hit the SLA but if it was missed it just became a financial issue which helped smooth over what otherwise might have been a trust buster.
I would never ever think of an SLA as anything more than a financial commitment - if you think more of it you'll eventually be in a world of hurt.
Obviously, as I made no mention of specific performance in the event of breach of contract the remedy for failure to meet contractual obligations would be damages.
The question is: What level of durability does AWS contractually guarantee where a failure to provide that level results in a breach of contract that may incur damages and where, specifically, in the documentation do they specify that?
It's listed prominently in the public docs: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/