Configure target and save your SLO

After defining your SLI, set a target that indicates good performance for your service. The target determines your error budget—the amount of unreliability you can tolerate before users are affected. You’ll also name your SLO and optionally add alert rules.

To configure and save your SLO, complete the following steps:

1. In the Target field, enter a percentage greater than 0 and less than 100.

   For example, enter 99.9 for a “three nines” availability target.

The error budget is automatically calculated as 100% minus your target. For a 99.9% target, your error budget is 0.1% of total events. For example, if your service handles 1,000,000 requests in 28 days, your budget allows up to 1,000 errors before breaching the SLO.

1. Review the statistical predictions displayed in the wizard.

   The wizard queries 90 days of history and shows the probability of meeting your SLO target. Use this to sense-check whether your target is achievable. If the probability is very low, consider a slightly lower target or improving reliability first.

2. In the Name field, enter a short, meaningful name for your SLO.

   For example, enter API Gateway Availability.

3. In the Description field, enter a description that explains what the SLO measures.

   For example, enter Tracks the availability of the API gateway service.

4. From the Folder dropdown, select an existing folder or click + Create folder to create a new one.

5. Optionally, add labels to categorize your SLO for searching and management.

6. (Optional) In the alert rules step, select the Add SLO alert rules checkbox to generate alert rules.

   You can edit the alert rules here and configure the notification message. To read more about SLO alert rules, refer to Add SLO alert rules.

7. Click Review SLO to review the SLO you created.

8. Click Save and view all SLOs.

Your SLO is created and appears in the SLO list. The wizard generates dashboards, recording rules, and any alert rules you configured.

In the next milestone, you’ll monitor your SLO and interpret the error budget burndown chart.