Service Availability and Uptime
Updated March 2, 2021.
This SLA document details all standards, terms, and remedies of currently supported Service Level Agreements. The remedies set forth in this SLA are Client’s sole and exclusive remedy for issues covered by the SLA.
We reserve the right to make changes to this SLA at any time and at our sole discretion. If and when we make changes to this SLA, notice of such changes is provided via revised update date at the top of this SLA. Continued use of our Services and Solutions following notification of changes constitutes acceptance of such changes. Please review this SLA periodically and check for any updates.
Definitions
- Adjusted Monthly Service Plan Value
If Client switches Service plans during the Monthly Billing Period (defined below), the Adjusted Monthly Service Plan Value is calculated based upon the amount of time spent on each plan during the Monthly Billing Period (see examples below).
- Covered Downtime
Total duration in minutes of Downtime (defined below) occuring during a Monthly Billing Period (defined below).
- Downtime
Time in which Necessary Access Services (defined below) are unavailable to Client.
- Effective Service Plan
Active DevOps plan at the time Downtime (defined above) occurs.
- Hosting and Operations Portions
DevOps and Website/App Care Plans include hosting, operations duties (tested updates, server refreshes, etc), license fees, and, potentially, internal tooling use fees. The Hosting and Operations Portions of these plans are:
- Google Cloud Platform Live server pairs: $128 per month (covers one Production container and one Staging container)
- Google Cloud Platform RemDev server pairs: $108 per month (covers one Production container and one Staging container)
- MultiDC GCP server pair clusters: $128 per month per pair in every load-balanced or failover cluster (covers one Production container and one Staging container)
- Maintenance Period
Monday through Sunday, 2 am to 5 am, local time, based upon the time zone of the data center in which each Client project is hosted.
- Monthly Billing Period
The period starting at the beginning of the first day of the calendar month and ending and the conclusion of the last day of that same calendar month. If there is a difference between these times as relates to our local time (ET USA), Client local time, or data center local time, the most permissive time is used (this is usually the latest of the three times).
- Monthly Renewal Date
The first calendar day of the month regardless of the date on which agreements were signed or projects were released to web.
- Monthly Service Plan Value
For Clients on a monthly billing cycle, the Fee paid every month for the Hosting and Operations Portions (defined above) of the Effective Service Plan (defined above). For clients on an annual billing cycle, the Fee paid every year for the Effective Service Plan (defined above), divided by 12. The Monthly Service Plan Value excludes any other fee or amount, such as but not limited to, bandwidth or capacity overages, added or augmented feature change requests, supplemental and R&D projects, and third-party subscriptions.
- Necessary Access Services
Aspects and features of the Services that must be operational in order for a Client project hosted on our platform to be accessible over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Necessary Access Services do not include third-party services, our website, SSH/SFTP access, or any other portion of the Service that is not strictly necessary in order for Client projects to remain accessible.
- Qualified Client Account
The account of Client, as maintained in our system for communications, service tracking, and all other contracted deliverables and relationship features, as long as Client is neither absent nor delinquent, and Project is not Abandoned, Suspended, or Deleted.
- Release Date
The date on which Client project is deemed by all participating parties to be ready for release to web.
- SLA Credit
The credit, as described in this SLA, that is applied to Client account and redeemable on subsequent invoices.
- Uptime Guarantee
The Necessary Access Services (defined above) will be available at least 99.9% of the time during each Monthly Billing Period (defined above).
SLA Credits
To determine whether our Uptime Guarantee has been met, Covered Downtime is compared to the amount of time in a normal 30-day period (43,200 minutes). If Covered Downtime exceeds 30 minutes (0.0694% of the amount of time in a normal 30-day period), this Uptime Guarantee may be regarded as unmet (pending determination of downtime cause).
If we fail to meet the Uptime Guarantee, Client will receive SLA Credits equal to five percent (5%) of the Monthly Service Plan Value for each half hour (30 minutes) of Covered Downtime. Covered Downtime is calculated based on a combination of monitoring tools integrated into our platform, and data center monitoring (provided by Google Cloud Platform systems and personnel).
SLA Credit Examples
Downtime credit assignment examples:
- If Covered Downtime is 29 minutes, no SLA Credit is issued.
- If Covered Downtime is 30 minutes, Client is issued SLA Credit equal to 5% of Client’s Monthly Service Plan Value.
- If Covered Downtime is 59 minutes, Client is issued SLA Credit equal to 5% of Client’s Monthly Service Plan Value.
- If Covered Downtime is 1 full hour (60 minutes), Client is issued SLA Credit equal to 10% of Client’s Monthly Service Plan Value.
Adjusted Monthly Service Plan Value example:
In a Monthly Billing Period consisting of 30 days, if Client spent 10 days on a plan costing $128 per month and 20 days on a plan costing $256 per month, the Monthly Plan Value would be $210.67 ( $120 divided by 30 and then multiplied by 10, plus $256 divided by 30 and then multiplied by 20) and SLA Credits are issued based upon the Adjusted Monthly Service Plan Value of $211.
SLA Credit Redemption
SLA Credits are granted automatically. To support audit trail requirements of organizations that prefer an additional level of formality as relates to SLA management, and, to account for the rare case in which we are not aware of a covered outage, we also provide SLA Claim forms. If Client wishes to make an SLA Claim for an apparent outage that was not automatically detected and credited by us, the claim must be filed within 30 days of the alleged outage event. An SLA Claim form may also be submitted after credit has been applied (useful to some organizations that prefer greater formality in SLA management, as mentioned above).
SLA Credits are added to Qualified Client Account and applied to future invoices. SLA Credits will not exceed the Monthly Plan Service Value for the month in which we failed to meet our availability guarantee and will not be paid in cash. If Client abandons Project and/or terminates Account or Agreement before SLA Credit is applied, no credit is issued.
SLA Credit Exceptions and Exclusions
Downtime caused by any of the following circumstances, as determined at our sole discretion, is not included in Covered Downtime and is not eligible for SLA Credit:
- Outage incurred during planned Maintenance Period
- Emergency maintenance performed at any time
- Force majeure events, including but not limited to, acts of nature (fire, flood, earthquake, storm, or other natural disasters), acts of war (invasion, hostilities, rebellion, revolution, insurrection, terrorist activities, and other hostile activities), actions taken by governments (sanction, blockage, embargo, and other governmental action), labor disputes (strike, lockout, or any similar dispute), outages caused by external service providers, and any other event which we cannot reasonably anticipate, prevent, control, or avoid
- Traffic reaching a Client Website that exceeds the capabilities of the Client Website if due to Client-made changes or customizations, or the Client’s Service plan if previously advised in writing that capacity upgrades are recommended for proper management of emerging conditions
- Client breach of existing agreements or policies
- Client machine access problems
- Client authored code (unless mitigated by appropriate WebOps-class DevOps plan agreements)