Service Level Agreement
Scope
This Service Level Agreement (SLA) applies to all hosting plans. Measurements are taken from a selection of sites against static HTML pages using our own monitoring software at intervals of 15 minutes. This information is not publicly available.
Targets
- Site availability target, 99.95% over a given month per server.
- Response to support emails during office hours within 15 minutes (all emails regarding support must be made to support@wisshost.com)
We will make all reasonable effort to effect a repair or recover a service where ever possible.
Problem notification
All notifications should be classified as detailed below. Only critical notification should be made by telephone, all other notification must be addressed to the email address above.
You must ensure that you provide accurate detailed information at the time of notification. If you are unable to do this you may be asked to provide this information before any further action can be taken.
During problem resolution you may be told that a problem is not apparent or that system are working as normal in which case you are expected to carry out further investigation prior to attempting resolution with us as it has been shown that many issues are the result of events outside our influence.
An email notification cannot be responded to if it falls into any SPAM traps or virus filters.
Problem classification
Critical
When a web site, email or data service is unavailable for more the 15 minutes and you have taken all steps to determine that the problem is not caused by problems with your local connectivity or by any third party system.
Non-critical
Includes degraded performance and slow system response times.
Emergency maintenance
Whilst every effort will be made to contact the client where emergency maintenance is required WiSS reserves the right to undertake maintenance at any time without notice where such maintenance is deemed critical.
Client obligations
You shall ensure that they make regular backups of all data including email, web site files, web site data both static and dynamic and any other information which relates to the general functionality and availability of their web site.
You shall have a disaster recovery plan in the event that we are unable to effect a resolution quickly.
Telephone calls and email message made during a severe outage are less likely to be answered or dealt with a quickly as we would like, as our resources will be focused on bringing services back to operational level. The client is expected to exercise due restraint in demanding answers to questions during a crisis in order to effect a resolution as quickly as possible.
You are not entitled to demand or receive a reason why a failure occurred.
You are expected to have full and up to date insurance to cover any financial loss which may be incurred as a result of a system failure or loss of data for whatever reason.
It is imperative that confidential information such as customer credit cards are NEVER stored on a public facing web server and any data that is key to the operation of a business is maintained by the client separately.
You adhere to our Terms and Conditions.
Payment
Charges may be incurred by the client if:
- We deal with client personnel who have insufficient understanding of the workings of the website.
- Rectification of any problem which turns out not to be due to inherent problems our systems.
- The client fails to adequately to consult documentation supplied.
- Providing the services outside your normal office working hours .
- Web site data restoration and/or re-establishment necessitated by reasons beyond our control.
Remedy
All incidents are dealt with as quickly as possible during office hours and are normally remedied within an hour of being reported. Calls made outside office hours may incur an additional delay.
However, as we use third party equipment and software (servers. operating systems, routers, switches etc.) many incidents are caused by factors beyond our control that require reconfiguration or even complete replacement that may incur larger time delays.
It is always difficult to predict how long an outage will last as this depends on the severity. Outages that are due to network failure outside our control are dependant on repairs being made by the relevant authority. Such occurrences are extremely rare as we subscribe to a peering arrangement whereby our bandwidth is by redundant feed. During network outages, bandwidth and apparent server performance may be impacted but services should remain viable.
Should a severe hardware failure occur on a non clustered server, the server may be out of action for a considerable time as repairs can take as long as a day or two to effect. We make regular back ups of vital information for configuration stores (IIS meta base, mail configuration etc). We constantly improve our systems to minimise downtime.
WiSS does NOT back up customer web sites as a general rule, therefore it is essential that the customer has a local copy of their web site should disk corruption occur. No matter what steps are taken there is always the risk that total data loss may occur.
Should a server failure occur then data (if possible) is transferred to a spare server along with configuration information, this server is brought on line as quickly as possible.
Claims
Any claims for recompense must be made in writing within 30 days of month end. Compensation payments are made at our discretion and are limited to the pro rata value of the service as advertised on this site. Third party or other liabilities will not be entertained, please ensure your insurance covers these losses.
Measurement data will be available upon request only to current hosting customers and must be considered company confidential, disclosure of these results to any third party will be treated as a breach of trust and void the SLA.
Force majeure
This SLA does not apply where outages are beyond our control. This includes:
- Terrorist activities
- Strikes
- Acts of God
- Network infrastructure issues beyond our control
- Electricity supply problems beyond our control