Service level agreement

1 Components of the Service Level Agreement

1.1 In the signed offer one subscription plan is selected per service instance: Team, Business or Enterprise.

1.2 The Service Level Agreement (SLA) per service instance comprises three components of quality aspects: SLA Goals, Backup Plan and Business Continuity Plan.

1.3 Firstly, the SLA Goals component regulates the availability and responsiveness of IT services and support. The selected subscription plan typically determines the SLA goals applied to the subscription. The available predefined SLA Goals are described in section 4. Customer-specific SLA arrangements can be agreed on in the offer. If nothing specifically is agreed, SLA Team will be assumed.

1.4 Secondly, the SLA component Backup Plan regulates the creation of backups of the system and data and their retention. The available predefined backup plans are described in section 6. Customer-specific plans can be agreed on in the offer. If nothing specifically is agreed, Backup Plan Week will apply.

1.5 Thirdly, the SLA component Business Continuity Plan defines the targets regarding the handling of extensive system failures. The available predefined business continuity plans are described in section 7. If nothing specifically is agreed, Business Continuity Plan Standard will apply.

2 Definitions

2.1 The operating time is the period of time during which the productive systems are available to the customer.

2.2 The standby time is the period of time during which provider staff can ensure support of the service and receive and process messages. The time measurement for the response and resolution time is interrupted for the time outside the standby time.

2.3 The time to first response is understood to be the period of time within the standby time from the time the message is received in the linkyard customer portal (https://servicedesk.linkyard.ch/) until it is put to work by an employee of the Provider.

2.4 The resolution time is understood to be the period of time within the standby time from the beginning of the processing of a message by an employee of the Provider until its resolution (fault elimination or answering the request) minus the waiting time for solution contributions by the Customer or third parties commissioned by the Customer.

2.5 Downtime defines a period during operating time within which the service was entirely unavailable to the users.

2.6 The system availability is evaluated on an annual basis and is calculated from the operating time minus the system downtime in relation to the operating time, whereby announced interruptions during the agreed maintenance windows are not counted as system downtime.

2.7 A maintenance window is the period of time during which the provider is allowed to carry out planned maintenance work on the system.

3 Error classes

3.1 Software errors and operational faults are divided into the following error classes:

3.2 The defect classes Blocker and Critical are considered significant defects, the defect classes Average and Minor are considered insignificant defects.

4 SLA package

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Service times, system availability

Response time during office hours

Response time outside office hours

4.1 Office Hours are: Monday to Friday 07:00-18:00, excluding federal and cantonal holidays of the Canton of Bern

5 Maintenance windows

5.1 The provider may apply changes to the test and production systems without prior notice at any time. Any downtime caused by such changes is taken into account for the calculation of system availability.

5.2 The provider applies changes to the system on the basis of a risk analysis. For changes with considerable risks, the provider may request the customer to conduct tests prior to the application to the production system.

5.3 Major planned maintenance work (e.g. elaborate software updates, migrations, etc.) takes place at a time explicitly agreed with the customer in advance. The corresponding system downtime is not taken into account in the calculation of system availability.

6 Backup plan

*With cluster/data centre location still functioning, up to 100 GB of data

7 Business continuity plans

8 Reporting & Penalties

8.1 The Provider reports on the status of its clusters and planned mainte-nance windows via http://status.linkyard.ch/. The customer may sub-scribe to announcements.

8.2 SLA reports on system availability are evaluated yearly by the Provider. In case of a contractual breach, a penalty calculated based on the percentage in below table of to the total invoiced subscription price of the SLA period considered is reimbursed to the customer in the form of a discount on future subscription fees invoiced.

8.3 If other targets are breached, no penalties are owed by the Provider. In return, the Provider must analyze and report the causes that lead to the breach and propose measures to discuss with the customer.

8.4 Notwithstanding the preceding provisions on the contractual penalty, any liability of the Provider for any damages on the part of the Customer or third parties is excluded to the extent permitted by law. If the exclusion of liability does not apply in individual cases, the contractual penalty shall be offset against the liability for damages.