Want to ensure broadcast quality production for all your events? Introducing Vconfex Studio. Learn More arrow icon

Vconfex Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Specification


Introduction


As part of the Vconfex platform, the Provider (“Vconfex”) provides:

  • A Hosting Service with related components. Vconfex solution is hosted on Amazon AWS with zone
    located in us-east-1d -North Virginia, USA
  • A Maintenance service for the Application and Platform including both corrective maintenance and
    enhancements.
  • A Customer Support Service for the Application and Platform
    This document outlines the terms under which these services are offered and the associated service
    levels.

1. Hosting Services


1.1 CUSTOMER

ENVIRONMENT DEFINITION
Customer Resources
As part of the Hosting Service and platform, each customer will have the following resources:

Resources Availability
Application

Dedicated Application Server Instance

Yes

Application Database management (monitoring, tuning, configuration, backup/recovery)

Yes

Customer data

Dedicated logically segregated database structure

Yes

Dedicated database access pools

Yes

Dedicated access logs

Yes

Network resources

Delivery of contents using specialized CDN service provider for the hosted site images and client side scripts

Yes

Security behind redundant Firewalls

Yes

Availability using redundant load balancers

Optional

Hosting Infrastructure

Secured Facility (24X7) surveillance, secured access, motion detectors

Yes

Redundant power (grid power supply, UPS, Power breakers, Parallel Battery, Diesel power generators)

Yes

Redundant first Tier carriers

Yes

1.2 SERVICE AVAILABILITY

Vconfex will take all appropriate measures in terms of redundancy, monitoring and platform
management so as to guarantee the following service availability outside of planned maintenance
windows as described in this document:

Service Availability*

0:00-0:00            (GMT), Monday to Friday

99.95 %

0:00-0:00            (GMT), 7 days a week

99

 

*As measured over a contract subscription period and does not include scheduled maintenance time.
The Service is deemed unavailable when access to the login page is not possible from all public networks and confirmed by
Vconfex technical staff.

2. Security Infrastructure


2.1 DATA PRIVACY

Vconfex will constantly ensure the use of the latest state-of-the art technology and procedures at its
disposal to guarantee the security of the data hosted.

2.2 SECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE

The following section provides details of current security infrastructure at Vconfex’s hosting facilities
which includes:
• Intrusion detection services
• Security monitoring
• Security enforcement
• Back up services
• Restricted Physical Access
• Restricted Network Access
• Secured Data Access

Infrastructure
• Load balanced firewalls
• Redundant HTTP Load Balancers
• Isolated public/private LANs
• Content Delivery network.
• Standby Database/Application

2.3 SECURITY MONITORING DESCRIPTION

Firewall
• Real-time detection with IDS Identifies threats from unauthorized users, back-door attackers and
hackers
• Data collected through firewalls, detection sensors and VPN devices instantly
terminate any unauthorized sessions.
• No Emails relaying
• No long-timeout URL

System logs

• System logs on web services up to one week old.
• Continuous error log parsing for immediate issue resolution.

System 24/7 monitoring

• Firewall Services
• LAN Traffic
• Load Balancer Services
• Site Availability Services

Security enforcement description

• User Login
• User Session Establishment
• Use of 40, 56 or 1024 bits certificates (Optional)
• Use of Authorized Trusted Mode Connection Gateway
• Session Timeout for Inactive Users

2.4 SYSTEM BACK UP

Backup Data
• Complete Customer data
• Document Attachments (If applicable)
• User Profiles (If applicable)
• System Logs
• Search Agents

Backup Execution
Backups are performed in a hot backup mode (i.e. no interruption of Service), on a daily basis. The
degradation of performances related to the backup process is negligible. Backups are incremental.
Restoration is provided in case of a major damage on the production platform.

Backup Tapes Retention Duration
All backups are run on a daily basis, including weekends. Vconfex also performs a full backup of the
system on a weekly basis.

2.5 RECOVERY TIME ON MAJOR FAILURE

Vconfex will ensure that all the main components of the platform are redundant with active fail over
capacity. In the event of a major failure, the following recovery time are applied:

Severity

Work begins within

Resolution Time

Critical

Within 30 Minutes

3 hours

Major

Within 1 Hour

8 hours

Minor

As per priority of the client

As per mutually agreed release schedule

Exceptions in maintenance policy on Application
In the event of a major technical issue or breakdown by the provider of 3rd party software or
services being used in the production platform of a given release, Vconfex has the right not to
provide fixes on “Critical” severity incident, provided another release that includes the fix can be
made available to the customer.

2.6 MAINTENANCE PATCHES

Maintenance patches provides bug fixes, performance and SLA improvement through patches
Additional features and change requests might also be added, based on market needs. Such
features and change requests do not impact the current configuration of the customer, nor
require additional training.
Release notes that describe the new features and changes requests, as well bugs being fixed are
communicated to the system administrator after the patch is deployed.

Patch Category
There are 2 categories of patches:
• Normal patches include fixes on critical/major/minor severity bugs, as well as a combination of
change requests and small features. These maintenance patches are deployed weekly during the
maintenance window.
• Emergency patches include fixes on issues that are qualified as urgent by Vconfex, or related to high
severity bugs, security threats, performance, or availability. Emergency patches are deployed as
required.

Release Process
Maintenance patches are deployed as required for all customers of a given release. Deployment occurs
preferably in low system traffic time. The deployment is most of the time automatic. All existing setup
and data will be kept as it.
No user or administrator intervention. This does not require any manual intervention of customer
administrator.

3. Data Ownership and Access


Data Ownership
All user data generated by the customer pursuant to the provision of services in the contract shall be
owned exclusively by the customer.

Data Retention
User data will be held only as long as is necessary to implement, administer and manage the
customer’s use of the Vconfex platform. Once the contract between the two companies expires, all user
and reporting data will be deleted from Vconfex servers and backups.
The customer can also submit a written request to delete this data at any time. Once the data is
deleted, Vconfex can provide an official data destruction certificate upon request.

Data access
The customer will always have full access to user and reporting data. Access for Vconfex team members
will be granted as needed on the principle of least privilege.

4. Customer Support

4.1 SUPPORT DESCRIPTION

Customer Support Services are delivered in English or languages may be available, based on
the language skills of the support team. Incidents may be reported to the Vconfex Support Center
using several possible methods like, email, Phone, Internet form.

Support Infrastructure
Vconfex Customer Support Center operates on email-based trouble ticketing where all support tickets
are logged and dispatched. All reported incidents are classified for severity with 3 levels of incidents
severity (minor, major, critical) triggering different internal resolution procedures and escalation
routes.
Vconfex support organization will come back to the customer within an agreed time frame, based
on the severity of the Incident. This contact will indicate the ticket #, the severity of the incident,
as well as the expected time frame for providing a temporary fix/workaround, as well as a
permanent resolution to the incident. There is an automatic notification of “high” severity
incidents to Vconfex Customer Administrator, System Administrator.

Incident Resolution Follow Up
Each incident resolution is communicated to the user who reported it as well as the Customer
Administrator.

4.2 PHONE HOURS

Vconfex offers several Hot-line availability options:

 

Standard Support

Phone/Email

Days

Monday-Friday

Time

9:00 –18:00 (GMT +5.30)

 

24 x 7 Support

Email

Days

Monday-Sunday

Time

0:00-0:00 (GMT +5.30)

5. Incident Resolution


5.1 SERVICE INCIDENT

A Service Incident is defined as a malfunction of the Vconfex BCCS which can be reproduced and whose root cause is foundin the hosting service solution such as: hosting service internal network, hosting service hardware or hosting service software components.

Incident Notification
The Vconfex System Administrator is responsible for notifying all identified users/customers for all incidents including Planned Downtime, as well as any Unplanned Interruptions to system availability as they occur. All users / customers are responsible for checking for downtime and system status notifications.

Problem Severity Classification 1

Severity

Description

Critical

A Service Incident is classified as high if the service is not available (refer to service availability)

Major

A problem is classified as major if a key feature or service is unavailable

Vconfex technical staff has the right to demote or promote the severity of any incident based on the
nature of that incident.

6. Operating Procedures


6.1 DEPLOYMENT OF NEW SERVICES

The following section details the terms under which Vconfex will open Maintenance Windows to
deploy patches, releases and platform upgrades.

Normal patch release

Deployment window

2 hours

Deployment schedule

Usually on weekends

Interruption of service

Usually none

Maximum interruption of service

2 hours

Upfront Notice Period Usually

2 days

Emergency patch release

Deployment window

2 hours

Deployment schedule

As required

Interruption of service

Usually none

Maximum interruption of service

8 hours

Upfront Notice Period

As required

Feature releases

Deployment window

8 to 48 hours

 

Deployment schedule

Weekends

Interruption of service

Usually Yes

Maximum interruption of service

24 hours

Upfront Notice Period

5 Days

Platform Upgrades

Deployment window

8 to 48 hours

Deployment schedule

Weekends – Maximum twice a year

Interruption of service

Yes

Maximum interruption of service

36 hours

Upfront Notice Period

2 weeks

For all service interventions, planned downtime within maintenance window is excluded from overall Uptime calculation.

Associated Partners

partner logo partner logo partner logo partner logo partner logo

Innovation Partners

innovation logo innovation logo innovation logo

Supporting Partners

supporting logo supporting logo supporting logo