As part of the Vconfex platform, the Provider (“Vconfex”) provides:
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 |
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 |
|
|
Days |
Monday-Sunday |
|
Time |
0:00-0:00 (GMT +5.30) |
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.
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.