User Guide. Informatica GCS Services, Policies and Procedures

Transcription

1 User Guide Informatica GCS Services, Policies and Procedures (Version 10.5)

2 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Global Customer Support About this guide Chapter 2: Terminology Accounts and Projects Maintenance Agreements Contacts Service Requests (also referred as SRs) Chapter 3: Customer Support Programs Overview Support Programs Description Support Components Additional Support and Maintenance Benefits Value Added Support Services Maintenance Renewals Policies Chapter 4: Contacting Support Global Customer Support Centers New Customers Renewals Chapter 5: Global Customer Support Team Support Engineers Product Specialist Engineers Customer Liaison Chapter 6: Support Procedure Opening a Service Request Solving a Service Request Closing a Service Request Feature Requests, Change Requests and Emergency Bug Fixes Confidentiality Third Party Vendors Priorities and Severity SR Life Cycle Escalations Chapter 7: Product Release Policy New Releases Table of Contents 1

3 Product Version Lifecycle Third Party Product Compatibility Chapter 8: My Support Registering Accessing Online Support Change Request Tracking Knowledge base and Support Solutions Center Discussions Service Requests on the Web Opening a New Service Request Updating an Existing Service Request Adding an Attachment Closing a Service Request Technical Profile Manage Contacts Chapter 9: Configuration Support Manager Overview Launching the Configuration Support Manager Configuration Details Chapter 10: Support Raising a New Service Request Updating an Existing Service Request Requesting a product upgrade Reviewing an Existing Service Request Chapter 11: FTP Site Overview Features Access Details FTP Server Organization Suggested FTP Clients Chapter 12: Customer Surveys Table of Contents

4 C HAPTER 1 Introduction Global Customer Support Informatica is committed to ensuring that our customers and partners are successful in deploying and using Informatica products, wherever they are located. Informatica Global Customer Support, or GCS, is a team of dedicated support personnel operating from support centers in North and South America, Asia, and Europe. From these centers, GCS provides a range of support products to meet the varying needs of customers and partners, including support in a variety of languages (English, Italian, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin and Korean), coverage on a 24x7 basis for those who need it, and communication via , telephone, or the Internet. To provide an effective and efficient service to our customers, GCS has invested in a sophisticated support system which ensures that all questions and issues raised are logged, addressed, and tracked through to completion. The system builds a history for each customer and allows GCS to pass valuable information back to our research and development teams. About this guide This guide introduces our customers and partners to the full range of support services available from Informatica. It is designed to help customers use support services as easily and as effectively as possible. It covers what each level of service offers, how it operates, what to expect, and the roles and responsibilities of both support personnel and customer contacts. This guide also covers the background to the provision of support services such as product version releases, their life cycles and dependencies. Informatica is constantly seeking ways of enhancing its support services and consequently this guide is subject to change. The latest version of this guide is available on the Informatica portal My Support (mysupport.informatica.com) Global Customer Support 4

5 C HAPTER 2 Terminology Before we look further at the support services, it is important to understand some of the terminology used within Informatica GCS. Informatica has tried to organize its support systems to match the way in which its customers have deployed Informatica products. Accounts and Projects Many of the world s leading organizations use Informatica products. The adoption and success of a product in one part of an organization often leads to further adoption of Informatica products in other areas of that organization. This model is used to log and track activity in Informatica s support system. The first time a customer purchases a product and support from Informatica an Account is opened in our support system. A project is assigned to that account to reflect the customers project. If the same customer subsequently purchases more licenses for another project then a new project will be created and associated to the same customer account. Accounts and Projects 5

6 Maintenance Agreements When customers initially purchase a product (or products) from Informatica, they also purchase support and maintenance, commonly for one year. This is known within GCS as a Maintenance Agreement. Towards the end of the maintenance period, the customer will be contacted with a quote for renewing the agreement. Without a valid agreement, customers will not be able to contact Informatica GCS for help or receive any upgrades and enhancements. In order to receive support, a project must have a valid maintenance agreement on a production copy of Informatica Software. Contacts A contact in this context is a person who is working on a project. A project can have three different types of contact: primary, read only, and read/write. Primary Contact: This is the person the customer nominates to be responsible for maintaining the integrity of the contact list for their project. This may be, for example, the Project Manager. Quite often if this is the case, they will not want to raise Service Requests (SRs) with Informatica, so may be they are a read-only contact. Read Only: Read-only contacts cannot raise new Service Requests (SRs) or update existing SRs. However, they do have access to online support through the My Support portal so they can view all SRs associated with their project and search the Knowledge Base. Read/Write:Read/write contacts can raise new and update existing SRs. The number of read/write contacts a project is entitled to depends on the level of agreement purchased. See section 3. Although a contact will normally be employed by the same company that has purchased the product, a customer may use one of Informatica s consulting partners to develop the project. The customer may choose who it has as its contacts. Service Requests (also referred as SRs) Each time a question or issue is raised with Informatica GCS, the details are recorded in our support system. Each separate question or issue generates a unique reference number. This is the Service Request reference number, or SR number. Maintenance Agreements 6

7 C HAPTER 3 Customer Support Programs Overview Informatica provides three support programs tailored to meet differing business requirements (For Cloud Support refer to section Informatica Cloud Enterprise Support: Overview 7

8 Support Programs Description Standard Support Standard support is an entry level support program for implementation of Informatica products where projects do not span more than a single time zone. Projects with a standard contract may nominate six read/write project contacts within their business to contact Informatica Global Customer Support. Customers will have full access to content rich self help facilities. Customers with Standard Support are encouraged to open service requests using My Support. SRs will be progressed during normal office hours of the location where the Informatica server components are installed. Enterprise Support Enterprise support is designed for customers who have multiple projects utilizing Informatica products either in a single location or across multiple geographies. Projects with an Enterprise contract may nominate eight read/write contacts. In addition, Enterprise support provides access to customer support engineers 24 hours per day, 7 days a week for Priority 1 SRs. (See Priorities and Severity for details on P1 SRs). Enterprise Support provides access to support enablement material and free use of the Support Console, software produced by our support team to streamline the management and support of applications in the Informatica environment. During the working day, customers can access support by any of the usual mechanisms. However, to access support outside of daytime working hours, support must be contacted by telephone using the standard telephone number. Outside of working hours, telephone calls will automatically be routed to a support center that is open. However, contact by and through the Internet/customer portal will not be reviewed until the start of the next working day. Support outside of normal business hours is only available in English. Mission Critical Support Mission Critical support is aimed at customers with multiple projects where latency and performance are key factors to the success of a project. Customers opting for Mission Critical Support will benefit from a faster response time for high priority issues as well as shorter target resolution times. This level provides all of the services of Enterprise support and additionally provides the option to have a designated engineering team within the Informatica support organization. In addition, for those customers who have made significant investment in Informatica products, GCS will provide a Support Account Manager (SAM). (The role of the SAM is detailed in section Support Account Manager). Projects with Mission Critical support can have up to 12 nominated read/write contacts. Mission Critical support includes 12 months of extended support, sufficient training credits to send your representative on a 5 day public Informatica University course, a Support Account manager, and target service restoration times. To qualify for all of the benefits included in Mission Critical Support such as the SAM and Education Services, there is a minimum amount of licenses that must be covered at this level. For details please contact your Account Manager or our Maintenance Renewals Team by ing Informatica Support Alert. Informatica Cloud Enterprise Support Ensuring Mission-Critical Customer Success in the Cloud Informatica recognizes that the success of your enterprise data integration strategy depends not only on the strength of the software, but also on superior and timely service and support. Tailored for medium and large enterprises, Informatica Cloud Enterprise Support provides 24x7 access to our support staff globally for P1 issues Support Programs Description 8

9 covering you against costly downtime due to process or technical errors. As part of this program, you also can choose to have your issues worked on a follow the sun basis, thereby decreasing time-to-resolve. In addition to all that is offered in our Standard level of support, the Enterprise support level provides access to e-learning materials, and a simplified escalation process. Enterprise Support Components: Simplified Online Escalation: Customers can simply and effectively escalate an open service request to Informatica GCS management by selecting the escalate button available on My Support. Continued Response SLA: Customers with Enterprise Support are provided with the additional benefit of an ongoing response service level agreement, providing customers with a guaranteed timely update to their issues. Priority P1 P2 P3 Updates provided at least every 2 Hours 8 Hours 12 Hours Global 24 x 7 Support: Customers with this support component are able to contact a member of Informatica Global Customer Support (GCS) to discuss technical P1 issues at any time of day. Calls will be routed to the support engineer best placed to help with the problem based on the time of day. Live Chat: Real-time, online chat session with a member of the Informatica Cloud Support Team for how-to questions or support issues. Live Chat is available for our Enterprise Cloud customers on a 8*5 basis. Priority Queuing: If customers, who are entitled to this element of our support offering, find themselves in a situation where they are having to hold in a queue on the telephone, then their call will automatically be prioritized over those customers with standard support. For more information, cloud_integration_answers@informatica.comsu Support Programs Description 9

10 Support Programs Overview Support Components Product Enhancements/Updates Customers who have a project with a valid support and maintenance agreement are entitled to receive hot fixes and patches for their Informatica products. Hot fixes are produced for the current and one previous release. Additionally, supported customers can request for the latest versions of Informatica products that they have purchased as and when they become available. Online Knowledge Base Through the My Support portal, customers can search a wealth of information to help answer their questions or resolve their problems 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. In addition to the many traditional knowledgebase articles, there are also multimedia articles to provide even more clarity across the range of Informatica products. Moderated Support Forums Customers have full access to discussions that are moderated by Informatica, allowing customers, partners, and enthusiasts to share knowledge and solve problems. Support Components 10

11 Configuration Support Manager Customers can manage their Informatica environment by uploading their configuration through My Support. A script is provided for the customer to download and run, which will capture all pertinent information. Configurations can be created, updated, deleted, and compared. Health checks can be performed and personalized alerts can be sent through or RSS feeds. CSM is available for the following products: Informatica Platform PowerCenter Data Quality Master Data Management Identity Resolution Application ILM Emergency Bug Fix If a customer finds a bug in the product that either stops production or prevents a key milestone being achieved and puts deadlines at risk, and there is no valid workaround, Informatica will provide an Emergency Bug Fix (EBF). For those customers that choose mission critical support, GCS will ensure that any EBF request is prioritized and driven through the process. Initial Response P1 P2 Standard Support 4 hours Enterprise Support 1 hour 4 hours Mission Critical Support 30 minutes 2 hours Assisted Web Based Support Before opening a service request, customers are encouraged to log into My Support and search the Knowledge Base, browse the support solution center, or use the discussions. In addition there is a section containing debugging tools to assist with the isolation and resolution of issues. The majority of issues can be resolved in this way. If no solution is found, then a service request can be opened and the customer will be prompted to attach all relevant information to allow a support engineer to start isolating and resolving the problem. Web, and Telephone Support Customers with Enterprise or Mission Critical Support can open a service request in one of three ways; using the telephone, using , or through the My Support portal. The preferred method of opening a service request for Standard customers is through the My Support portal. Global 24 x 7 P1 Support Customers with a valid Enterprise or Mission Critical maintenance contract may open high-priority service requests (Priority 1, or P1) outside of normal working hours. Such requests can be opened through or through the My Support portal. However, to ensure that the issue has been received by Informatica GCS, it should be followed up with a telephone call. The call will be routed to an engineer in the support center who is best equipped to handle the request. Support Components 11

12 Continued Response SLA Customers with Enterprise and Mission Critical Support are provided with the additional benefit of an ongoing response service level agreement, providing customers with a guaranteed timely update to their issues. Priority P1 P2 P3 Updates provided at least every 2 Hours 8 Hours 12 Hours Support Enablement Material Read/Write contacts from customers that have Enterprise support will have access to all enablement material from GCS. Global 24 x 7 Support Customers with this support component can contact a member of Informatica GCS to discuss technical issues at any time of the day. The call will be routed to the support engineer best placed to help with the problem based on the time of day. Follow the Sun SR Handling GCS has a number of support centers around the globe enabling us to pass a P1 SR from one center to another, effectively providing the ability to work on a problem around the clock. During problem isolation and resolution, our engineers may require additional information from customers. If they are not available, this will delay our progress and work will not be able to start again until the requested information is available and the case may be downgraded. Designated Engineering Team To enhance the level of understanding of a project, a team of designated engineers will handle service requests from the customer. This improves continuity, allows customer contacts and the designated team to build a closer working relationship, and provides the team with a better context within which to provide assistance. Support Account Manager For those customers that choose the Mission Critical level of support and have purchased the prerequisite level of licensing, Informatica shall provide a Support Account Manager (SAM). The SAM will: Work with the customer to understand their business imperitives and how Informatica products are being utilized Gain an understanding of the customer's project and key milestones Co-ordinate Informatica resources to drive timely resolution of any issues Proactively manage customer support issues Work with the customer to ensure migration plans are in place to stay on currently supported releases Organize regular conference calls with the customer to review activity for the previous period 50 Training Credits Customers with Mission Critical Support that have purchased the prerequisite level of licensing will be entitled to 50 training credits. These training credits can be exchanged for e-learning classes or for days on Public Classes. As Support Components 12

13 an example, a 4 day PowerCenter Level 1 Public Course is 40 training credits. Please visit Informatica Global Education Services to learn more about education services. eservice Apps There is some additional functionality available through MySupport for those customers purchasing Enterprise or Mission Critical Support. There is a simplified process for escalating a case by simply clicking on a button within the eservice environment. Customers are able to click on a button within eservice to request a call back from the engineer dealing with their service request. This fully integrates with our CTI technology. Mobile apps will be available for Android and ipad devices. Remote Access When useful in aiding a customer with a service request, Informatica may offer to link in to the customer s systems to review information and assist with customer testing. This step will only be used after customer consent and where the customer also has the appropriate infrastructure. Informatica s preferred method of remote support is to use an Internet-based facility provided by WebEx. Target Service Restoration The following target service restoration times are available for PowerCenter, PowerExchange, MDM, and ILM range of products. P1 P2 Standard Support N/A N/A Enterprise Support N/A N/A Mission Critical Support 24 Hours 48 Hours On final determination of the root cause of the error, Informatica will aim to provide a workaround within the timeframes shown in the accompanying table or, as mutually agreed, provide a fix that corrects the error provided that the root cause is confirmed as an Informatica error. For clarity, the definition of each priority is explained in the following table: Priority Severity Description P1 P2 P3 Development Down Or Production Down Production Severe Impact Or Development Severe Impact Development Minor Impact Or Production Minor Impact Emergency situation with no workaround. When a production system is down and/or has a critical impact on your business. Also applies when development is at a crucial stage and an issue prevents moving into production. Non-emergency but urgent situation with a workaround. General questions related to the product that need answers but are not urgent. Examples would be a how to question, questions related to the product compatibility, and basic questions about the functionality of the product. The request will be considered an enhancement request if it changes the behavior of the product. Support Components 13

14 Informatica Certified Specialist Exam Customers with Enterprise Support will have the opportunity to have one contact sit a certification exam once per year for no additional charge. Customers with Mission Critical Support will have the opportunity to have 3 contacts sit a certification exam once per year (or for one contact to sit 3 exams). 12 Months Extended Support for Sunset Versions A version of software is supported for 18 months after the release of the next major version of that product. For example, versions 9.x will be supported from release until 18 months following the General Availability (GA) release of version 10.x. Following this period, Informatica could provide a further 12 months of extended support for customers that pay an additional 25% of their Support and Maintenance fees. Customers on Mission Critical Support will be provided 12 months of extended support at no additional cost. Additional Support and Maintenance Benefits Electronic Alerts/Advisories SupportFlash, our monthly newsletter, contains updates on fixes to known issues along with tips and tricks that are relevant to our customers. Online SR Status Reporting Customers may review their service requests through the customer portal at any time. In addition, if customers want a report of their service requests, for example, in ExcelTM format, then they should contact the Customer Liaison team at Global Customer Support. Online Contact Maintenance The primary contact can delete, add, and update contact details on their support project by clicking on Edit under Manage Contacts. Additional Support and Maintenance Benefits 14

15 HotFix and Patch Download Customers can access and download the latest HotFixes from My Support. Patches are released through our FTP site. Debugging Tools Customers can troubleshoot issues by downloading the same tools that Informatica GCS uses. These tools can help customers resolve issues faster thereby improving productivity. Value Added Support Services Informatica GCS is constantly seeking ways to add value and improve the services provided to our customers. There are four offerings that Informatica GCS provides that have been designed to further strengthen the partnership between GCS and the customer. Project Milestone Support This offering provides short-term, proactive Informatica based assistance at critical stages during a project. Milestones can include migration of Informatica environments from test/development to production, migration of the Informatica production environment to a new server, installation or upgrade of products. The support offering includes the following: Review of milestone or project activity Mitigation of risks by identifying known issues or potential problems and review of third party software to ensure interoperability Real time support provided by a Support Engineer that has become familiar with the environment and project prior to the event thus saving time if a critical issue arises The aim of the project milestone support service is to provide customers with a proactive, collaborative service and therefore, reduce risk during a critical phase of a project. Informatica GCS involvement before the task to: Identify any "known" issues before commencing the activity Review of third party products and dependencies (operating system versions, database versions etc) Recommend steps or specific tasks to undertake Review success criteria Review roll-back plans Lower risk when implementing system changes by having direct support from experienced Informatica personnel Knowledge transfer Project Milestone Support is available for the following products: PowerCenter PowerExchange ILM MDM There will be some activities that will be beyond the scope of this service and it is possible that an Informatica Professional Services engagement is recommended. If this is the case, the customer will be informed once the activity has been scoped. Value Added Support Services 15

16 This service is restricted to 8 hours of dedicated time for the review and planning stage followed by a further 8 hours of standby support from the designated Informatica support engineer. A customer with Enterprise or Mission Critical Support may call on this service once during their support year. Customers with Standard Support, Enterprise Support or customers with Mission Critical Support who wish to purchase this service on an ad-hoc basis can do so for $3000. If additional standby support is required by the designated engineer to cover the milestone or project activity, it can be purchased for $1500 for each 8 hour period during office hours or $2000 outside of normal office hours. The service must be booked at least 10 working days in advance and is subject to the necessary resources being available. For more details on pricing and what is included in the offering, customers should contact their local support center and discuss with Customer Liaison or SupportAdmin@informatica.com. Installation and Operational Overview Informatica GCS, with its wealth of experience supporting Informatica customers, can present an overview of the product installation, configuration, and basic operational best practices thus enabling customers to quickly extract value out of our products and fast track their return on investment. This service is aimed to accelerate the knowledge of Informatica Administrators. The key features are outlined below: Overview of Environmental considerations Install process for Informatica products Tips and tricks Basic & Advanced troubleshooting On-going Administration Managed Remote Overview The objective of the Installation and operations overview value added service is to help existing and new customers get oriented on the installation and operation of Informatica products and modules. The broad benefits are: Faster orientation on Informatica products Presentation on configuring and operating Informatica products Knowledge transfer Lower risk when installing and configuring Informatica Products Installation and Operations Overview is available for the following products: PowerCenter PowerExchange ILM MDM The Offering does not cover: Informatica product design and development Installing Informatica products Debugging and solving third party issues Training on Informatica products This service is restricted to 8 hours of a dedicated resource, to plan and present materials to the customer and to answer any specific questions arising from the delivery of the service. A customer with Enterprise or Mission Critical Support may call on this service once during their support year. Customers with Standard Support, Enterprise Support or customers with Mission Critical Support who wish to purchase this service on an ad-hoc basis can do so for $1500. Value Added Support Services 16

17 The service must be booked in advance and is subject to the necessary resources being available. The prices shown assume the service will be delivered during normal office hours. For more details on pricing and what is included in the offering, customers should contact their local support center and discuss with Customer Liaison or Informatica Support Console The Support Console is a GCS offering that helps customers ensure their Informatica environment is monitored effectively. It facilitates detection of environment issues in near real-time and reduces the risk of a potential downtime. Support Console is available for the following products: Informatica 9.x PowerCenter 8.6.x ILM Feature Dashboard Instant Monitoring Threshold alerts and Notifications Advanced Diagnosis Effective system management Environment Reporting Insight (Metadata Reporting) Easy access to support Description - Provides details of Informatica domain and availability of services - Displays the latest log excerpts that contain critical errors - Provides access to knowledgebase articles based on log entries - Renders a graphical display of historic system availability details - Configures hosts to be monitored across the world - Monitors PowerCenter and Data Quality products with all the technical process level details - Monitors system resources such as memory, CPU, and disk utilization - Enables analysis of the collected data in graphical and tabular format - Supports Informatica 9 processes like Data Integration Service, Model Repository Service, Analyst Tool, Administrator Console etc. - Sends user-defined business alerts based on key attributes across the systems (memory, CPU and disk space), error logs, and Informatica processes - Enables reuse of rules across multiple environments - Enables notifications through , dashboard alerts, remote tools, and script executions - Provides personalized notifications and health check recommendations from Informatica on a periodic basis - Configures, executes, and schedules commonly used support tools to fix routine issues - Delivers instant alerts on process exceptions and stack trace analysis tools - Integrates a routine system health check seamlessly using the Configuration Support Manager (CSM) - Manages multiple systems through the same interface using agentless architecture on monitored hosts - Offers a secure connection from Support Console server to monitored hosts using SSH - Offers a secure HTTPS connection between Support Console and Informatica for the import of diagnostic routines - Provides historic reports on the data collected by Support Console - Enables Expression based filtering for the reports - Allows you to query on the properties of a session, workflow, or mapping - Provides reports in CSV/ PDF formats or sends reports through - Provides usage statistics of key areas like connection usage, transformation usage, and amount of data processed - Collects product logs, tools, and trace output in the application and opens a Service Request with Informatica Global Customer Support - Imports support tools and Informatica published business rules periodically - Provides access to a subject matter expert instantly with the live help option Informatica Support Console is available to all customers with Enterprise and Mission Critical Levels of Support. Value Added Support Services 17

18 Informatica Competency Center (ICC) Enablement As Informatica products become the standard for enterprise data integration in many organizations, customers are developing their own centers of excellence, integration competency centers, or shared services helpdesks. To help in the success of these organizations, Informatica has developed a program to share knowledge from our own skilled and experienced support engineers to one or two key individuals by inviting them to one of our own support centers. Customers will benefit from an increased knowledge of how to troubleshoot and isolate problems with Informatica products thereby improving their ability to resolve problems. Benefits include: Increased product knowledge Better understanding of the support process Ability to reproduce issues Clear understanding of what needs to be provided when raising an issue with Informatica GCS Overview of tools available to aid with problem isolation Quicker time to resolution Customers with Mission Critical Support may use this service once per contractual year and may send up to two people. Standard and Enterprise customers can purchase this as an additional service. For more details on pricing and what is included in the offering, customers should contact their local support center and discuss with Customer Liaison or SupportAdmin@informatica.com. Remote Health Check This service will ensure that the repository is performing at the highest possible levels; check that development standards are being adhered to across the projects and developers that are using the repository; and check for excess objects that may cause an administrative overhead. Unchecked repositories can lead to development cycles taking longer than expected, administrators having to work overtime to perform migrations and manage users, slow movement of data, and even security lapses that could compromise sensitive data. The health check service is delivered in partnership with Informatica Professional Services and customers using this service will have the opportunity to discuss the results with one of our expert consultants. Benefits of the service include: Accelerate development Review lack of standards and redundancy across your repository objects to ensure that your data integration metadata is set up for ease of development and maintenance Increase ROI of current environment Identify issues, including memory, concurrent caches and log settings across your repository that might degrade performance Optimize security settings Find duplicated or unused connections that could be a sign of security issues Decrease cost of operations and support Identify redundancies and discover opportunities for more effective maintenance of the repository Maintenance Renewals Policies Support Services for Software Cancellation and Re-Instatement Policy In the event that Customer cancels Support Services for Software, Customer may continue to use Software pursuant to Customer s license agreement with Informatica or its reseller. However, during any period during which Maintenance Renewals Policies 18

19 Customer is not enrolled in Support Services, no support or version updates of Software will be provided to Customer. To reinstate Support Services, Customer must pay to Informatica all accumulated support fees for the period during which Customer was not enrolled in Support Services, plus support fees for the annual term in which Customer reenrolls Software licenses under Support Services. Informatica will provide Support Services for only the latest major release of Software. In addition, should Support Services lapse for Software, upon their recommencement Customer will be assessed a reinstatement fee. The reinstatement fee is equal to 125% of the last paid annual support fee, prorated from the date Support Services are being ordered back to the date they lapsed. Customer must also purchase an additional twelve (12) months of Support Services for all licenses of Software whose support is being re-instated. For in-term cancellations, Customer will not receive any refund or credit of unexpired Support Services. Pricing Following Downgrade of Software Licenses or Level of Support Pricing for Support Services is based upon the volume of Software licenses and level of support chosen at the time that Support Services are ordered. In the event that Customer terminates a subset of licenses on a single order, or requests a reduction in the level of support, the price of Support Services for the remaining licenses on that order will be revised to reflect the Support Services list price in effect at the time of termination or reduction. This revised price will not exceed the price of Support Services that Customer previously paid for the original number of Software licenses. Maintenance Renewals Policies 19

20 C HAPTER 4 Contacting Support Global Customer Support Centers Nominated Project contacts can open a new SR or follow up on an existing SR by telephone, electronic mail, or the Internet. Support is available during office hours in the timezone where the licenses were purchased (Mon to Fri, 09:00 to 17:30 excluding public holidays). If your Project has Enterprise support or Mission Critical support, you can raise a new SR at any time. Please note: follow up urgent SRs opened by electronic mail or through the Internet with a telephone call to Informatica GCS because can be delayed. North America/South America Europe/Middle East/Africa Asia/Australia Toll Free - Brazil Mexico North America Toll Free - France Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Spain Switzerland United Kingdom Standard Rate - Belgium France Germany Netherlands United Kingdom Toll Free - Australia Asia Pacific China Support@informatica.com Internet: Addresses: Informatica Corporation 100 Cardinal Way Redwood City, CA Informatica Software Ltd 6 Waltham Park, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 3TN United Kingdom Informatica Business Solutions PVT. LTD. No. 66/1, Bagmane Commerz 02, Bagmane Tech Park, C V Raman Nagar, Global Customer Support Centers 20

21 Bangalore India New Customers When customers place their first product and support order with Informatica, details of their environment and appointed support contacts are noted, if available. At first contact, Informatica GCS will confirm these details and fill in any gaps such as addresses and phone numbers. Contacts from new projects or accounts can also register online at My Support. Renewals To receive services included in the support plans listed above, each customer must have an active maintenance agreement. Before the end of the support term, an Informatica representative will contact all accounts about support renewal. If for any reason such a contact does not occur, please notify us at SupportAdmin@informatica.com. For questions about maintenance contracts, changes to support plans, coterming of maintenance agreements, or the renewal date(s) for your maintenance contract(s), contact the nearest support center or support@informatica.com. New Customers 21

22 C HAPTER 5 Global Customer Support Team Support Engineers SRs are routed to the engineer best equipped to handle the problem based on preferred language of the customer, location, and product. Where possible, Informatica will try to ensure that the ownership of an SR remains with the engineer who was originally assigned the problem. Occasionally, when an SR requires some special handling, it may be handed off to another member of the team. The engineers work on a rota system and are available to handle SRs raised by , telephone, or the World Wide Web. If all of our engineers are busy on the telephone but one of our Customer Liaison representatives is available, the call will be diverted to one of them. Under these circumstances, our Customer Liaison representative will log the SR into our system and allocate it to a support engineer to resolve. If all routes are busy, the call will be diverted to voic . Product Specialist Engineers When support engineers require additional technical help on a specific issue, they will enlist the help of a product specialist. Where practical, the ownership of the SR will stay with the original engineer to maintain continuity with the customer. However, when very specialized knowledge is required, the SR may be handed off to the Product Specialist. Customer Liaison One of our customer liaison representatives will handle requests for documentation, latest product releases, and maintenance enquiries. Support Engineers 22

23 C HAPTER 6 Support Procedure Informatica encourages its customers to reference the knowledgebase, online help, and product documentation before raising an SR with support because many questions can be answered using these resources. If a customer's enquiry cannot be answered in this way, a read/write contact should use , telephone, or My Support to reach Informatica GCS. Opening a Service Request When a service request is opened, an SR number is automatically generated. This number is given to the customer and used to track progress. The project's primary contact will automatically receive an confirming the opening of the SR. The customer will be asked to confirm (or provide) basic information about the environment and to describe the problem, question, or issue. Informatica support and the customer will agree on the priority of the SR. For high-priority SRs, the primary concern is to find a way for customers to achieve their objective as quickly as possible. This may involve providing a solution directly for the problem or supplying an acceptable alternative method for achieving their objective, termed a workaround. Please note, when an SR is initially opened through or the customer portal, the customer may select the SR priority level. However, the customer should always contact GCS by telephone for a high-priority issue. Solving a Service Request When a service request cannot be solved or answered immediately, Informatica will research documentation and its database of SRs and issues that have arisen in the past. Many questions and problems can be answered after this research. If an SR proves more difficult to resolve, Informatica may ask the customer to provide additional information. For example, if the issue is related to the operation of a particular mapping or workflow, then Informatica will request a copy of the mapping or entire repository and possibly sanitized data; if the issue involves connectivity to a particular source or target system, then configuration files might be requested. It should be noted that often the additional information we require to help isolate and resolve problems may require the co-operation of other departments within the customers environment. For example, we may need information from UNIX administrators, database administrators and network administrators. With more complex SRs, Informatica will focus on first reproducing the case on Informatica's own equipment. This allows more extensive testing to be performed without impacting the customer's work schedule. Opening a Service Request 23

24 It is sometimes necessary to ask the customer to supply additional information and perform additional tests. Informatica will always seek to explain why such actions are necessary. Closing a Service Request Once an answer or solution (including an accepted workaround) has been given for an SR, Informatica support will, with the customer's agreement, close the SR. If, after closing an SR, the problem does recur, then the SR can be reopened. If the problem occurs again more than four weeks after the original SR was closed, a new SR will be opened with a reference made to the original. Informatica GCS will attempt to contact a customer at least three times during two weeks. If the customer does not respond, then the SR will be closed. When an SR is closed, an is automatically sent to the primary project contact and the SR contact. Feature Requests, Change Requests and Emergency Bug Fixes If a customer raises an SR for building additional functionality into an Informatica product or for enhancing existing functionality, GCS will raise an internal request- known as an FR, or feature request-with the development team. Feature requests are logged into a database and considered by the product management team for inclusion in a future release. Once an FR has been raised, GCS will close the SR. If a customer requests a change to existing functionality or finds a minor bug that has a valid workaround, a CR, or change request, will be logged with development. Again, the product management team will evaluate it for possible inclusion in a future release and GCS will close the SR. If a customer finds a bug in the product that either stops production or delays moving from a development environment to a production environment and puts deadlines at risk, and there is no valid workaround, Informatica will provide an emergency bug fix (EBF). The EBFs will be delivered in the fom of a hot fix that contains a delivery of all EBFs that have been opened for the product in the previous period. Hot fixes are produced for the current and one previous version. In this situation, the SR is kept open until the fix is delivered and the customer tests it. Confidentiality To solve some SRs, additional information might be required such as a detailed description of the project's environment, a copy of the repository, or a sample of the project's data. Informatica GCS has processes in place for handling sensitive data. Third Party Vendors Informatica products support a wide variety of other vendors' applications and operating platforms. A list of the supported operating systems, databases, and ERP systems is available in the Product Availability Matrix on My Support. Closing a Service Request 24

25 Informatica cannot be held responsible for any faults that arise as a result of problems with third-party products. On occasion, Informatica GCS may advise customers to raise an issue with another vendor. In these situations, Informatica GCS is happy to work with other vendors to find a solution for the customer. Priorities and Severity Each SR is assigned a priority and a severity. The following table is designed to help customers determine the appropriate priority and severity to assign to an SR: Priority Severity Description 1 Development Down or Production Down 2 Production Severe Impact or Development Severe Impact 3 Development Minor Impact or Production Minor Impact Emergency situation with no work-around. When a production system is down and/or has a critical impact on your business. Also applies when development is at a crucial stage and an issue prevents moving into production Non-emergency but urgent situation with a workaround. General questions related to the product that need answers but are not urgent. Examples would be a "how to" question or questions related to the product compatibility and basic questions about functionality of the product. The request will be considered an enhancement request if it changes the behavior of the product P1 SRs should only be raised through the telephone to ensure that the Informatica GCS staff correctly understands the problem immediately. When a P1 SR is raised, we ask that the customer contact be available to work with Informatica GCS through to completion without major delays. The priority of the SR can be changed under the following circumstances: A P1 will be downgraded if a technical support engineer from Informatica GCS has tried multiple times to contact the customer in a 24-hour period without success. The severity of the SR will remain unchanged. Similarly a P2 may be lowered to a P3 if a customer does not respond in a timely manner. Otherwise, the priority of an SR will only be lowered with the customer's agreement. The priority will be increased if the problem becomes more urgent and is in line with the guide given in the earlier table. SR Life Cycle Informatica has a predefined life cycle for each SR that is raised in our support system. The following diagram shows the various stages that an SR will go through together with the response times for each priority: Priorities and Severity 25