Bloom Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service Level Agreement 1 SERVICE DESCRIPTION The Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service provides an enterprise-class level of assurance with regards to the performance of the Bloom service. The service uses sophisticated monitoring technologies to generate metrics based on actual delivery of web content to end users. These metrics are compiled into an industry-standard measurement known as Apdex (http://apdex.org). Apdex is an industry standard to measure users' satisfaction with the response time of an application or service. The solution gives application owners better insight into how satisfied users are, in contrast to traditional metrics like average response time, which can be skewed by a few very long responses. Service credits are provided to underpin the commitment to delivering impressive performance of the entire Bloom environment. Customers also receive access to the underlying performance monitoring statistics which provide a wealth of information on the day-byday, hour-by-hour demands made of your Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and the resulting performance delivered by ULCC s Bloom service. 2 SERVICE LEVEL 2.1 Service Credits The Customer agrees that the service credits referred to in this Agreement shall be the Customer s sole remedy, and ULCC s sole obligation, with respect to failures of the Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service to meet the service levels defined by this Agreement. Service credits shall be applied to the fees for the affected Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service for the subsequent period. In order to receive any service credit, the Customer must notify ULCC within thirty (30) days from the time Customer becomes eligible to receive a service credit. Failure to comply with this requirement will forfeit the Customer's right to receive a service credit. In order to be eligible, the Customer must be in compliance with the Agreement including the Reasonable Usage Policy. The maximum number of service credits to be issued by ULCC to the Customer during any given calendar month shall not exceed the fees paid by Customer for the affected Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service(s) for such month. 2.2 Reasonable Usage Policy The Reasonable Usage policy for the Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service is included as an appendix to this agreement. This policy is subject to change from time to time, which shall become effective upon ULCC posting a new version on the ULCC web site and notifying Customer of the new version. 2.3 Initial Access Date The Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service will be accessible within ten (10) Business Days after the applicable Effective Date, provided that Customer has submitted to ULCC a Primary URL and any other information required by ULCC. Service Charges shall start from the Initial Access Date, whether the Customer has submitted the requested information or not. 2.4 Applicability The performance monitoring provided by this service applies to the Primary Bloom Service only. It shall not apply to any associated Bloom environments including Pre-Production, DevBox, TestBox, LoadBox and Course Year Archive services. 2.5 Performance Metrics This clause replaces the Performance section (2.6) in the Bloom Service Level Agreement ULCC shall monitor every request made of the Bloom service 24/7/365. The response time of the Application server to each request shall be recorded. Each record shall be used to compile daily metric known as the Apdex value. Apdex is a measure of response time based against a set threshold. It measures the ratio of satisfactory response times to unsatisfactory response times. The response time is measured from an asset request to completed delivery back to the requestor. The application owner defines a response time threshold T. All responses handled in T or less time satisfy the user. The value of T shall be set at 0.5 seconds. Therefore, if T is 0.5 seconds and a response completes in 0.25 seconds, then the user is satisfied. All responses greater than 0.5 seconds dissatisfy the user. Apdex tracks three response counts: Satisfied: The response time is less than or equal to T. Tolerating: The response time is greater than T and less than or equal to 4T Frustrated: The response time is greater than 4T. 1
Level Multiplier Time (T = 1.2) Satisfied T or less <= 0.5 seconds Tolerated >T, <= 4T Between 0.5 and 2 seconds Frustrated > 4T Greater than 2 seconds Any request that raises a server-side error is treated as a frustrating response, no matter how fast it returns to the user. The Apdex score is a ratio value of the number of satisfied and tolerating requests to the total requests made. Each satisfied request counts as one request, while each tolerating request counts as half as satisfied request. Apdex = ( ) The Enhanced Performance Monitoring service will calculate a monthly Apdex value. The value for the month shall be compared with the standard Apdex thresholds below and assigned a rating. A service credit shall apply if, in a given month, the Apdex value falls below Good as detailed in the following table. The appropriate proportion of the following month s Bloom service fees shall be credited. Apdex Value Apdex Rating Service Credit >= 0.95 Excellent - 0.85 =< 0.95 Good - 0.7 =< 0.85 Fair 10% 0.5 <= 0.7 Poor 20% < 0.5 Unacceptable 30% Failures to meet an Apdex level of 0.85 or greater where the cause is attributed by ULCC to one or more of the following shall not be included in any calculation of service credits: Failures resulting from Customer not complying with Reasonable Usage Policy Failures resulting from services, hardware, or software provided by the Customer or a third party Failures resulting from installation of code that is not part of the latest Bloom release (e.g. Private Theme or Tailored code) Failures taking place whilst any form of DNS redirect has been installed by the Customer Failures caused by the Customer s use of the Service after ULCC advice to modify use of the Service, if the Customer did not modify use as advised Failures taking place during Maintenance Window Failures resulting from unauthorized action or inaction or from the Customer s employees, students, agents, contractors, or vendors, or anyone gaining access to our network by means of your passwords or equipment Failures due to factors outside ULCC control (for example, natural disaster, war, acts of terrorism, riots, or government action) 2.6 Performance Alerting ULCC will, upon request, send an e-mail alert when the current Apdex level falls below 0.85 (and when it returns above 0.85). ULCC will configure a single valid e-mail address (Performance Alert Contact) to receive the alerts. Changes to the Performance Alert Contact may be made via the service desk. 2.7 Access to Performance Data ULCC will provide access to the underlying measurements and metrics recorded by the measurement system. Access will be provided for up to three (3) users. Request to add, modify or remove users may be made via the service desk. No access to modify the configuration of the measurement system shall be provided. Training on how to use the metrics available may be provided upon request but the time taken shall be taken from the Support Allowance or invoiced via separate Professional Services contract. Measurements and associated metrics shall be retained for a maximum of ninety (90) days. ULCC reserve the right to prevent access to measurements and data that may expose details of the underlying infrastructure in such a way as to compromise security of its services. 2
2.8 Incident Resolution ULCC classifies Support Cases as Incidents according to following ITIL and ISO2000 definitions: An unplanned interruption to an IT Service or a reduction in the Quality of an IT Service. (ITIL v3) Any event which is not part of the standard operation of a service and which causes or may cause an interruption to, or a reduction in, the quality of that service. (ISO20000) Both of these definitions exclude Bugs, whether in ULCC code, Moodle code or third-party code. Bugs can be reported via ULCC s service desk but the following response and resolution service levels apply to Incidents only. ULCC s standard Terms and Conditions document defines five levels of incident priority. This agreement provides specific Enhanced Performance Monitoring-related scenarios that will be used to determine the Incident priority. All response and resolution timespans are in Business Hours or Business Days: Priority Definition Resolution Time Enhanced Performance Monitoring Scenarios P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Showstopper, significant business or user impact High priority, impacting effective use of the service for a significant number of users Normal priority, service impaired for a small number of users Low priority, service not functioning as expected, but not significantly affecting use Very low impact on user and very little urgency 4 Hours Performance Measurement is no longer taking place 1 Business Day i.e. 9 hours 3 Business Days i.e. 27 hours 5 Business Days i.e. 45 hours 10 Business Days i.e. 90 hours Access to performance data is impaired Everything not covered by P1,2,4 or 5 Service has degraded but impact is purely aesthetic Service has degraded such that functionality is affected but a workaround is possible. Not applicable Where less than 95% of Incidents in a given month are resolved within the above SLA, 5% of the following month s Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service fees will be credited. ULCC is unable to provide any commitment to Resolution Time for Incidents resulting from: Customer not complying with Reasonable Usage Policy Failure of external (non-ulcc controlled) system or network (e.g. Customer s Active Directory or JANET) Code that is not part of the latest Enhanced Performance Monitoring release (e.g. Private Theme or Tailored code) 2.9 Service Request Fulfilment The following service requests can be made via any support channel. Where appropriate the service level for fulfilment of the request is listed below. Not all Service Requests have a fulfilment service level associated due to their inherent variability. All timespans listed are in Business Hours or Business Days: Request Type Time to Fulfilment Criteria Fulfil Request Information Information has been provided Request Advice Advice has been provided Alter Performance Alert Contact 1 day Contact details updated Alter Performance Data Access 1 day Access details modified Request Service Credit(s) 3 days Service credits have been confirmed Request Termination of Service 2 days Service termination is acknowledged and scheduled. Where less than 95% of Service Requests in a given month are resolved within the above SLA, 5% of the following month s Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service fees will be credited. 3 SERVICE REPORTING 3.1 Monthly Reporting ULCC will provide the Customer with one report per calendar month. That report will include the following information for the previous three (3) months: Monthly Apdex Value Support Ticket Summary (current month only) Percentage of Support Incidents resolved within Service Level target The Customer acknowledges and agrees that any of the foregoing reports will constitute ULCC s Confidential Information for purposes of this Agreement. 3
4 ENHANCED PERFORMANCE MONITORING SUPPORT 4.1 Support Allowance The Enhanced Performance Monitoring service makes use of the same universal Support Allowance as the Bloom service. All references to Support Allowance and Support Balance shall be subject to the terms of the Bloom Service Level Agreement other than the exceptions below. See ULCC s range of Support+ services which increase the available Support Allowance 4.2 Inclusive Activities The following activities will be provided as part of the Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service and shall not result in any alteration of the Support Balance: Inclusive Activities Incident resolution, except where attributed to external non-ulcc system or non-compliance with Reasonable Usage Policy. Maintenance of the Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service and associated infrastructure (including security patching). Request Service Credit(s) Request Termination of Service 4.3 Balance Using Support Cases The following Support Cases are considered support but the actual time taken by ULCC to resolve the case will be subtracted from the Support Balance: Balance Using Support Cases Request Advice Request Information Alter Service Outage Notification Contact Alter User Group Membership Details 4.4 Administration 4.4.1 Limited Point of Contact Customer e-learning Administrators will be defined as the trained, designated Customer representatives responsible for maintaining the Customer s site, as well as for submitting and managing support cases. Only a Customer e-learning Administrator may contact ULCC for Support or to report errors. ULCC may refuse to action a support case until the identity of an unrecognized contact point is confirmed by the Customer s Designated Contact 4.4.2 Identity Customer will advise ULCC of the identity of the Customer s e-learning Administrator(s). The Customer s Learning Administrator(s) may be changed by notice given to ULCC by Customer. 4.5 Support Operations 4.5.1 Welcome Pack Support contact details for the support channels detailed below shall be included in a Welcome Pack, provided via e-mail on the Initial Access Date. 4.5.2 Support Hours ULCC Standard Support Hours are 8:30AM to 5:30PM (UK Time Zone only), except weekends, Statutory Holidays and University of London Closure Days. A list of University of London Closure Days is available on the University of London website. Support during Statutory Holidays and University Closure Days will be for P1 and P2 priority support cases only. All normal support channels will be accessible on these days but lower priority cases will only be logged, for action at a later date. 4.5.3 Support Portal The Customer e-learning Administrator(s) will be provided a login to access to the ULCC Support Portal. Use of the Support Portal is the most efficient means, and the preferred method, of receiving communications from Customer relating to support. The Support Portal may be accessed either during, or outside of, Standard Support Hours. 4.5.4 Support e-mail The Customer e-learning Administrator(s) may also reach ULCC Support by e-mail. E-Mail can be used for all support cases. 4.5.5 Telephone Consultation The Customer e-learning Administrator(s) may also reach ULCC Support by telephone. Telephone can be used for all support cases during Standard Support Hours. 4.5.6 Escalation Where the Customer is not satisfied with the response provided by the Service Desk, escalation may be made to the following contacts, either via the Service Desk or by direct e-mail contact: 1 st Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service Manager Enhanced Performance Monitoringservicemanager@ulcc.ac.uk 4
2 nd Head of Software Services headofsoftwareservices@ulcc.ac.uk 4.6 Maintenance 4.6.1 Maintenance Window ULCC operates a weekly maintenance window between 7:00am and 9:00am on Tuesday mornings (UK Timezone only). During this period of time, the site may be either partially or wholly unavailable. ULCC will attempt where possible to provide at least five (5) days notice of maintenance activities that will impact the site. Downtime during this time period shall not be included in Contractual Availability calculations. 4.6.2 Critical Updates ULCC may, at any time, decide to install a critical update for the purpose of improving security or for any other reason. As much notice as possible will be provided but any resulting outage will contribute to calculations of unavailability according to the service levels defined in this Agreement. 4.7 Customer Access to Infrastructure 4.7.1 Restrictions on Access Customers will not be provided with any access, physical or technological, to the infrastructure on which their Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service is provided. 5 TERMINATION OF SERVICE 5.1 Notification Subject to the notice period outlined in ULCC s standard Terms and Conditions and any other legal agreement made between the parties, the Customer may notify ULCC of its intention to terminate its use of the Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service. The Customer shall provide to ULCC the final date on which they will use the service. The next Business Day after this will be termed the Termination Date. ULCC will acknowledge this notification within two (2) Business Days. 5.2 Access to Service Customer access to the Enhanced Performance Monitoring Service will be removed at any time on or after the Termination Date. No response shall be provided to support cases on or after the Termination Date. 5