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Service Level Agreement (SLA)

CoreShells is proud to offer an exceptional level of performance, reliability, and service. That is why we are making commitments to our customers in the form of a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which provides certain rights and remedies regarding the performance of the CoreShells network. The CoreShells Service Level Agreement (SLA) guarantees our network/equipment reliability and performance. This Service Level Agreement (SLA) applies to customers of CoreShells' web hosting, reseller, dedicated server, co-location, e-commerce, and dedicated access services.

Uptime Guarantee:

CoreShells strives to maintain a 99.5% network and server uptime service level. This uptime percentage is a monthly figure, and is is calculated solely by CoreShells' monitoring systems or CoreShells' authorized/contracted outside monitoring services. If CoreShells fails to meet it's 99.5% uptime guarantee, and it is not due to one of the exceptions below, credits will be made available to each client, upon request, on a case by case basis. CoreShells does not credit a full month's service for minor downtime. This would not be financially healthy for CoreShells, and in turn would only negatively affect the service level CoreShells provides to you. "Partial refunds for partial downtime" is our standard policy. In extreme circumstances, CoreShells may distribute full month credits, but this is dealt with on a case by case basis. Details on how credit amounts are calculated can be found below.

Exceptions:

Customer shall not receive any credits under this SLA in connection with any failure or deficiency of the CoreShells network caused by or associated with:

  • Circumstances beyond reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, "Acts of God" (ie...fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, etc...), strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of the Service Level Agreement

  • Telco Failure (ie...Verizon™ cutting a fiber line somewhere)

  • Backbone peering point issues (ie...UUnet™ having a router go down in Virginia that wipes out internet service for the entire East Coast)

  • Scheduled maintenance for hardware/software upgrades

  • Hardware failure (faulty hardware is rare, but cannot be predicted nor avoided). CoreShells only utilizes only name brand hardware of the highest quality and performance.

  • Software bugs/flaws (Expolits and bugs may develop that cause security issues or downtime)
  • DNS issues not within the direct control of CoreShells

  • Network floods, hacks, attacks from outside parties or individuals

  • Failure or error of any CoreShells' monitoring or measurement system

  • Client’s acts or omissions, including without limitation, any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of CoreShells' service(s) in breach of CoreShells' Policy and Service Guidelines (AUP), by Client or others authorized by Client.


Connectivity:

CoreShells' goal is to make the CoreShells' network available to Client free of outages for 99.5% of the time. An "outage” is defined as an instance in which Client is unable to transmit and receive IP packets due to a service failure for more than 15 consecutive minutes, excluding service failures relating to CoreShells' scheduled maintenance and upgrades. The network does not include client premises equipment or any Telco access facilities connecting Client's premises to such infrastructure. CoreShells' goal is to keep Average Round-Trip Latency on the network to 85 milliseconds or less. CoreShells defines “Average Round-Trip Latency”, with respect to a given month, as the average time required for round-trip packet transfers between CoreShells' network and major US backbone peering points during such month, as measured by CoreShells. CoreShells' goal is to keep Average Packet Loss on the network to 1% or less. CoreShells defines “Average Packet Loss”, with respect to a given month, as the average percentage of IP packets transmitted on the CoreShells' network during such month that are not successfully delivered, as measured by CoreShells.

Measurement:

CoreShells will periodically (on average every 15 minutes) monitor CoreShells network and server availability using software and hardware components capable of measuring application traffic and responses. Client acknowledges that that such measurements may not measure the exact path traversed by Client’s internet connection, and that such measurements constitute measurements across the CoreShells' network but not other networks to which Client may connect. CoreShells reserves the right to periodically change the measurement points and methodologies it uses without notice to Client.

Backup Policy:

As a courtesy, CoreShells provides a backup service on shared hosting accounts. You can request our administrators to run a backup of your site or any files for a one-time charge. Although CoreShells tries to ensure these backups are complete and accurate, we cannot guarantee data integrity. It is possible that a site and/or file may not be able to be restored incase of a server crash.

We will restore data from our backups in case server trouble arises, but we do not perform restores to fix customer errors. If you accidentally delete a file or damage your website data, we are in no way responsible for this. If you need us to restore data from an incident such as that when it wasn't our fault, we will have to charge a reasonable fee to do so, depending on the complexity of the restore.

CoreShells recommends that the customer periodically and frequently backup their site to their local computer. On most accounts there is a backup manager that can assist you in this process.

A backup may not be included with a dedicated server type plan. We recommend that dedicated server customers purchase a backup option to protect data. Even with a backup plan, CoreShells recommends that customer still maintain offsite backups since even backup services have a risk of failure.

Hardware Failure:

CoreShells' stands behind all equipment on our network. Faulty hardware is rare, but cannot be predicted nor avoided. CoreShells utilizes only name brand hardware of the highest quality and perfomance. CoreShells will replace all faulty hardware affecting performance levels of equipment within 48 hours, which includes hardware issues that cause server crashes or speed issues. Hardware failure resulting in complete network/server outage/downtime will be corrected within two hours of problem identification. Router failure is an exception to this SLA guarantee, and may require on-site Cisco™ engineers or backbone provider emergency personnel to correct the problem. Router failure is governed by current contracts with Cisco™ and backbone providers in regard to the emergency repair service in case of such an issue. CoreShells will replace all faulty hardware on dedicated servers (rented or leased servers), at no charge to the Client (except if it is due to customer abuse such as excessive reboots), with an unlimited free replacement policy. This includes parts ordered as upgrades.

Credits:

Credit requests must be made on the CoreShells web site, by contacting our Billing Department. Each request in connection with network/server outages/downtime must be received by CoreShells within five days of the occurance. Each request in connection with Average Round-Trip Latency or Average Packet Loss in a calendar month must be received by CoreShells within five days after the end of such month. The total amount credited to a Client for CoreShells not meeting SLA service levels will not exceed the service fees paid by Client CoreShells for such services for the period in question. Each validly requested credit will be applied to a Client invoice within 30 days after CoreShells receipt of such request. Credits are exclusive of any applicable taxes charged to Client or collected by CoreShells. Upon Client’s request (in accordance with the procedure set forth below), CoreShells will issue a credit to Client for network/server outages/downtime occurring during any calendar month that are reported by Client to CoreShells and confirmed by CoreShells measurement reporting. Such credit will be equal to one day’s worth (1/30th) of the monthly fees paid by Client, (for all service fees paid if network outage, or specific affected service fees paid if individual server downtime) multiplied by each hour (or portion thereof rounded to nearest next hour) of the cumulative duration of such outage/downtime. If Average Round-Trip Latency on the network for a calendar month exceeds 85 milliseconds, then upon Client's request, CoreShells will issue a credit to Client equal to six day's worth (1/5th) of the monthly service fees paid by Client for such month. If Average Packet Loss exceeds 1% during a calendar month, then upon Client’s request, CoreShells will issue a credit to Client equal to six day's worth (1/5th) of the monthly service fees paid by Client for such month.

General:

CoreShells reserves the right to change or modify this SLA to benefit the Client, and will post changes to location currently housing this SLA at time of modification, which will be made available to Client. Except as set forth in this SLA, CoreShells makes no claims regarding the availability or performance of the CoreShells' network or servers. Specific terms/points of this SLA may be adjusted on a case by case basis by the specific Service Agreement signed/agreed by client. In case of difference terms/points in SLA and Service Agreement, the Service Agreement terms/points prevail over this general SLA policy. The Service Agreement signed/agreed by client, is above and beyond this SLA, and Service Agreement terms are in affect, including, but not limited to, limitations of liability.