Service Level Agreement
1. Definitions
1.1 Hosting Provider Company refers to the specialist companies, such as DigitalOcean, Azure or AWS from whom Bison Grid Limited contract their Dedicated Cloud Servers.
1.2 A Project can be any digital based service provided by Bison Grid Limited to the Customer. (Examples include web development, software, search engine optimisation work and hosting)
1.3 The word “contract” as it appears in these terms and conditions shall mean the contract between Bison Grid Limited and the Customer, which will be based on Bison Grid Limited Terms and Conditions
2. Abbreviations
2.1 Bison Grid stands for Bison Grid Limited.
2.2 SLA stands for Service Level Agreement.
2.3 ISP stands for Internet Service Provider.
2.4 HPC stands for Hosting Provider Company.
3.Hosting
3.1 Bison Grid use high performance dedicated cloud servers hosted by first class HPC’s, such as DigitalOcean.
3.2 Our DigitalOcean dedicated cloud servers host all of our live Linux Server sites with and uptime performance of 99.99%.
3.3 Bison Grid will quote a separate monthly fee for the hosting and associated technical support for customer websites.
3.4 Bison Grid will use their best endeavors, in conjunction with the HPC, to rectify the cause of any disruption in the hosting service of a customer’s website(s) and to minimise the duration of any such instances.
3.5 Should the customers web server fall below the uptime performance of 99.99% Bison Grid will credit back to the customers account the hosting subscription fees (calculated per hour) for the period of time that the server was unavailable.
3.6 Bison Grid take daily backups of all customer website files and databases and in the unlikely event of a hard drive failure or other technical failure with the web server they will restore the website as quick as possible on to another web server.
3.7 The customers web server is also backed up by DigitalOcean on a weekly basis and in the unlikely event of hard drive or other technical failure with the web server these will be used to restore the server.
3.8 With regard to any images or files uploaded to a customer’s website by a customer it is the responsibility of the customer to retain a copy of these on their local PC/LAN. In the unlikely event of hard drive failure or other technical failure with the web server it will be the responsibility of the Customer to re-upload these files if they are not present in the back up files as outlined in clause 3.6 and 3.7.
3.9 Bison Grid utilise various backup processes on their servers for all website folders and files and may, therefore, be able to save customers the need to re-upload files in accordance with clause 3.8. This is not guaranteed by Bison Grid so customers should observe and be prepared, in the unlikely event, to comply with clause 3.8.
3.10 In the event that a customer wishes to move their website and/or Server Database to another web server supported by another party, then Bison Grid will cooperate fully, subject to all outstanding invoices being paid up in full and in advance of the move.
3.11 In the event that the Customer requires assistance with remedying a situation with their website that is not a technical fault caused by Bison Grid or the HPC the time expended by Bison Grid will be charged to the Customer at the Bison Grid standard hourly rate.
3.12 Bison Grid will invoice for Hosting on an monthly basis, monthly in advance. Invoices will be raised at the beginning of each month.
4. Technical Support
Bison Grid support engineers are available between 09:30am(GMT) to 17:30pm(GMT) Monday to Friday, excluding Public and Bank Holidays, known as the Working Hours. Any time period outside of this shall be deemed Out-of-Hours. During the Out-of-Hours period, customers will be able to call the office number(01489 890460) and leave a message. If the Client leaves a voice-mail message on the answer-phone, this will be actioned during the next Business day. For the avoidance of doubt, no time assurances can be given for the completion of activities relating to voice-mail messages. During out-of-hours periods, issues raised via e-mail and sent to the support team (team@bisongrid.com) will be actioned during the next period of Working Hours. Customer requests sent during Working Hours will be dealt with inaccordance to the table below.
| Customer Request or System Alert | Response Time (During normal working hours) |
|---|---|
| Acknowledgement of urgent request(deemed critical to site uptime by investigation or uptime alert) and initial response | Within 1 hour(normally 30 mins) |
| Acknowledgement of non-urgent request and initial response | Within 8 hours(normally 4 hours) |
| Completion of low time (<4hours) urgent request | Within 24 hours(normally 4 hours), additional urgent requests will not be started until any prior urgent request is completed. |
| Completion of low time (<4hours) non-urgent request | Within 30 days(normally 5 days), additional requests will not be started until any prior request is completed. |
| Out of normal working hour’s request | Scheduled on a per request basis (additional fees may apply) |
| Web server operating system security updates | At least once a month |
| Website software security updates | As per website support package |