SPHERE WEB HOSTING, LLC. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT (SLA)
Our success depends on your success and to let you know we take responsibility for the Services we provide you, we cover the components that support the availability of your web site with an aggressive Service Level Agreement (SLA). It defines our responsibilities and the credits we issue should we fail to meet those responsibilities. You can feel safe knowing how serious we are about your site's uptime.
This SLA supplements the Terms of Service, and is incorporated by reference in the Terms of Service. Terms used in this SLA shall have the same meaning given in the Terms of Service.
This SLA Covers the Following Elements of the Service:
- Server Uptime
- Network Availability
- Dedicated Server Hardware
This SLA does not apply to any feature of the Service not specifically identified above or circumstances outside the control of Sphere Web Hosting.
Defined Terms
Some words and terms in this SLA have particular meanings, whether capitalized or not. Terms defined in the Terms of Service have the same meaning when used in this SLA.
"Network" means the portion of the Sphere Web Hosting network extending from the server outbound port to the outbound port of the data center border router and includes our managed switches, routers and cabling. All Sphere Web Hosting accounts are on the network and so are covered by the Network Availability portion of this SLA.
"Server Uptime" means the uptime for servers holding the files and data for Shared Hosting accounts. With the exception of Dedicated Server accounts, all accounts are considered Shared Hosting accounts, including Virtual Dedicated Server accounts, because they share server resources with other accounts located on a particular server.
"Server" and "server hardware" and "hardware" means the components located inside a computer case that together make up a Sphere Web Hosting server. For example, motherboards, memory chips, processors, hard drives, etc.
"Uptime" refers to the amount of time the services are available, as measured solely and only by our internal monitoring systems.
"Downtime" refers to the amount of time the services are unavailable, as measured solely and only by our internal monitoring systems.
Support Availability
Access to support will be available to You 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In addition, we promise that our data centers will be staffed with "hands-on" engineers, monitoring the servers and network 24 hours a day, every day of the year. While there are no credits issued for support availability, since there is no way for you to become aware of this type of failure, we wanted to give You a sense of our commitment to the availability of your site.
100% Server Uptime and Network Availability Guarantee
Sphere Web Hosting strives to maintain 100% Service availability. In the event such level of Service is not provided, Sphere Web Hosting will credit your account in the amount as determined in the chart below, reflecting credit percentages of the monthly fees paid by You to Sphere Web Hosting for the Services. Only failures due to known Sphere Web Hosting problems in the hardware and network are covered by this SLA. In the case of virtual dedicated servers, the hypervisor layers delivering individual servers constitute Failures and so only they are covered by this SLA.
Our guaranteed uptime coverage is as follows:
- 100% will result in a credit of: 0%
- 99.1% to 99.9% will result in a credit of: 5%
- 98% to 99% will result in a credit of: 10%
- 95% to 97.9% will result in a credit of: 25%
- 90% to 94.9% will result in a credit of: 50%
- 89% or below will result in a credit of: 100%
Limitations
Downtime caused by any of the following do not constitute Failures and so are not covered by this SLA. Some relate to maintenance, some to account suspension or actions taken by You or other 3rd parties, and others to situations outside the control of Sphere Web Hosting:
- security related emergency maintenance;
- scheduled maintenance;
- account Suspension;
- domain name system problems outside of Sphere Web Hosting's control;
- acts or omissions by You or any of Your employees, agents or customers resulting in downtime;
- any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of the services in breach of Sphere Web Hosting's Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy or any other Agreement pertaining to your Services; or
- any circumstances beyond Sphere Web Hosting's control, including and without limitation, Force Majeure, as outlined in the Terms of Service, your own personal hardware, software or Internet connection, including without limitation, problems with users' web browsers or other caching that might make it appear the Services are unavailable, problems related in any way to the Customer server operating system or any other software, including without limitation, files and databases that make up a customer website, located on the customer dedicated server, virtual dedicated server, or server for hosting customer shared websites or email services.
While we have hardware and other measures in place to protect from network attacks, such as denial of service attacks, we have no control over the actions carried out by 3rd parties and so a failure resulting from this type of event is not covered by this SLA.
Dedicated Server Hardware 1-Hour Replacement Guarantee
Sphere Web Hosting strives to maintain the integrity of the hardware used to provide its Services for Dedicated Server Hosting, and any downtime caused by hardware failure shall be credited pursuant to this section of the SLA. Sphere Web Hosting maintains a stock of all essential hardware necessary to provide the Services. Sphere Web Hosting shall replace any and all substantially malfunctioning hardware within 1 hour of Sphere Web Hosting becoming aware of such substantial malfunction. The time for replacement of hardware shall be measured from the moment that Sphere Web Hosting determines that the hardware must be replaced.
In the event that Sphere Web Hosting fails to meet this hardware replacement guarantee, we will credit your account 10% of the monthly fee per additional hour of downtime, up to a maximum of 50% of your base monthly fee for the affected server, excluding any management, upgrades or additional services associated with the affected server.
Credit Requests
To initiate a credit for downtime, You must create a support ticket with our billing department within 48 hours of your experienced downtime. Each request must include the domain name or server name, IP address, and the dates and times of the downtime. Information submitted must be detailed and accurate. If the downtime is confirmed by Sphere Web Hosting, the credit will be applied to your account within thirty (30) days of receipt of your credit request. Only one credit per account per downtime will be issued. All credits issued will not exceed the the amounts outlined in this SLA.