CenturyLink Cloud Service Level Agreement

Updated: July 3, 2018

This SLA is provided pursuant to and in accordance with the governing service agreement between Customer and CenturyLink Communications, LLC and/or its affiliates (“CenturyLink”). The following Service Level Agreement (SLA) is applicable to the CenturyLink Cloud Services Customer for a fee. The SLA is not applicable to unrelated third parties or third parties lacking a contractual relationship with CenturyLink. The uptime obligations and the resulting SLA credits are applied on a monthly basis unless specified otherwise.

Public Network: CenturyLink will deliver 100% uptime availability on all Public Network services to Customers located in CenturyLink Cloud data centers. All Public Network services include redundant carrier grade Internet backbone connections, advanced intrusion detection systems, denial of service (DOS) mitigation, traffic analysis and detailed bandwidth graphs. This does not include DOS attacks or other unknown variables that can affect Internet traffic.

Private Network: CenturyLink will deliver 100% uptime availability on the Private Network services to Customers located in the CenturyLink Cloud data centers. Private Network services include access to the secure VPN connection, unlimited bandwidth between servers within CenturyLink Cloud data centers, unlimited uploads/downloads to servers and access to contracted services.

Control Portal and API: CenturyLink will deliver 99.99% availability to the Control portal and API. Access to the Control portal is available via the Public and Private Networks. The Control portal is utilized to manage the Customer’s on-demand IT environments located within the CenturyLink Cloud data centers. Control portal access includes ticketing system access, account management, server management, bandwidth management, backup management and other related services.

Virtual Servers: Individual standard servers will deliver 99.99% uptime availability aas monitored within the CenturyLink network by CenturyLink monitoring systems. Only failures due to known CenturyLink problems in the hardware, block storage, and hypervisor layers delivering individual servers constitute failures and as such only they are covered by this SLA. Examples of failures include: power interruptions and hardware problems (such as failures to a hard drive or power supply). Problems related in any way to the Customer server operating system or any software on the Customer server, or to the actions of Customers or third parties, do not constitute failures and as such are not covered by this SLA.

Bare Metal Servers: CenturyLink will deliver 99.9% uptime availability for individual physical servers. Only failures due to known CenturyLink problems in the hardware constitute failures and such failures shall be categorized as either degraded or unavailable. Degraded services are considered available and therefore not eligible for a service credit. Examples of degraded servers are a single hard drive failure (RAID) or a single DIMM failure. Ticket priorities for degraded servers are set as either high or normal. Physical servers are deemed unavailable for failures of the motherboard, CPU, or multiple drives.

Cloud Application Manager: CenturyLink will deliver 99.99% uptime availability on Cloud Application Manager. A Cloud Application Manager failure occurs when a Customer cannot access the Cloud Application Manager platform because of problems with hardware and/or software in CenturyLink’s control. Access issues caused by problems connecting to the service, including without limitation problems on the Internet or access and configurations managed by a non-CenturyLink provider, do not constitute failures and as such are not covered by this SLA. Customer will receive a service credit for the period of time commencing when a ticket is filed requesting assistance in accessing the platform and the access issue is verified by CenturyLink until the services are reinstated.

Cloud Service Provider outages are governed solely by the terms and conditions between Customer and the non-CenturyLink cloud provider.

Managed Operating Systems: Managed Operating Systems will deliver 99.99% uptime availability on standard servers and 99.9% uptime availability on cloud servers. The managed operating system is considered available as monitored within the CenturyLink network for infrastructure and the ability for Customer to open and log in to a RDP or SSH session at the OS layer. Password lockouts and other security invoked events are excluded and not covered by this SLA. Exclusions to uptime include any actions of Customers or Customer Authorized third parties which negatively impact the availability of Customer server and such actions will not constitute failures and as such are not covered by this SLA.

Managed Applications: Managed Applications will deliver 99.9% uptime availability and redundant or clustered Managed Applications will deliver 99.99% uptime availability as monitored by CenturyLink Cloud monitoring systems. Only failures due to known CenturyLink Cloud problems in the Application layer delivering individual applications constitute failures and as such, only they are covered by this SLA. If multiple Applications are installed on the same server, only one Managed Application, most impacting will be covered under the SLA.

Relational DB Service: CenturyLink delivers99.9% uptime availability for all single instances of Relational DB Service and 99.99% uptime availability for all instances with replication. A Service failure occurs when a Customer cannot retrieve data because of problems with hardware and/or software in CenturyLink’s control. Data retrieval issues caused by problems connecting to the service, including without limitation problems on the Internet, do not constitute failures and as such are not covered by this SLA.

Object Storage: CenturyLink delivers 99.9% uptime availability on Object Storage. An Object Storage failure occurs when a Customer cannot retrieve stored data because of problems with hardware and/or software in CenturyLink’s control. Data retrieval issues caused by problems connecting to the service, including without limitation problems on the Internet, do not constitute failures and as such are not covered by this SLA. Customer will receive a service credit for the period of time commencing when a ticket is filed requesting assistance in accessing Customer stored data until the service is reinstated.

Domain Name Services: CenturyLink delivers 100% uptime availability for domain name servers (DNS) on the Dynect network. A period of DNS failure is any time during which 100% of Dynect’s Domain Name Servers simultaneously fail to respond to requests for name resolution. This SLA does not cover propagation of DNS data across the Internet, the hosting of secondary DNS service for Customer's primary domain in another location and zone inaccuracies due to operator error.

Simple Backup Service: CenturyLink delivers 99.9% uptime availability on Simple Backup Service. A Simple Backup Service failure occurs when a Customer cannot backup or restore data because of problems with hardware and/or software in CenturyLink’s control. Data backup and restore issues caused by problems connecting to the service, including without limitation problems on the Internet, do not constitute failures and as such are not covered by this SLA. Customer will receive a service credit for the period of time commencing when a ticket is filed requesting assistance in accessing Customer data until the service is reinstated.

Network Exchange: CenturyLink delivers 99.99% uptime on availability Network Exchange. All Network Exchange services include virtual circuits which pass outbound network traffic from the customers CLC servers and inbound network traffic to the customers CLC servers. A Service failure occurs when an active Network Exchange virtual circuit does not pass outbound network traffic from the customers CLC servers and inbound network traffic to the customers CLC servers because of problems with hardware and/or software in CenturyLink’s control. Exclusions to uptime include any actions of Customers or Customer Authorized third parties which negatively impact the Customer server. For example, but not limited to, actions such as making a firewall change or changing the routing table. Such actions will not constitute uptime failures and as such are not covered by this SLA.

Maintenance: At certain times planned maintenance is required on CenturyLink Cloud that can cause service disruption. Maintenance services can affect the Public Network, Private Network, Control portal, Virtual Servers, Cloud Storage, Security and other services. CenturyLink will notify Customer of planned maintenance service. CenturyLink will provide at least 48-hour notice to Customers for potentially disruptive maintenance activity via email or upon posting to https://status.ctl.io. Potentially disruptive activity includes maintenance where CenturyLink cannot remove or migrate the live Customer data from the target system but it is expected that the maintenance will have no customer impact. CenturyLink will provide at least 96-hour notice via email or upon posting to https://status.ctl.io for disruptive maintenance activity that will cause a noticeable outage to Customers.

Support Response Time:

Note: The support details described in this section are applicable to CenturyLink Cloud Services. Support for Cloud Application Manager is available here.

High Priority Tickets: All High Priority Tickets receive a 30 minute time-to-acknowledge for the following categories:

  1. Any element of the service is unavailable
  2. Measurable performance degradation in any CenturyLink Cloud data center

For High Priority issues, Customer must create a ticket for which a tracking number will automatically be provided and a support engineer will review the support request within the timeframe listed above. If for some reason Customer does not receive a response within 30 minutes, Customer should contact customer care by phone via the applicable in-region phone numbers found here.

CenturyLink Cloud may reclassify any Ticket misclassified as falling into one of the High Priority categories listed above and such Ticket will not qualify for High Priority treatment.

Response times for non-High Priority Tickets are based upon the Customer’s level of support:

Enterprise Support: Less than 30 minutes

Professional Support: Less than 1 hour

Developer Support: Less than 8 hours

Incident Reports:CenturyLink will provide Customer with an Incident Report via e-mail within twenty-four (24) hours for incidents resulting in greater than thirty (30) minutes of downtime. The Incident Report will include: incident date, duration, issue, details of the problem and details of the resolution.

SLA Credit Claim:

  1. CenturyLink’s monitoring systems will log and report service failures that are eligible for service credits. Customer will be notified by the NOC regarding a failure and for failures lasting greater than 30 minutes, Customer will receive an Incident Report per this SLA.
  2. If a Customer believes that a service failure occurred Customer must open a support ticket (a "Ticket") through the Control portal or by email to help@ctl.io and request any credits by accurately detailing the credit request within 30 days of the failure in question. CenturyLink will issue to the Customer appropriate service credits for the failure as defined in this SLA upon review and confirmation of the service failure.

Credit Limitations:

  1. The minimum period of failure eligible for a credit is 15 consecutive minutes, and shorter periods will not be aggregated. The maximum credit shall not exceed one hundred percent (100%) of Customer’s fees for the affected Service feature for the then-current billing month. In the event that multiple periods of failure overlap in time, credits will not be aggregated, and Customer will receive credit only for the longest such period of failure. In the event that a single incident calls for credits pursuant to multiple parts of this SLA, CenturyLink will award credits for all Service features impacted in a single incident subject to the maximum credit noted above. fees, regardless of the length of failure or the number of occurrences.
  2. Credits available pursuant to this SLA apply only to future service delivery and will be credited against the applicable invoices. CenturyLink will not provide a refunds or issue a credit against an invoice with no amounts payable. If Customer retains a credit balance on termination of the account in question, such credit is forfeited. Notwithstanding the foregoing, credits will not be applied against fees for professional services, bundled support or setup fees.
  3. Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in this SLA, the following do not constitute failures: (1) downtime during planned maintenance (as defined above) or Emergency Maintenance (as defined below) periods; (2) outages caused by acts or omissions of Customer, including its applications, equipment or facilities, or by any use or user of the Service authorized by Customer; (3) outages caused by hackers, sabotage, viruses, worms or other third party wrongful actions; (4) DNS issues outside of CenturyLink’s control; (5) outages resulting from Internet anomalies outside of CenturyLink’s control; (6) outages resulting from fires, explosions, or force majeure; (7) failures during a "beta" period; (8) any suspension of Service pursuant to the Agreement; (9) during a time in which a Customer is not in compliance with the AUP; or (10) the unavailability of required Customer personnel, including as a result of failure to provide us with accurate, current contact information. Customer will not be eligible to receive any otherwise applicable service credits if Customer is in breach or default under any provisions of the Agreement at the time the service level failure(s) occurred or at the time when such service credit is requested by Customer until such breach is cured, at which point the service credit will be issued.

"Emergency Maintenance" refers to any corrective action intended to remedy conditions likely to cause severe Service degradation, as designated by CenturyLink in its sole discretion. Emergency Maintenance may include but is not limited to actions intended to address hardware or software failures or viruses/worms. CenturyLink will exercise reasonable efforts to inform Customer in advance before interrupting the Service for Emergency Maintenance, but such notice is not guaranteed and failure thereof does not constitute failure.

Exclusions:

  1. This SLA provides Customer's sole and exclusive remedies for any Service interruptions, deficiencies, or failures of any kind.
  2. This SLA does not cover (without limitation): (a) network performance to Customer's physical location or Internet access point (such as a local DSL/cable modem); or (b) failures due to denial of service attacks.
  3. False or repetitive claims are subject to service suspension. Customers participating in malicious or aggressive Internet activities, thereby causing attacks or counter-attacks, do not qualify for SLA claims and shall be deemed in violation of the Acceptable Use Policy posted on the Website.

Credit Issued: For all SLAs, the service credit formula is as follows:

Hours of eligible downtime or failure x Product and/or Service hourly cost = service credit.

  • Credit Eligible Downtime or failure = Time (in hours) past the SLA greater than 15 minutes excluding allowable downtime
  • Product and/or Service hourly cost = Customer’s billing rate/hour during period of downtime of failure