Service Level Agreement
Information Technology Services
The University of Texas at Austin
Effective Date: 4/6/2009
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Overview
The University Blog Service is available for use by faculty and staff for non-course-related purposes. The service uses WordPress MU, a multi-user version of the WordPress blogging platform. Blogs can be created for individuals, groups, projects, or departments. Additional information about this service can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/its/blog/.
Review Process
This document defines the practices that Information Technology Services (ITS) will use for the University Blog Service service. The details of this document may be reviewed and amended as required, or at least annually, to accurately reflect business and service needs.
Time Conventions
Unless otherwise indicated, business hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding holidays and reduced schedule days.
Scope
The following user communities at the university are the intended recipients for the University Blog Service service: Faculty, Staff.
Service Criticality
This service has been identified as Important, based on the ITS Critical Services Assessment Criteria. Please refer to the Critical Services Assessment Criteria for more information on the assessment methodology. The University Blog Service is not Category-I certified. The University Blog Service does not meet FERPA requirements for use by faculty within their courses.
Service Description
A recent version of the WordPress MU software is made available to the intended customers. For this service, recent is defined as six months. The login process is encrypted and uses EIDs for authentication.
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Blog platform | A single installation of the WordPress MU (multi-user) software that supports multiple blogs for multiple users, published to http://blogs.utexas.edu. |
| Themes | A pre-determined set of themes for users to select. This service does not provide custom themes for individual users. |
| Storage | Each blog has a maximum of 10 megabytes of storage space for storing documents (.doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt, etc.) and multimedia (png, jpg, mov, wav, etc.). WebSpace is the ideal storage location for large documents and media. |
| Statistics | An administrative tool for blog owners to view basic statistics like hits and popular pages. |
| Spam Protection | Protection from comment and trackback spam. |
| Plugins & widgets | A pre-determined set of plug-ins and widgets. This service does not provide custom installed plug-ins or widgets. |
Supported Computing Environment
The WordPress MU software will be upgraded on a regular basis following these criteria:
- A stable production upgrade version of WordPress MU has been released for at least two months. Exceptions will be made for security upgrades.
- The stable production upgrade version of WordPress MU is compatible with all required plug-ins (especially SSL and LDAP).
It is important to note that the University Blog Service is not Category-I certified.
For the latest information on tested systems and a complete list of supported procedures, refer to the ITS Web site: http://www.utexas.edu/its/blog.
Technical Support
Tier 1 support
Tier 1 support for end-user problems is provided by the ITS Help Desk during business hours at:
- http://www.utexas.edu/its/help
- 475-9400
Tier 2 support
The ITS Help Desk may escalate issues to Tier 2 support. Tier 2 support is provided by the ITS-Applications Web Technology Team.
- Tier 2 support is available during normal business hours.
- End users always start with Tier 1, which is basic support. Tier 2 is the second support level and is reserved for more complex issues. ITS Help Desk may escalate issues to Tier 2.
Service Availability
This section provides information about the normal schedule of times when the service is available, the times specified for scheduled maintenance, and defines expectations for reporting service problems and changes.
Normal Service Availability
The University Blog Service is designed to be available for customer use 24-hours-per-day, seven days-per-week, 365 days-per-year (24/7/365) excluding scheduled maintenance times. Routine requests (for example, creating a new blog for a project) are typically addressed within three business days.
Scheduled Maintenance
Scheduled maintenance for the University Blog Service is essential for upgrades and to maintain security, and may occur weekly on Wednesdays from midnight until 7 a.m. Services may not be available during the scheduled maintenance periods.
Problem Reporting and Change Notification
ITS will notify customers using the ITS Services Status page of service availability and service delivery issues for the University Blog Service. To the maximum extent possible, installation of service, application, and security updates will be performed during scheduled maintenance.
Key Service Indicators
List of Metrics/Measures
The following provides a description of the key service level objectives defined by this SLA.
| Measurement Definition | Performance Target |
|---|---|
| Overall Availability [1] | The percent of time that the service is available. 99% |
| Customer Satisfaction Percent | The percent of positive response to customer satisfaction questions in the annual ITS survey. 90% |
Notes:
1. The Overall availability is calculated as the hours that the service is available in the reporting period divided by the total hours in the reporting period. This percentage reflects scheduled and unscheduled downtime.
Dependencies
The University Blog Service is dependent on the uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED), ITS MySQL Service, ITS Virtual Services as well as the campus network and related systems. The availability of those services will have a direct impact on blogsthe availability of the University Blog Service.
Service Report Card
ITS will publish performance for this service in the public ITS Services Report Card.
Other Party Responsibilities
In addition to the services provided by ITS, subscribers (users) of the service and identified owners/administrators agree to certain important responsibilities. All parties agree to be aware of and adhere to the university's Acceptable Use Policy. ITS retains the right to remove content that violates acceptable use.
User/Subscriber Responsibilities
Subscriber agrees to:
- Read the University Blog Service documentation at http://www.utexas.edu/its/blog.
- Be aware of and adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy at http://www.utexas.edu/its/policies/responsible.php.
- Not post or store any Category-I data in the University Blog Service.
- Provide critical information to ITS in a timely manner when requested for purposes of resolving subscriber issues.
Data Persistence
Personal blogs (based on EID) will remain active for six months after departure from the university. This provides users time to establish a new blog, notify readers, and export blogs.utexas.edu content to a new blog.
Blogs created for departments, teams, projects, or workgroups will be subject to deletion after one year of inactivity.
Cost of Service
The University Blog Service is provided at no cost to faculty and staff.
