Service Level Agreement
Information Technology Services
The University of Texas at Austin
Effective Date: 9/23/2008
Last Edited: 8/27/2008
Score
Overview
ITS Virtual Services provides infrastructure to run multiple server hosts within a single physical server system. This service is based on the VMware Virtual Infrastructure suite of products and is available to any university entity with a need to run a server system. For more information please go to http://www.utexas.edu/its/vserver.
Review Process
This document defines the practices that Information Technology Services (ITS) will use for the Virtual Services 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 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays and reduced schedule days.
Scope
The following user communities at the university are the intended recipients for the Virtual Services service: students, faculty and staff. All registered users of the university's information resources rely upon the virtual server services.
Service Criticality
This service has been identified as Critical, based on the ITS Critical Services Assessment Criteria. Please refer to the Critical Services Assessment Criteria for more information on the assessment methodology.
Service Description
The table below provides a summary of the base services provided as part of ITS Virtual Services. Cost information for this service can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/its/vserver/ and in this document.
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Virtual Machine Creation | Create virtual machine to the customer's specifications with regard to memory, CPU reservation, networking, disk space and supported OS. |
| Backups* | Perform weekly full backups of virtual machine disk files for disaster recovery purposes. |
| Virtual Machine Performance Monitoring | Dynamically allocate resources based upon load. Virtual Machines (VMs) on a heavily loaded physical machine will be automatically moved to a less busy machine as needed. |
Please note that Snapshots are currently not supported. *Snapshot request will be evaluated on a case by case basis.
The following ITS Virtual Services options are available for an additional cost.
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Additional Memory (beyond 512MB) | Added memory will improve the performance of the virtual machine. |
| CPU Reservation | CPU reservations dedicate a minimum amount of processing power to a virtual machine. |
| Additional Disk Space | Additional disks can be added to virtual machines. |
Supported Computing Environment
The service and support levels documented in this SLA assume certain operating system configurations within virtual machines. The list below does not enumerate all possible operating systems that can be installed in a virtual machine, only those that have been tested and shown to provide reliable service. The supported operating systems for a virtual machine include:
Windows Server 2003 SP2 R2
- Enterprise Edition
- Standard Edition
Redhat Enterprise Linux
- Version 3
- Version 4
- Version 5
ITS offers licensing and templates for Windows Server and RedHat Enterprise Linux at no cost. Customers must provide the media and license keys for any other installed operating system.
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/vserver/.
Technical Support
Support for the service, including server hardware, virtual infrastructure software, maintenance, and backups, is provided by ITS-Systems. Support for the guest server instances and applications within each virtual machine will be provided by a departmental TSC or a contracted ITS systems administrator.
Tier 1 Support
Support for all OS and application issues will be provided by a departmental TSC or contracted ITS systems administrator.
Tier 2 Support
- Departmental TSCs or the ITS Help Desk may escalate issues to Tier 2 support.
- Tier 2 support is available during normal business hours.
- Routine requests (adding memory, disk space, etc) are typically addressed within three business days.
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
ITS Virtual Services is available for customer use 24 hours-per-day, seven days-per-week, 365 days-per-year (24x7x365), excluding scheduled maintenance times.
Scheduled Maintenance
Scheduled maintenance is critical for upgrades and to maintain security, and occurs on the third weekend of the month. Because of the high availability features of VMware ESX servers and infrastructure, services will most likely not be affected.
Problem Reporting and Change Notification
ITS will notify customers using the ITS Services Status page of service availability and service delivery issues for the Virtual Services. To the maximum extent possible, installation of service, application, and security updates will be performed during scheduled maintenance.
| Type | Business Impact | Subscriber Notification | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moderate | Changes or problems that may affect the service and have a broad business impact. | ITS will notify TSCs of changes five working days in advance via e-mail, and will generate an alert on the ITS services status page. | Modifications or replacement of storage infrastructure hardware |
| Major | Changes that may affect the service across multiple departments, with a significant impact to the subscribers' business. | ITS will meet with TSCs ten working days in advance, will notify subscribers five working days in advance via e-mail, and will generate an alert on the ITS services status page. | New versions of server software to be installed. |
| Critical (After-Hours) | Changes that must be performed in order to correct issues and having some impact on end-users. Impact to business does not warrant immediate correction. | ITS will notify service users as soon as possible after knowing such a change is required via e-mail, and will generate an alert on the ITS services status page. | Hung process on server needs to be cleared before tape backup can proceed. |
| Emergency (Immediate) | Changes that must be performed in order to correct issues having a major impact on end-users. Impact to business requires immediate action. | ITS will generate an alert on the ITS services status page, and will notify TSCs via e-mail after implementing the change. | Replacing critical hardware that has failed. |
The ITS Services Status page: http://www.utexas.edu/its/alerts/
Key Service Indicators
List of Metrics/Measures
The following provides a description of the key ITS Virtual Services service level objectives defined by this SLA.
| Measurement | Definition | Performance Target |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Availability [1] | Percentage value of service availability. | 99% |
| Customer Satisfaction Percentage | The percent of positive responses to customer satisfaction questions in the annual ITS survey. | 90% |
Dependencies
The following provides a description of the key ITS Virtual Services service level objectives defined by this SLA.
| Measurement | Definition | Performance Target |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Availability [1] | Percentage value of service availability. | 99% |
| Customer Satisfaction Percentage | The percent of positive responses to customer satisfaction questions in the annual ITS survey. | 90% |
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.
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.
User/Subscriber Responsibilities
Help Desk Responsibilities include:
- Providing Tier 1 support: Take calls, perform initial triage, and refer to Tier 2 Support.
- Achieving competence with technical material to the level necessary to provide Tier 1 support.
Departmental IT Support Staff
- Service infrastructure including the physical hardware and the dependent systems such as large-scale storage needs.
- Service delivery for the infrastructure involving security monitoring, performance monitoring, scheduled backups, etc.
- Infrastructure planning such as disaster recovery, hardware maintenance, storage planning etc.
Technical Support Contact (TSC)
- Obtaining a license for OS.
- Moving departmental data from an existing server.
- Downloading correct version VirtualCenter Client.
- Agreeing to terms for the production environment involving data classification and security.
- Obtaining and provide to ITS performance statistics regarding memory, processor, and disk utilization data prior to installation of software in the production environment.
- Maintaining machine security, updates, applications and data backups.
Cost of Service
There are four levels of virtual servers available, as well as add-ons that can be purchased to fit your server needs.
| Service | Specifications | Cost/Year |
|---|---|---|
| Level A | 512 RAM, 10 GB HD | $700 |
| Level B | 1 GB RAM, 10 GB HD | $900 |
| Level C | 1.5 GB RAM, 10 GB HD | $1,100 |
| Level D | 2 GB RAM, 10 GB HD | $1,400 |
| Service Add On | Specifications | Cost/Year |
| CPU Upgrade | 1 GHz CPU Reservation | $500 |
| CPU Upgrade | 2 GHz CPU Reservation | $900 |
| Extra Disk Space | 1 GB | $7 |
