Service Level Agreement
Service Level Agreement
Last Updated: August 12, 2015
This Service Level Agreement (hereinafter, the “SLA”) governs the use of all the services provided by Brighter Vision Web Solutions, Inc. (“BVWS”) to its customers (“You” or “Customer”, also “Your”), including internet hosting and other services in accordance with BVWS’s Terms of Service or alternatively, on terms as expressly agreed between BVWS and You (the “Services”).
BVWS is committed to providing the Services to You at a standard of excellence commensurate with the best practices in the industry. The service levels described in further detail below are designed to assure You of ultimate performance and maximal uptime of the Services. This SLA governs Your Services with BVWS in tandem with BVWS’s other policies and procedures, including the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. In the case of any ambiguities between the policies, the Terms of Service shall govern.
- Definitions
“Availability” is defined as the percentage of a particular month (based on 24-hour days for the number of days in the subject month) that the content of Your hosted system under the Services is available for access by third parties via HTTP (or HTTPS, if requested by You under the Services), as measured by BVWS.
“Downtime” is defined herein as, for a server hosting under the Services, if there is more than a 5% user error rate. User error is calculated using server monitoring software, based on results from ping tests, web server tests, TCP port tests, and website tests. Downtime is measured based on server side error rate.
“Emergency Downtime” is defined as those times where BVWS becomes aware of a vulnerability under the Services which, based on a risk assessment of the vulnerability, BVWS deems to require immediate remediation and, as a result, the Services are made temporarily unavailable in order for BVWS to address the identified vulnerability. For the purposes of this SLA, Emergency Downtime is not considered Downtime.
- Suitability for General Hosting Requirements
BVWS recognizes the importance of its Services in its customers’ businesses, and seeks to offer highly-performing, secure, and reliable hosting. Our hosting network has been designed and is actively managed to ensure excellence in security and Availability. Our network employs high levels of redundancy to protect the Services from Downtime through the failure of any single component or connection. Our standard Hosting Plans are designed to be suitable for providing Availability of general business websites.
- Hosting
BVWS uses high-performance shared virtual private servers (“VPSs”) hosted by reputable hosting Provider Companies (“HPCs” or “HPC”). BVWS has a 99.8% Availability guaranty on the website hosting plans under the Services. BVWS will use its best endeavors, in conjunction with the HPCs, to rectify the cause of any Downtime and to minimize the duration of any such instances. BVWS will not be liable to You for any compensation in respect of Downtime that may occur with the hosting of Your website(s). BVWS will keep a separate local backup of customer website files and, in the unlikely event of a hard drive failure or other technical failure with the dedicated web server, will re-setup the website as quick as possible on a new or repaired web server. With regard to any images or downloaded files uploaded to your website, it is Your responsibility to retain a copy of these. In the unlikely event of hard drive failure or other technical failure with the dedicated web server, it will be Your responsibility to re-upload these files.
In the event of Emergency Downtime, BVWS technical staff will try to restart normal Services off-site as quickly as possible.
- Customer Support
BVWS is committed to providing an exceptional level of support for the whole lifecycle of Your use of the Services. BVWS will be always be ready to respond to any critical issues, whether related to Downtime or not, You might be experiencing within our normal business hours: Monday through Friday 8:00AM to 6:00PM (Mountain), excluding any statutory holidays. Please refer to Section 15 of this SLA, below, for further contact information.
BVWS will ensure that the specifications provided to You under the Services work as intended. In the event that You report that some part of Your Services is not functioning correctly, BVWS will investigate this and take corrective action, which will be at no expense to the customer. In the event that You report an issue which is related to a matter that falls outside of the Services specifications, BVWS investigate this and, if appropriate, a price or a referral to a third-party provider of related services to carry out the extra work involved to resolve the issue.
- Termination Cancellation and Suspension of Service
You reserve the right to cancel and terminate Your subscription with BVWS at any time and for any reason, including, but not limited to, Downtime.
If the month that You decide to cancel Your subscription is already paid for, You will not be entitled to compensation for the remainder of the given month. If payment for Services has been received on an annual basis, BVWS has created and hosted your website, and the Service is cancelled during such Service period, You will not be entitled to a prorated refund or a refund of any kind. If payment for Services has been received on an annual basis, and the Service is cancelled before Your first draft is built, we will refund Your full amount, minus the setup fee, first month and a $100.00 cancellation fee.
In case your website under the Services is cancelled and/or terminated, BVWS owns the rights to the content, logo and design work created by BVWS under the Services. You can request, at an additional fee, site files and site database backup except for all sites launched under the Services. For such rates, please contact BVWS’s customer support department. Upon Your request, we can also provide You with the pre-written and intake forms completed by BVWS under the Services.
BVWS reserves the right, at BVWS’s own discretion, to suspend and limit network resources to customers failing to pay the monthly fee. Such suspensions are not related to BVWS’s Availability guaranty or Downtime. In the event of such Service suspension, full Service delivery will be restored within 12 hours from the date and time that payment is made to BVWS.
BVWS reserves the right to suspend and/or to terminate the Services to any customer that is accused of sending SPAM from or through their accounts. Such suspensions are not related to BVWS’s Availability guaranty or Downtime. BVWS dispute resolution assistance with the ISP or any legal authority will be provided at an additional fee based on time and material required (at minimum, $100.00). Any relevant Services restoration fee will also apply.
BVWS reserves the right to suspend and/or to terminate the services to any customer that is accused of Copyright Infringement of any content or electronic file found on his or her website. Such suspensions are not related to BVWS’s Availability guaranty or Downtime. BVWS also reserves the right to permanently or temporarily (until any legal proceedings have been resolved) remove any content and/or electronic files found on customer’s websites which violate Copyright Laws. BVWS dispute resolution assistance and/or involvement with the any legal authority will be provided at an additional fee based on time and material required (at minimum, $100.00). Any relevant Services restoration fee will also apply.
- Scheduled Maintenance
Scheduled Maintenance refers to any maintenance in our data center of which the customers affected by any service disruption, are notified at least 48 hours in advance. There will be no more than 12 hours of Scheduled Maintenance per calendar year. Scheduled Maintenance is not considered Downtime under the SLA.
- Service Disruption Caused by Customer Actions
BVWS cannot be held liable in the event of service outages caused by direct customer actions. Accordingly, such suspensions are not related to BVWS’s Availability guaranty or Downtime. Although there are limitations on the manipulation of critical server configuration files, server settings, etc. that a customer is allowed, if any customer’s actions directly result in outage to the Services, BVWS will not compensate any customer affected by this outage. It is up to the customer to think of the consequences related to his or her actions. DNS service expiration, DNS legal disputes, Web pages deletions and/or overrides through Web pages edits or by means of an FTP account are just some examples of such mischief.
BVWS reserves the right to charge their customers a standard consulting fee (time and material) dependent on the type of service required for any time spent addressing issues caused directly by customer actions.
- Server Backups
BVWS engineers maintain 3 backups of Your website under the Services at regular intervals under the commitment to provide reliability to You. However, You are solely responsible for backing up all Your content, including but not limited to, Your websites. BVWS does not warrant that we will have a back up any content, and You agree to accept the risk of loss of any and all Services content.
- Revisions of this SLA
This SLA will be in effect indefinitely but may be superseded by a revised SLA, at the discretion of BVWS, at any time. All revisions to this SLA will be first published to BVWS’s website and may also be communicated to You by email; however, You have the responsibility to monitor for such updates on the website.
- Disclaimer
BVWS cannot be held liable for damages under any circumstances not specifically identified in this agreement. BVWS cannot be held liable for the content or electronic files found on customer websites.
- Third-Party Services
BVWS may offer to customers third-party services such as those offered by Google or Hushmail to enhance the performance of their websites. BVWS will not be liable to You for any interruption, non-performance, or cancellation of the provision by third parties of any such services. BVWS offers expert knowledge at designing websites to perform well with the search engines and will work with You in trying to achieve high rankings for the appropriate keyword phrases. BVWS accepts no responsibility or liability to You for the actual rankings achieved or how such rankings may vary over time.
- Exclusive Remedy
IN THE EVENT OF ANY PROBLEM WITH THE SERVICES DUE TO DOWNTIME, YOU AGREE THAT YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY IS TO CEASE USING THE SERVICES WITH ANY REFUNDS GOVERNED BY SECTION 5, ABOVE. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE WILL BVWS, ITS AFFILIATES, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE IN ANY WAY FOR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES, THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS, OR THIRD PARTY USER GENERATED CONTENT AVAILABLE ON OR THROUGH THE SITE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS, ANY INFRINGEMENT OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OR OTHER RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF, OR RELATED TO, THE USE OF THE SITE, THE SERVICES, THE MATERIALS, YOUR CONTENT, DOWNTIME, THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS, R ANY THIRD PARTY USER GENERATED CONTENT AVAILABLE ON OR THROUGH THE SITE. Certain states and/or jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or limitation of liability for incidental or consequential damages, so the exclusions set forth above may not apply to You.
- Governing Law; Jurisdiction; Venue; Waiver of Trial by Jury
Except for disputes governed by the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (please refer to the Terms of Service [link here]), this SLA shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the federal law of the United States and the state law of Colorado, whichever is applicable, without regard to conflict of laws principles. You agree that any action relating to or arising out of this Agreement shall be brought in the state or federal courts of Denver County, Colorado, and You hereby consent to (and waive all defenses of lack of personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens with respect to) jurisdiction and venue in the state and federal courts of Denver County, Colorado. You agree to waive the right to trial by jury in any action or proceeding that takes place relating to or arising out of this Agreement.
- Merger Clause
This SLA, our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service contain the final, complete and exclusive statement of the agreement between the BVWS and You with respect to the Services and transactions contemplated thereunder. All other prior or contemporaneous oral communications and agreements, and all prior written communications and agreements with respect to the subject matter hereof are merged herein and superseded. In the event that the terms of this Agreement and the Privacy Policy and/or Service Level Agreement conflict, the terms of this Agreement shall prevail.
- Contact Information
If You have any questions about this Agreement, please contact us by email or USPS first-class mail at the following address:
Brighter Vision Web Solutions, Inc.
ATTN: Legal
2569 Park Lane
Suite 108
Lafayette, CO 80026