Sage Partner Cloud Guidelines

Service Guidelines Overview

All hosting related service requests logged with support are assigned a severity level from 1 to 4 based on the impact on your business. You determine the initial severity level when placing a request for assistance. Severity levels may be changed after initial contact and assessment of the issue from a DSD Support Engineer.

1- Emergencies

1.1 Emergencies
Defined as the Service being unavailable and verified as unavailable from at least two (2) locations and to all your users. A second location can be our support staff if one is not available to you.

1.2 Customer Escalations
Are requests that are deemed, by the customer, to be of an escalated nature, and do not fit DSD’s definition of an emergency in Section 1.1 above. Unless otherwise agreed, these requests will be addressed as received per defined severity levels.

1.3 Emergencies and Customer Escalations
Emergencies and Customer escalations are required to be treated as such by the customer as well. When an emergency is in progress, resources are allocated by DSD’s staff, and it is expected that all communication or answers to questions be addressed promptly by you. If the issue is resolved, and is no longer an emergency, the customer is required to inform DSD via the ticket created to be marked as resolved.

2- Customer Locations, Network,
Network Availability and Connections

DSD’s Connection:  
Defined as our ability to pass incoming and outgoing TCP/IP traffic to Customers’ locations or devices without interference or restrictions. 

Customer Network Availability: 
Defined as the ability to pass incoming and outgoing TCP/IP traffic from DSD’s locations without interference or restrictions. 

Customer Locations: Defined as wherever Customer accesses our Service.  

Customers Network: Defined as, but not limited to;

  • (i) all Network Devices and; 
  • (ii) Workstations, Mobile Devices, Cables, Wireless Devices, Modems, Firewalls, Operating Software, Antivirus 

Customer’s Connection: Defined as, but not limited to; 

  • (i)  Internet Service Provider (ISP) per location, stationary or 
  • (ii) mobile, line of sight, satellite provider. 

2.1 Interruptions of Our Server at Customer Locations
Interruptions caused by a denial of service or similar attacks on Customer’s ISP, location or network devices are explicitly;

  • (i) not covered in our Terms & Conditions (www.dsdinc.com/toc)
  • (ii) beyond DSD’s control and; 
  • (iii) are not included in our downtime calculations to Customer.

2.2.1 Customer Reporting
When a connection related matter is reported by any end user of our Service, Customer agrees to create a support ticket by either emailing Sage100Support@dsdinc.com or calling 800.627.9032.

2.2.2 Connection Verification
a.  Our support team will validate connectivity from an external location to your Service, not to your Device or Location.
b.  If our attempt to connect to Your Service externally;

  • (i) Passes.  No further action will be taken by DSD if the connection matter is localized, corrected by your network admin or IT Providers and your ticket will be updated and closed. 
  • (i.a). This includes your cooperation and verification from another device, location or connection other than where the incident is being reported from.
  • (i.b) We will direct you to KB Resolutions and offer general assistance to you or your local IT Providers, not your ISPs, complimentary.
  • (ii) Fails. If our connectivity test fails to reach your Service DSD will escalate the matter to a Severity Level 1 (Critical Business Impact) until resolved.

2.2.3 Multi-Location Connection Incidents
If a multi-location connection interruption is reported, DSD will assist in determining the source of the connection matter and escalate to Severity Level 1 (Critical Business Impact) until we determine actual status of the Service or resolved.

2.3 Customer Service Interference
DSD reserves the right to withhold our support to Customer if we determine and based on statistical experience that Customer’s Network, Network Devices or ISP is interfering with our Service or use of any Application we host for you.
Customer shall at its own expense be required to cure the network, network devices, operating software and connections identified by us by using, but not limited to,

  • (a) Internal qualified resources
  • (b) 3rd Party IT Providers or
  • (c) ISP

2.4 Third-Party Dispute Resolution for Connection
If a dispute arises regarding this Section, DSD reserves the right to select and engage a 3rd Party IT Provider in the United States to assess at their own expense.

  • (i) Assessment Upheld. DSD will bill you at our normal rates and the cost of the 3rd Party IT Provider and forward you all recommendations.
  • (ii)Assessment Questioned. DSD will use, at our own expense, commercially available and internal resources to resolve our connection to your locations.

3- Availability of Application Server(s) and Maintenance

3.1 Availability of Application Server 
DSD will use commercially reasonable efforts to have the Service available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, excluding any scheduled maintenance as described below and unscheduled down time due to events beyond its control or Customer requests. Times noted below are approximate and may change (scheduled maintenance and unscheduled down time referred to as “Down Time”). DSD’s goal is to maintain a 99% monthly average of scheduled availability of its Servers

3.1 Uptime Guarantee
DSD guarantees 99.99% uptime of its servers. excluding scheduled maintenance, and events outside of its control. (see 4.1)

3.2 Maintenance Downtime
DSD servers may occasionally go down nightly for a brief period (15 minutes total) to perform different maintenance tasks, and backups.

4- Microsoft Azure Availability

4.1 Microsoft Azure Scheduled or Unexpected Outages
Since DSD utilizes Microsoft Azure (Azure), we cannot guarantee availability in the event of an unscheduled Azure outage. Customer agrees to Microsoft SLA for Virtual Machines: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/legal/sla/virtual-machines/v1_9/ 
4.1.a Azure Scheduled Maintenance windows will typically not affect DSD Service.
4.1.b in the event of catastrophic failure with Azure infrastructure, DSD will initiate disaster recovery protocols to move clients to different data centers.

Maintenance
(i) Scheduled maintenance. To ensure optimal performance of the Servers, DSD performs maintenance on the Servers on a routine basis. Such maintenance often requires taking DSD’s servers off-line. DSD reserves the right to perform scheduled maintenance up to one (1) hour per day, during which time some or all of the Services or hosted applications may not be available.

Server Maintenance and unavailability is not included in Server downtime calculations. Except for routine and scheduled maintenance, Customers are sent notice in advance if maintenance times are expected to exceed 15 minutes and we will try to perform maintenance during off-peak hours based on your time zone.

(ii) Unscheduled maintenance may be required to resolve issues that are critical for Customers and or performance of the Services. DSD will notify Customers when possible via email prior to the unscheduled maintenance. Unscheduled maintenance may be conducted any time.

(iii) Other Down Time. Customer agrees that the Services may be inaccessible during periods of time wherein Customer has scheduled upgrades or modifications to the Service.