1. General Overview
This is a Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) between Enterprise Technology and the Sponsoring Unit that the site requestor represents. The Sponsoring Unit is defined as the department that is assuming responsibility and is accountable for the website's content, maintenance and hosting costs. This SLA outlines:
- The technology services provided to Arizona State University users or customers who represent the Sponsoring Unit
- The targets for response times, availability, and maintenance associated with these services
- The responsibilities of Enterprise Technology as a provider of a subscription based service provided from off-campus vendor(s) that provide the ability to develop and host Drupal and WordPress websites and applications “the service”
- The responsibilities of Pantheon as the vendor of a subscription based service
- The responsibilities of the Sponsoring Unit (Customer) as the subscriber of a subscription based service
- Processes for requesting services and access to support resources
- Review and Reporting SLA process
This SLA will be reviewed annually to assess hardware, software and procedural accuracy.
Enterprise Technology has partnered with off-campus vendor(s) to broker a subscription-based service to Arizona State University units for developing and hosting websites and applications. Service(s) are inclusive of the monitoring and reporting of service availability and addressing/routing problems for campus personnel.
Should the chosen vendor(s) services terminate, Enterprise Technology will make available an alternative vendor(s), as well as ensure a straightforward migration process of data from one vendor to another.
Enterprise Technology and our off-site vendor(s) are committed to providing ASU customers technical support within scope of the terms-of-service (TOS) free of charge as described below:
Automated and online Support will be provided by vendor(s) per https://pantheon.io/support and is defined as troubleshooting and assisting with:
- Setup of an account (Enterprise Technology shall assist with initial provisioning of the service)
- Access and server related issues
- Online tools, control panel and server management - Customer is provided with certain online tools, and it is expected that the Customer use these tools to perform all available account and server management tasks
- Online tools, together with server management documentation and help, are available online at the support section of the Vendor’s website. If Customer experiences difficulty using these tools, the Vendor's technical support personnel will help Customer learn how to use these tools. However, the Vendor’s technical support personnel shall not be expected to perform for Customer the tasks that can be done through the available tools.
- Support is to be provided to a customer’s primary support contact
Enterprise Technology will:
- Provision user access to the Vendor's platform
- Provide the ability to sign up for plans and will bill customers annually for their usage in accordance to the TOS as agreed between Enterprise Technology and vendor(s)
- Will escalate issues with Vendor as appropriate to ensure the terms as described herein are adhered to
Please note: Support prioritization is given to those issues that affect system availability and platform issues
Out of Scope
- Support installing or using CMS code beyond ASU provided distribution. This is the Customer’s responsibility.
- Updates, patches and other code maintenance of non-ASU CMS themes, modules, and their functionalities. This is the Customer’s responsibility.
2.2 Billing – please see "Rates" below
2.3 Assumptions
- All Subscription Services are provided on a annual recharge basis
- Service Documentation by Vendor is provided at the following URL: https://pantheon.io/platform/website-management-platform
- Support Documentation by vendor is provided at the following URL: https://pantheon.io/docs/
- Terms of Service Agreement for vendor is provided at the following URL: https://pantheon.io/terms-of-service
- Additional support resources specific to Arizona State University are available through Enterprise Technology’s Paid Service Offerings or ASU approved vendors
- Service will be provided assuming adherence to any related policies, processes and procedures, and are offered assuming practices outlined in vendor(s) Terms of Service available at https://pantheon.io/terms-of-service. Enterprise Technology is not responsible for the content of the site, copyright, policy compliance, etc.
- Hosted content will not contain protected health information (PHI) according to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), payment card information protected by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) other than cardholder name and address, nor data that is described as highly sensitive in the ASU Data Handling Standard at IT Policy | ASU Enterprise Technology and https://links.asu.edu/datahandlingstandard. If you have any questions regarding data classifications feel free to contact a team member at https://getprotected.asu.edu/contact-us
- Vendor(s) services are not appropriate for restricted data. Refer to https://getprotected.asu.edu for further information.
- Use of vendor(s) services must comply with ASU's Academic Affairs Manual - ACD 125: Computer, Internet, and Electronic Communications Policy: http://www.asu.edu/aad/manuals/acd/acd125.html
- Customers will make an effort to understand basic usage of the online tools and shall familiarize themselves with vendor(s) FAQs regarding “Getting started”, “Frequently Asked Questions” and vendor(s) development best practices, if available
- When there is an issue that cannot be resolved through vendor(s) online resources, training and consulting will be recommended. Additional monthly consulting can be arranged on a Time & Materials (hourly) basis via Enterprise Technology’s Paid Service Offerings.
3. Roles and Responsibilities
3.1 Parties
The parties to this Service Level Agreement are Enterprise Technology (Service Provider), Pantheon Systems, Inc., (Vendor), and the Sponsoring Unit for the hosted website or web application (Customer).
3.2 Enterprise Technology Responsibilities
Enterprise Technology responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this Agreement include:
- Representation of University constituents in brokering Vendor’s services
- Representation of Customer when escalation is warranted to Vendor beyond basic technical support. Please contact pantheon@asu.edu – Service Provider Manager.
- Maintain, augment, and link to up-to-date user documentation at https://pantheon.io/support
- Review Service Level Agreement annually and notify Customer of updates or changes
- Communicate changes in terms of service or support policies from Vendor
- Communicate major service outages – scheduled and unscheduled. Status will also be updated on http://syshealth.asu.edu
- Provision, de-provision sites and manage (compute) resource re-allocation. Will respond with site creation instructions.
- Manage access to the ASU Organization on Pantheon. ASU affiliation and email accounts are required for Pantheon access to the ASU Organization on Pantheon. Websites hosted on the ASU Organization are property of ASU; thus, access to the ASU Organization will be removed upon employee separation from the university.
- Manage ASU Organization website footprint by deleting frozen sites that have been inactive for 3 months or more.
- Decommission site tasks
- DNS cleanup
- Site plan downgrade to Sandbox
- Frozen site deletion
3.3 Vendor’s Responsibilities
3.4 Customer Responsibilities
Customer responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this Agreement include:
- Prompt payment
- Designate department billing contact
- Customer is expected to review the online Vendor(s) user manuals (Technical Documentation, FAQs & Tutorials can be found at https://pantheon.io/docs/ and Terms of Service at https://legal.pantheon.io/ClientAgreements.html#contract-sy89awjr9) and adhere to policies and best practices described therein
- Consult ASU specific documentation: https://brandguide.asu.edu/execution-guidelines/web/building-sites/webspark
- Customers will be responsible for installing, configuring and maintaining software/tools required for site building or server access
- Provide a contact person who is technically able to install, upgrade and configure software/tools on the service
- Customers will be fully responsible to support all code, files, configurations and site content, and keep updated
- Monitoring: Customers are expected to monitor site performance and notify Enterprise Technology by filling out and submitting the Update Information for an Active Pantheon Site form or via email (pantheon@asu.edu) when they need to increase server resource allocation (i.e., move to a new hosting plan). The Enterprise Technology team may also contact the website contact with specific action requests resulting from basic service monitoring.
- ASU Single Sign-On Authentication and SSL: The preferred way to authenticate to a website is by using ASU Single Sign-On (SSO) Authentication. If there is some reason that Customer cannot use ASU SSO authentication with the website, Customer should use SSL (https://) to secure the CMS’ standard authentication mechanism.
- Service cancellation must be submitted by filling out and submitting the Pantheon Site Decommission form or via email to pantheon@asu.edu.
- Manage access permissions for paid site level accounts. ASU affiliation and email addresses are required for Pantheon access to the ASU sites on Pantheon. ASU websites launched via this SLA agreement are property of ASU; thus, access to said sites must be removed by the Sponsoring Unit upon employee separation from the university.
- Request and manage security scans and remediation efforts.
- Designate and maintain current contact information for “User in Charge”, “Billing Contact”, Technical Contact with Pantheon and in ASU's CMDB and official Web Inventory Document
- Create site backups; download and store copies of said backups for safekeeping.
- Properly manage and secure data stored on the site(s) and minimize risk of data breaches: This includes but is not limited to the implementation of measures such as the appropriate configuration of file storage; limiting the collection of sensitive data to only what is truly needed; storing sensitive data only as long as necessary; anonymize or pseudonymize data before sharing, transmitting or storing; limiting access to sensitive data, both within and outside ASU; establishing processes and mechanisms to purge sensitive data from the site(s) when it is no longer needed.
- Decommission site tasks:
- Decommission Pantheon hosted sites by filling and submitting the Pantheon Site Decommission form or emailing pantheon@asu.edu and including the following:
- The Pantheon site name (e.g., example), production domain (e.g., example.asu.edu), or UUID (e.g., ee3303d4-e59e-43c4-9f30-5e848e9bed0c)
The anticipated date of decommissioning (e.g., now or at the end of the fiscal year)
If the individual making the request is not the technical contact or billing contact we have on record for the website, we ask that they attest that they have been authorized by the site's sponsoring department to make the request.
- Update ASU's CMDB and official Web Inventory Document
4. Contact Information
Vendor (Pantheon) can be contacted via Support page (https://pantheon.io/docs/support) to file a support ticket (troubleshooting, account setup, and use of online tools) or request emergency support for sites using the Elite service level plan.
The Enterprise Technology team can be contacted for service provisioning and billing-related requests with an email to pantheon@asu.edu. These email requests will be processed during regular business hours, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. MST, Monday through Friday except University holidays, and announced University closures.
5. Hours of Coverage, Response Times & Escalation
5.1 Vendor vs. Enterprise Technology
- Section 5 refers to the Enterprise Technology role in provisioning sites, billing and support escalation
- Vendor Coverage, Response Times and Escalation are outlined in their support page (https://pantheon.io/support)
5.2 Hours of Coverage
- Enterprise Technology hours of operation are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. MST, Monday – Friday except University holidays and announced University closures. Customers may use any of the methods of contact as stated in Section 4.
- Requests via email pantheon@asu.edu can be submitted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and will be processed during the next business day.
5.2.1 Incident Response Times
Incident response times: Although the team may not be able to provide resolution immediately, Enterprise Technology has a goal to do its best to respond to incidents within four (4) business hours, this may vary depending on prioritization of service requests as described in this document.
5.2.2 Prioritization
Enterprise Technology will prioritize incoming incident requests based on the following criteria:
- Number of departments or people affected
- Impact on scholarship (research or teaching) or administrative function
- Risk to safety, law, rule, or policy compliance
- First-come, first-serve basis (above criteria being equal)
5.2.3 Service Requests
A service request means a request is made by Customer to Enterprise Technology for support of a service that the Customer has already provisioned. Service requests will be processed during normal business hours via any of the methods outlined in Section 4.
Enterprise Technology's general response to requests is within 4-8 business hours of receipt. Some service requests have faster response times. Please refer to the service catalog for individual response times.
5.3 Other Requests
Vendor accepts features requests through its support ticketing system (https://pantheon.io/support). Requests for changes to Enterprise Technology hosting plans can be submitted via email to pantheon@asu.edu.
5.4 Service Exceptions to Coverage
Exceptions to Hours of Coverage (Section 5.3) for Enterprise Technology support for site provisioning, billing, and support escalation:
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Exceptions
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Parameters
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Coverage
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University Holidays
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N/A
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No coverage
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Scheduled Maintenance(s)
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(As scheduled)
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No coverage
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6. Maintenance and Service Changes
The Change Management process by vendor(s) minimizes unintended service disruptions or other impacts to the Campus as a result of changes in the production environment. Vendor(s) does this by monitoring, managing, and evaluating changes to maximize the service benefits to Customer, while minimizing the risks involved in making those changes.
Vendor will be responsible for communicating services, maintenance, and outages via email, vendor status page (http://status.pantheon.io/), and Twitter account (https://twitter.com/pantheonstatus).
Major vendor(s) related services, maintenance, and Campus outages will be published in the Enterprise Technology System Health page (http://syshealth.asu.edu).
There are three categories of service changes:
- Planned Maintenance: Planned service maintenance is approved work that is planned and scheduled prior to the change. Enterprise Technology or vendor(s) will communicate (as needed) to the appropriate audience prior to the scheduled change.
- Unplanned Maintenance: Unplanned service maintenance is priority work that is unplanned due to an urgent repair to prevent failure. Unplanned service outages will be given priority (and communicated immediately) on a case-by-case basis depending on the type and urgency of the service failure.
- Emergency Service Change: An emergency service change is defined as a service failure that affects the entire campus or significant number of users that requires immediate repair. Emergency Service Changes are communicated to the appropriate Enterprise Technology contacts to determine necessary communication steps. Emergency service announcements are communicated usually the day of the service failure. Off-hours service failures are communicated the following business day.
7. Rates
7.1 Charges
Customers will be billed for the fiscal year; fiscal year hosting costs are prorated as applicable. Special rates and features through ASU's partnership with Pantheon are available.
Customers will be billed the prorated difference between service level plans for the months remaining in the fiscal year when a service level plan upgrade occurs. Customers will be refunded the prorated difference between service level plans for the months remaining in the fiscal year when a service level plan downgrade occurs.
Customers may opt to receive a credit in place of a refund and apply it to the costs of another website hosted on the service. Customers may opt to pay for multiple fiscal years upfront.
Customers may terminate the service at any time without charge with 30 days advance notice. No refunds will be issued for unused service.
Any billing questions should be directed to: pantheon@asu.edu.
8. Reviewing and Reporting
This SLA covers the period from January 2023 to December 2023, and will be reviewed and revised at the end of this period.
8.1 SLA Reviews
This Agreement will be reviewed annually or as otherwise needed.
The Enterprise Technology maintains responsibility for the content of this document, may amend it as required and communicate changes to all affected parties.
All Service Level Agreements can also be accessed for Enterprise Technology in the Service Catalog.
