GlowHost :: Service Level Agreement

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The GlowHost SLA is below, this page contains information about what GlowHost offers our customers, and explains our agreement to them.

Managed service is an optional service for dedicated servers and Enterprise Cloud servers. Managed Hosting from GlowHost is included on all hosting packages with the exception of dedicated servers and Enterprise Cloud servers. If you have any hosting plan other than a dedicated server or Enterprise Cloud server, it is a managed hosting package.

Managed means that we fully manage the day to day maintenance of the server, you sell accounts, and you service and support your internal customer accounts, but, when problems arise on the underlying server, we will help you fix them or we will fix them for you free of charge.

For example, if you email us, and say "My customer domain.com is not getting his emails on account joe@domain.com" we will log in to your customer's account and help you resolve the problem with his account etc. just like we do with any reseller or shared hosting account. However you are always the first line of support for your clients. Should you be unable to resolve a problem, we are here to help you. We do not support or interact with your customers directly.

Other benefits of our Managed Hosting service include full proactive monitoring of the server, log files, kernel updates, server software installation and configuration, security updates, patches, firewall installation and configuration, etc. This leaves you to only worry about running your business and not server administration.

Unmanaged is the discounted opposite. Hardware failures are our responsibility, but the software and services are yours. We do not monitor, upgrade, or check logs etc. If you email us a question on a customer problem we will offer to check it out and fix it for an administrative fee of $100/hour an hour with a 1/2 hour minimum. Often times will will opt to not charge anything for our services on an unmanaged server, especially if it is a quick fix or simple question, however this is at our sole discretion of if a charge will be involved and should be assumed that there will be a charge for servicing an unmanaged account. We will always notify you of the estimated fees ahead of time, before performing any work, and we will wait for your confirmation that the charges are acceptable. Upon your confirmation, we will begin the requested work. Examples of something that would require a fee would be if you wanted us to install a some special software for the server or if you managed to damage the operating system and required an OS reload or other repair. Something that we would not charge for is something like if you needed instructions (within reason), advice or direction in order to install or repair something.

You are free to customize the server software in both managed and unmanaged environments to your liking, but please be advised any actual code or configuration modifications to the base software that we provide you, that results in damage and or malfunction of the server is not covered by GlowHost. This means you can configure Apache, cPanel, mail server, ftp, etc. software, but if you break it, and you require GlowHost to fix it, you will be charged our hourly rate of $100. If you are not sure exactly of what you are doing, it is best to let us manage server software updates and configuration for you. Managed or unmanaged server agreements do not cover breakage caused by user code or configuration modifications to the server software environment.

Root access is available on all managed and unmanaged dedicated servers from GlowHost.com

All servers include free emergency reboots. Unmanaged servers include a remote reboot console so that you can perform reboots yourself without having to contact GlowHost.

In order to receive the managed service on dedicated servers or Enterprise Cloud servers, it will require a cPanel license for your server, which you can purchase at a discount from us, or you can buy it directly at cPanel or any other vendor. With your cPanel license it is easy for you to become full-fledged hosting company. We also will provide free customer billing software from a brand name of our choice, but this is an optional service that must be requested.

We will help you to install scripts that we offer in our control panel for free if you cannot do it on your own using our automated script installer. If a script is not offered in our control panel, it is considered a 3rd party script. You may elect to have GlowHost install a 3rd party script for a fee, if we agree to the installation. However after initial installation, we do not offer support on how to use or configure your script. We do not troubleshoot 3rd party scripts that you or your clients may install. We do not cover 3rd party software/script usage questions nor do we assist in modifying the code in your scripts. We do not provide design services for your website or scripts. In other words, your site is completely your responsibility. Our responsibilities are in maintaining the server, connectivity and other services necessary for your site to function correctly. If your script require certain libraries or modules to be installed at the server level, we can do this for free on all managed plans. If you have an unmanaged package, fees may apply for installation of certain software packages if you require us to perform the install.

Network Uptime is the total time in a calendar month that GlowHost network is available through the Internet, provided that Client has established connectivity. GlowHost takes responsibility for Network availability within the GlowHost network, however, we cannot be held liable for downstream (your ISP) problems, or other problems outside of our service network. Our guarantee is that our Network will be available to clients free of Network Outages, that render 100% packet loss, 99% availability or greater, each calendar month Please refer to your specific hosting package for your exact uptime guarantee.

Network outages or unscheduled downtime is any unplanned or unscheduled interruption in Service availability during which client is unable to access the GlowHost network. A network outage is defined as a period in which 100% packet loss to our network is experienced, which is determined to have been caused by a problem in GlowHost’s network as confirmed by GlowHost. Downtime or outages are measured as the total length of time of the unplanned interruption in service availability in a calendar month.

Scheduled downtime is any GlowHost scheduled interruption of services, for the purpose of network upgrades, or replacement of any equipment in order to provide for you better service. Scheduled downtime occurs during notified downtime periods, with as much advance warning as possible. We strive to make at least 24 hours notice for scheduled downtime, but sometimes this is not possible. An example of when we would not be able to give 24 hours notice is for an extremely important security update that needs to be patched immediately, or, a server looses a primary hard drive and needs immediate replacement.

SLA Network Violation Credit occurs when our network uptime guarantee is not met. GlowHost will refund the customer a pro-rated amount of the total monthly fee paid by the customer, to the company for each hour of downtime (up to 100% of your monthly fee) for network downtime provided that the customer has no outstanding invoices, and the customer's account is in good standing. Network downtime is measured from the time the network is 100% unreachable, until service is once again restored. For mathematical purposes, we base a month as 720 hours.

*Network violation SLA credit does not cover server hardware failure.*

· Performance Credit exclusions: The following are excluded from the monthly calculation of Service Availability:

· Scheduled downtime.

· Problems outside of GlowHost’s network (client’s inbound connection) not effecting 100% loss to our network.

 · Interruptions or failure of individual service caused by client, their employees, client’s customers, etc. to their service. These include misconfiguration, 3rd party software, client abuse or over utilization of resources, hacked servers, attacks, exploits, other server software failures, or server hardware failures.

Hardware replacement procedures will begin immediately, typically within the first hour that the reported problem has occurred. In order to reduce replacement hardware downtime, we keep ample quantity of excess hardware and systems on hand to swap out Hard disks or other hardware, so that your server can be back up in the shortest amount of time. Most hardware replacements take less than one hour to complete.

Replacement is defined as returning the server to original configuration when it was purchased. If hardware failure causes corrupted Operating System, data, files, or re-configuration of server, GlowHost will restore the system to original state. Certain procedures like re-installation of the Operating System, configuration of the control panel, and restoring web sites may take several hours to complete. These items are limited by the server's processing power, speed of hard drive, network connection speed and several other factors outside of our direct control. Due to these factors, the items described in this paragraph are excluded from any hardware SLA guarantee, and a server shall be considered "up" once it is again accessible via the Internet, after the hardware has been replaced.

We will also attempt to assist in recovering your customer's web sites from backup, provided you have backup services as part of your hosting agreement, but make no guarantee to the accuracy of the backups or that the backup data is in tact. The customer should make appropriate backups of their data if their data is important or irreplaceable.

GlowHost is not responsible for the restoration of data to server, however as outlined above, we will assist you with trying to recover it should you need our assistance. We strongly recommend that your purchase backup options for your server, and keep copies of your data off-site with you for emergency purposes. If hardware failure and data loss occurs, the Customer is responsible for data recovery. GlowHost shall not be liable for loss of data under any circumstance.

GlowHost offers free content / file transfers of your web site when coming from another hosting company, or when upgrading service at GlowHost. GlowHost may at its sole discretion offer a free transfer on a downgrade, but it is uncommon and should not be expected. If you need GlowHost to transfer your site content on account downgrades, or to another host, fees will most likely apply. Please contact our helpdesk for a quote on your particular file transfer request and we will be happy to provide you with a quote.