Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Version 1.1

Updated: 5 April 2023

This Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) forms part of the Software as a Service agreement between Customer and Gearproxy (“Agreement”). Gearproxy encourages Customer to review the online SLA periodically.

1. 1. Introduction

   This SLA describes the levels of Product availability and support that Customer can expect to receive from Gearproxy for the duration of the Agreement.

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2. 2. Definitions

   As used in this SLA, the following terms shall have the meanings specified below. Any capitalized terms not defined herein shall have the meaning attributed to them in the Agreement. In this SLA the singular includes the plural and vice versa; the words “month”, “year”, and “quarter” mean calendar month, calendar year, and calendar quarter, unless otherwise stated; and the word “including” (or any analogous word or phrase) means “including without limitation”.

1. 3. Scope of the Service Level Agreement

   This SLA applies only to the Product and Professional Services described in the Agreement or applicable Statement of Work. This SLA does not apply to any software, equipment, services, or other parts of an information technology system that are not purchased from or managed by Gearproxy.
    
   Gearproxy will rectify material issues with the Product , except where:

   1. 1. 3.1. the issue has been caused by Customer’s use of the Product in a manner that is contrary to Gearproxy training, Documentation, or any other instruction issued by Gearproxy;
      2. 3.2. Customer has made unauthorized changes to the configuration or set-up of the affected Product;
      3. 3.3. Customer has prevented Gearproxy from performing maintenance on the Product;
      4. 3.4. the issue has been caused by Third Party Products; or
      5. 3.5. the issue has been caused by User(s), including by modifying part of the software or by adding, deleting, or assigning improper rights to Users.

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2. 4. SLA Effective Date and Term

   This SLA will be effective from the Project Start Date and will terminate without further notice and without right to compensation or restitution upon the expiry or termination of the Agreement or applicable Statement of Work.

3. 5. Responsibilities

4. Gearproxy responsibilities:

1. 1. 1. 5.1. ensure the relevant Product and Professional Services are available to Customer in accordance with the Uptime guarantee;
      2. 5.2. respond to support requests within the timescales listed below;
      3. 5.3. take steps to escalate, diagnose, and resolve issues in an appropriate and timely manner, including the allocation of a sufficient number of skilled staff and the collection of necessary information; and
      4. 5.4. maintain clear and timely communication with Customer at all times.

      
      Customer responsibilities:

      5.5 use the Product as intended under the Agreement;

      1. 5.6 notify Gearproxy of issues or problems in a timely manner and as thoroughly as is possible;
      2. 5.7 cooperate with Gearproxy in its efforts to escalate, diagnose, and resolve issues by providing timely and accurate responses to requests for information;
      3. 5.8 in case of an A-Priority Alert, ensure the availability of a sufficient number of skilled Customer employees to cooperate with Gearproxy;
      4. 5.9 provide Gearproxy with access to equipment, software, and services for the purposes of maintenance, updates, and fault prevention; and
      5. 5.10 maintain staff with adequate information technology knowledge to fulfil these responsibilities.

1. 6. Availability

   Gearproxy guarantees 99.8% Uptime each month 24 hours a day 7 days a week (“Agreed Hours of Service”). Uptime is measured based on the monthly average of availability, rounded down to the nearest minute, and calculated as follows:

   Uptime % =	Agreed Hours of Service – hours of Downtime	* 100%
   	Agreed Hours of Service

1. 7. Service Credits

   Should uptime fall below 99.8% in any calendar month, Gearproxy will pay liquidated damages in the form of Service Credits, which are calculated as follows:

   Uptime < 99.0%	100% of monthly Subscription Fee
   Uptime ≥ 99.0% and less than 99.8%	99.8% – Uptime % * monthly Subscription Fee * 50% 0.8%
   Uptime ≥ 99.8%	0% of monthly Subscription Fee

   To apply for a Service Credit under this SLA, Customer must submit a request ticket to https://support.gearproxy.com, within 30 days of the end of the applicable month with the subject line “SLA Service Credit”. The request must include the dates and times of the Downtime for which Service Credit is being requested, and any additional documentation that demonstrates the claimed Downtime. Service Credits are the exclusive remedy for Gearproxy’s failure to meet its Uptime guarantee and no other or additional types of damages can be claimed, including breach of warranty. In the event there are no new invoices to be issued, Gearproxy will pay out the Service Credit to Customer directly.

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2. 8. Response Time and Resolution Time

   In the event of an alert, Gearproxy is deemed to have responded when it has replied to Customer’s initial request. This may be in the form of an email or telephone call, to acknowledge receipt of Customer’s request, provide a solution, or request further information.
    
   The Response Time and Resolution Time will depend on the priority of the item(s) affected and the severity of the alert, as set out in the following schedule:

   Alert Type	Issue severity	Response Time	Resolution Time
   A-Priority Alert	Highly critical alert. Product is not available for use or a significant proportion of the contracted functionalities are not available.	Within 2 hours	Within 4 hours, inclusive of the A-Priority Alert Response Time.
   B-Priority Alert	Critical alert. One or more elements of the Product critical to the functioning of Customer’s business have ceased to respond completely or respond extremely slowly.	Within 24 hours	Within 24 hours, exclusive of the B-Priority Alert Response Time.
   C-Priority Alert	Non-critical alert. One or more elements of the Product have ceased to respond completely or respond slowly and a workaround is available.	Within 48 hours	Within 48 hours, exclusive of the C-Priority Alert Response Time.
   D-Priority Alert	Notification of minor issue that does not prohibit Customer from utilizing Product in any material way.	Within 48 hours	Best effort.

1. 9. Gearproxy’s Storage & Infrastructure

   Gearproxy uses Digital Ocean (DO) to provide its Product via a cloud-based infrastructure and storage platform. Digital Ocean offers the possibility to store a virtually unlimited amount of data with a guaranteed data durability and server uptime of 99.99%.

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1. 10. Help Desk

   As another support option, the Gearproxy help desk can be contacted by email anytime via gearproxy-support@neuserv.zohodesk.com or online per the support link located on the Gearproxy website.

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2. 11. Backups

   The Gearproxy team secures backups of all data and code in the following manner:

   • Incremental backups of all uploaded media on multiple back-up servers (daily).
   • Full backups of the database (hourly, retention of 7 days).
   • Backups of the file database (monthly, on separate servers).

   In the (unlikely) event of damage or outage at Gearproxy’s server location, Gearproxy will restore Customer’s data from the most recent backup. This will be treated as an A-Priority Alert.

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2. 12. Release Policy

   Gearproxy releases the Product via Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. This means that whenever a new feature or release of Gearproxy is ready, it can be deployed to the production clusters at any moment. All perimeter applications are deployed to production continuously when a build is succeeded on the continuous integration servers.
   
   Urgent bug fixes that impact availability and critical features are applied immediately on production servers in accordance with the Resolution Time schedule.
    
   Third party components in use by Gearproxy (e.g. Ubuntu, Java JRE, Prometheus, etc.) are updated peroidically (in the UTC time zone), whenever critical updates become available via the “unattended upgrades” mechanism provided by Ubuntu.

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2. 13. Software Improvements

   Gearproxy will make available to Customer new versions, releases, and updates to the Product to solve defects and/or errors, keep the Product up-to-date with market developments, or otherwise improve (the operation or functionality of) the Product. These improvements may include bug fixes. Gearproxy will only support the most recent version of the Product.
    
   New versions, releases, or updates will contain at least the level of functionality as set out in this SLA and as contained in the version or release of the Product previously used by Customer, and will not otherwise negatively impact Customer’s use of the Product. Gearproxy shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that when performing such actions, the impact on Customer and its User(s) is limited.

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2. 14. Updates to the SLA

   This SLA may be updated at Gearproxy’s discretion, but only after providing thirty (30) days’ notice, after which it shall be effective (“SLA Effective Date”). Such notice will be sufficient if provided to a User designated as an administrator of Customer’s Product. Continued use of the Product following the SLA Effective Date of any update shall indicate Customer’s acknowledgement of such update and agreement to be bound by the updated SLA. When Gearproxy changes this SLA, the “Updated” date will be changed to reflect the publication date of the most recent version.