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NETS Service Level Assurance (SLA) - 4/1/08

1. Scope

• Introduction:
  This Service Level Assurance (SLA) defines the relationship between the Network Engineering and Telecommunications Section (NETS) who provides networking and telecommunications engineering services for UCAR and their customers which include UCAR employees, visitors, and external collaborators authorized to use this service.
• Service Dependencies:
  Dependent on Facilities Heating, Cooling, Power, external vendors
• Audience:
  • System Administrators
• Customers:
  • On-Site Personnel
  • Off-Site Personnel
  • Member Support

Services Criticality List

2. Definitions

Common Terms and Definitions

Provider

NETS

WAN

Wide Area Network, external network connectivity beyond the NCAR/UCAR campuses

MAN

Metropolitan Area Network, network connectivity between local NCAR/UCAR campuses and local organizations such as NOAA, NIST, the City of Boulder, and the University of Colorado

LAN

Local Area Network, local network connectivity within and between buildings within a NCAR/UCAR campus

NCAR/UCAR Campuses

• ML - Mesa Lab and Fleischmann Building
• FL - Foothills Lab buildings 0-4
• CG - Center Green buildings 1-4
• Jef - Jeffco Airport Building and hangers A & B
• MFS - Marshall building and field experiment areas

FRGP

Front Range GigaPoP, a consortium of Universities, non-profit corporations, and government agencies that cooperate in an aggregation point called the FRGP in order to share Wide Area Networking (WAN) services, access to the commodity Internet, access to the Abilene (I2) research network, and access to the National LambdaRail (NLR). The current members are listed on the FRGP Members page. The FRGP is one of several gigapops in the US. GigaPoP members typically enjoy reduced costs, shared expertise, shared services, increased buying power, and economies of scale. UCAR provides the engineering and Network Operations Center support for the FRGP.

IPT

Internet Protocol Telephony, telephone service provided over network cabling and devices.

COC

CISL Operations Center

UPoP - UCAR Point of Presense
Other Networking Terms

3. Availability

Maintenance Windows

Whenever possible, changes to the network and telecommunication services will be made within the following specific off-hour time windows. Non-service effecting modifications and testing may be performed at anytime throughout the business day, at the discretion of the Provider engineers. See the NETS Outage Notification Policy for details. For IPT problems, refer to the IPT Outage Notification Procedures for details.

4. Service Request/ Reporting

Request System: Work Request

CISL Operations Center (Urgent): 303-497-1200 or COC@ucar.edu

Two methods are available to submit network and telecommunication service requests:

1. Work Request - The NETS work request system can be used to submit regular and urgent work requests. If a request is marked as URGENT an engineer or technician will be paged.
2. Urgent/Outage, x1200, 303-497-1200 - The CISL Operations Center (COC) is available 7/24/365. The COC should be contacted to report an outage or to receive outage status or if an outage prevents submitting a work request. The phone will be answered promptly, usually by a COC operator. During late-night shifts, there is only one COC operator. The operator takes short breaks, during which the phone will be answered by a secondary staff person. Should this happen, the primary COC operator will be contacted immediately and will call the reporting number back within 10 minutes.
   

Response Level	Business Hours	Outside Business Hours
Urgent	15 minutes	Same
High	15 minutes	Same
Medium	30 minutes	Same
Low	Within a business day or by requested due date	Same

Problem Status

1. An email via the Maintenance/Outage Notification Form to inform all relevant users that the NETS engineer is aware of the problem, a summary of the problem, and that work has started on the problem.
2. Timely email messages to the same list when significant changes in the status of the problem occur.
3. When the problem is solved, an email to the same list explaining the resolution of the problem.

Some UCARnet problems may prevent delivery of email messages to users. In such cases, users can call the COC at 303-497-1200 to receive status information. The Provider engineer will keep the COC informed of the status of outstanding problems.

The Provider will make available to the users an on-line archive of email messages relating to reported problems, status, and analysis. NETS Outage Mailing List Archive.

Escalation Procedures

5. Monitoring

6. Related Documentation

NETS General Documentation

Networking specific documentation may be found at: NETS Home

UCARnet Statistics