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1.0 General Overview

This is a Service Level Agreement ("SLA") between the business function owner and user community, and the Mt Xia Information Technology Services (ITS) department to document:

• The technology services the ITS department provides to support the specified Mt Xia business function
• The general levels of response, availability, and maintenance associated with these services
• The responsibilities of ITS as a provider of these services and of business function clients receiving services
• Processes for requesting services
• This SLA shall remain valid until revised or terminated.

2.0 Service Description

2.1 Service Scope

This agreement defines the technical support services and associated availability provided under a Tier 4 level of support, maintenance, monitoring, and response. These support services are associated with and specific only to the business function identified by this agreement.

2.2 Assumptions

• Tier 4 services provided by the Mt Xia ITS are defined by this document.
• Any service not specified by this document is neither provided nor implied.
• Major upgrades will be treated as projects outside the scope of this Agreement.
• Funding for major updates will be negotiated on a service-by-service basis.
• Changes to services will be communicated and documented to all stakeholders via the change notification process.
• Service will be provided in adherence to Mt Xia policies, guidelines, standards and procedures.
• Scheduling of all service related requests will be conducted in accordance with service descriptions.

2.3 Prerequisites

• Predefined and standardized architectural design for hardware, systems, storage and infrastructure for Tier 4 support.
• Business function is containerized into one or more system independent modules.
• Modules may be relocated between systems on an as needed basis, to be determined by the business function owner or the Mt Xia ITS.
• Software licensing is transferable to any system or location, and must be independent of any network address identifiers.

2.4 Tier 4 Architecure

3.0 Roles and Responsibilities

3.1 Parties

The following Service Owner(s) will be used as the basis of the Agreement and represent the primary stakeholders associated with this SLA:

NOTE: Availability is defined in Section 4, Hours of Coverage, Response Time & Escalations. Cell phone numbers are not to be used during working hours unless specified in this section.

3.2 Mt Xia ITS Responsibilities

Responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this Agreement include:

• Meet response times associated with the priority assigned to incidents and service requests.
• Generating quarterly reports on service level performance.
• Appropriate notification to business function owner for all scheduled maintenance via the Maintenance Calendar and/or a communication to via the Mt Xia ITS Communication Manager.
• The Mt Xia ITS will implement standardized processes to deliver these Tier 4 service levels.
• Ownership of hardware, systems, storage, and infrastructure.
• Support TIER dictates architecture design of hardware, systems, and infrastructure.

3.3 Business Function Owner Responsibilities

Responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this Agreement include:

• Selection of support TIER to provide necessary availability of supported business function.
• Availability of business function representative(s) when resolving a service related incident or request.
• Communicate specific service availability requirements.
• Does not own hardware, systems, storage, or infrastructure.
• Does not dictate architecture design of hardware, systems, storage, or infrastructure.

4.0 Requesting Service

There are six methods of contacting the Mt Xia ITS for all requests.

• Online / IT Request (itServiceRequest@mtxia.com)

  By utilizing the web, your request will be automatically associated with your business function and visible to technicians. Requests made via the web will be processed during normal hours of operation. Using IT Request via the web interface is the most efficient method to log and process incidents.

• Phone (615.556.0456)

  Phone service is available during normal hours of operation. Messages left during off hours will be processed the next business day.

• Email (help@mtxia.com)

  Email requests will be processed during regular business hours.

• Walk-in

  Walk-in service is available for services during normal hours of operation. See individual service pages for locations.

• Work orders

  For select services, work orders will be processed from date of receipt of the complete and correct work order form.

• Your Business Function Owner

  Contact your Business Function Owner (BFO) for services not listed in the Mt Xia ITS Catalog. The contact information for each BFO is located at http://www.mtxia.com/bfocontact.shtml

5.0 Hours of Coverage, Response Times & Escalation

The intent of this section is to assure delivery of prompt service as agreed, and the acceleration of support for high priority issues. If this service does not use ITServiceRequest or the Help Desk for incidents and problems, please put escalation procedures here.

5.1 Hours of Coverage

Tier 4 support is provided 24 hours / day, 7 days / week, 365 days / year. Business function owners may use any of the methods of contact as stated in Section 4.

Problem tickets via the web interface and email can be sent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and will be processed by the on-call technical support personnel. Using IT Request via the web interface is the most efficient method to log and process incidents.

5.1.1 Incident Response

For responses to incidents, the Mt Xia ITS goal is to respond to requests within 8 business hours of receipt. Many services have faster incident response times; please refer the to service catalog web page for individual incident response times. An incident means any interruption in the normal functioning of a service or system.

5.1.2 Prioritization

The Mt Xia ITS will prioritize incoming incident requests as "urgent" priority if it meets any one of the following criteria:

Significant number of people affected.

5.1.3 Service Request

A service request means a request is made by a business function owner to Mt Xia ITS for a service as published in the Mt Xia ITS Catalog. Service requests will be processed during normal hours of operation via any of the methods outlined in Section 4.

For service requests, the Mt Xia ITS goal is to respond to requests within 8 business hours of receipt. Many service requests have faster response times; please refer the to service catalog web page for individual service response times.

If you have a better response time that you are able to commit to, monitor and report, update the above paragraph.

5.1.4 Escalation

If you are not satisfied with the level of service on a request, contact your Business Function Owner (BFO) or the Director of the Mt Xia ITS. They will categorize and process your input as appropriate and will respond to you with the action taken.

5.1.5 Information

If you have a question about a service, IT need or technology phone, email or use IT Request. The Support Center will route your ticket to the appropriate area.

5.1.6 Other Requests

Requests for service features and functions not yet implemented can also be submitted though IT request.

Outline how to request the service and expected response and deliver times. Outline working durations and business function owner interactions. This is the service level and service metrics for the service

Provide description of the types of information requests defined by the CRSP project and how client can use that information to make requests

5.1.7 Service Exceptions to Coverage

(Insert any special exceptions related to coverage times and dates) If this SLA represents a service that is provided 24x7, 365, the exceptions are “None”.

6.0 Maintenance and Service Changes

The Change Management process within the Mt Xia ITS, minimizes unintended service disruptions or other impacts to the business as a result of changes in the production environment. The Mt Xia ITS does this by monitoring, managing, and evaluating changes to maximize the service benefits for the business function, while minimizing the risks involved in making those changes.

All IT related service maintenance and outages are published in the Schedule of Changes located on the Mt Xia ITS Web site here: http://www.mtxia.com/its.shtml. This Schedule of Changes currently serves as the official schedule of change for Mt Xia ITS. Scheduled maintenance is not included in the calculation of availability metrics.

Business function owners are responsible for monitoring the Schedule of Changes to notify the Mt Xia ITS of forthcoming local events with the Mt Xia ITS dependencies. In most cases, the Mt Xia ITS Communication Coordinator is responsible for communicating service changes to the Mt Xia ITS, service groups, and to the business function users as necessary.

There are three categories of service changes:

• Planned Maintenance: Planned service maintenance is approved work that is planned and scheduled at least two weeks prior to the change. The Mt Xia ITS Communication Coordinator will communicate (as needed) to the appropriate audience a minimum of one week 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 enterprise or significant number of users that requires immediate repair. The Mt Xia ITS Communication Coordinator reports all emergency service changes to the appropriate people in the Mt Xia ITS and determines necessary communication steps. Emergency service announcements are communicated usually the day of the service failure. Off-hours service failures will be communicated the following business day.

Major upgrades to a service will be treated as projects outside the scope of this service level agreement. Funding for major updates will be negotiated on a service-by-service basis.

7.0 Reporting System Performance and Availability Reporting

This is where system performance and availability metrics are included.SLA Reviews will be reviewed annually or as otherwise needed. Mt Xia Shared IT Services is responsible for facilitating annual reviews of this document. Contents of this document may be amended as required, provided mutual agreement is obtained from the primary stakeholders and communicated to all affected parties. IT Services will incorporate all subsequent revisions and obtain mutual agreements / approvals as required.

8.0 Maintenance and Service Changes