The VAST Data Services & Support include software updates and upgrades, software support and maintenance, and other related services provided to ensure the successful operation of VAST Software. The operational procedures described are provided and governed by the terms and conditions of the VAST Data End User Services and License Agreement (“EULA”), an applicable Order, and apply only during a valid and fully paid Services Term. These operational procedures are intended to outline the aspirational commitments and processes to secure VAST Data support services.
All capitalized terms that are not defined herein shall have the meaning ascribed to them in the EULA.
1. MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT COMMITMENTS AND PROCESSES
1.1. GETTING STARTED: HOW TO CONTACT US
The services are available 24/7/365. You can engage with us via the following channels:
Web* https://support.vastdata.com/
Slack * https://vastsupport.slack.com/
Uplink *https://<CUSTOMER_UNIQUE_IDENTIFIER>.cloud.vastdata.com
Email customer.support@vastdata.com
Phone +1-212-658-1753
* Email us at customer.support@vastdata.com to request login credentials.
1.2. SUPPORT COMMITMENTS & PROCESSES
Support and maintenance services consist of assistance, troubleshooting, diagnosis, and responses to Your requests. Any ticket classified under the severity matrix that reflects a defect, performance degradation, stability issue, or vulnerability to the extent resulting from the VAST Software itself shall automatically trigger VAST Data’s support obligations, including workaround, deployment and permanent remediation. VAST Data services and support team will assign a severity level to each support ticket based upon the impact of the request/problem. In any event, downgrade of severity level may only occur with Your agreement. VAST Data shall perform the support services in accordance with the severity levels defined below:
Severity Level | Description | Initial Response Time | Response Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Urgent | A severe problem preventing a customer or a workgroup from performing critical business functions. (e.g. unable to access data) | Up to 30 minutes | 24/7 Response in 30 minutes, or less, with a support engineer helping to resolve the issue, escalating to engineering (if required), until full restoration, and/or working towards lowering the priority with a workaround |
High | The customer or workgroup able to perform job function, but performance of job function degraded or severely limited. (e.g. Performance and latency issues) | Up to 2 hours | Response in 2 local hours, or less, with support engineer helping to answer a question, resolve an issue, and/or escalate to engineering (if required), until full restoration. |
Normal | The customer or workgroup performance of job function is largely unaffected. (e.g. failed components and general troubleshooting) | Up to 4 hours | Response in 4 local hours, or less, with support engineer helping to answer a question, resolve an issue, escalate to engineering (if required. |
Low | Minimal system impact; includes questions, non-technical remediation, feature requests, and admin tasks | Up to 8 hours | Response in 8 local business hours, or less, with support engineer helping to answer a question, resolve an issue, and/or escalate to engineering (if required). |
1.3. Under corrective Maintenance, VAST Data shall provide a workaround for all defects reported by You through the VAST Data support ticketing tool or detected by VAST Data, in accordance with the escalation requirements. Corrective maintenance must be provided at no additional cost and includes continuous effort for defects with Urgent Severity Level until service is restored.
1.4. Upgrade maintenance includes delivering to You all updates, upgrades, new versions, and Documentation changes that VAST Data makes generally available to all of its customers. All updates shall include technical, functional, preventive, and security improvements and shall correct any discovered defects or, where a permanent fix is not immediately feasible, shall maintain the workaround solutions put in place. No update may reduce, limit, or degrade any existing functionality, performance, interoperability, or integration, and VAST Data shall correct any degrading update, if applicable, at its sole cost.
1.5. VAST Data shall use all reasonable efforts to inform Your designated representative in writing (by e-mail or ordinary mail) of any change, modification, update, upgrade, or new version of the VAST Software in advance, including any announcement that support for a current version will be discontinued at least 12 months prior to such discontinuation. Such notice must specify (i) the precise versions concerned, (ii) the nature of the Update or change, and (iii) the exact date on which support for the affected versions will cease. Posting this information solely on VAST Data’s website shall not constitute valid notification.
1.6. For VAST on Customer-Owned Cloud deployments, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, it is clarified and agreed that VAST Data’s support obligations (including as stated hereunder) extend only to the VAST Software and expressly exclude any support, availability obligations or responsibility relating to the cloud provider, infrastructure, or associated service levels obligations of the third party cloud provider hosting such deployment. Without derogating from the generality of the foregoing, VAST Data expressly disclaims any representation, warranty or liability with respect to any issues, failures, or non‑conformities arising from or related to (i) customer’s cloud environment, cloud account, or cloud service provider (including without limitation any outages, performance degradation, configuration errors, insufficient capacity, network restrictions, security settings, or changes implemented by such provider); (ii) configuration, management, or operation of customer’s cloud infrastructure, including any virtual machines, storage, networking, IAM policies, or third‑party services (hereafter (i) and (ii) collectively “Cloud Infrastructure Related Issues”); (iii) matters outside of VAST Data’s reasonable control. Any cloud‑infrastructure service levels, availability, and performance as shall be governed solely by customer’s agreement with customer’s third-party cloud provider, and VAST Data bears no responsibility or liability for the same. Should VAST Data determine that a defect reported by customer is not covered under these Support Terms, VAST Data shall make reasonable efforts to notify customer that this is the case as soon as practicable.
2. SERVICE COMMITMENTS AND PROCESSES
2.1. VAST CO-PILOT SERVICES
“Co-Pilot” means a VAST Senior Level Engineer assigned to each new customer. Co-Pilots are experts in the VAST solution who work with you to handle all aspects of system management and proactive monitoring, life-cycle planning, expansion, and day-to-day operations.
2.2. UPLINK SERVICES
VAST UPLINK is the remote Call Home service that, if enabled by customer, allows Customers, VAST’s Customer Success Team and Co-Pilots to monitor and troubleshoot Universal Storage clusters from anywhere around the world. VAST Uplink is a primary component in VAST’s overall support services strategy as it provides the secure mechanism to enable the technical support team to monitor the health and utilization of VAST clusters as well as to proactively identify issues, understand historical context, and resolve an issue prior to business impact. VAST UpLink is securely returning telemetry to VAST Data’s cloud-based management platform 24/7 to enable real-time support responsiveness. Additional information detailing VAST Uplink’s security and access controls can be found here: https://support.vastdata.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019457740-Configuring-Call-Home-Settings
DARK SITE: VAST Data defines a “Dark Site” as a customer environment that is configured to be prohibited from using the VAST Uplink remote monitoring service. For Dark Sites, because VAST Data is unable to constantly monitor and remotely debug their environment, the VAST technical services and support teams are more dependent upon the customer’s administrators to take an active role in monitoring and in troubleshooting solution issues.
3. GENERAL SERVICES EXPECTATIONS AND LIMITATIONS
3.1. Services cover VAST Software only and provided that the VAST Software is not modified (unless approved in advance by VAST Data or performed by VAST Data’s authorized personnel), use in combination with other products, equipment, or software not provided or approved in writing in the Documentation or by VAST Data, damaged by customer or anyone other than by a VAST Data employee or a VAST Data-approved contractor; and provided that the VAST Software is not used by You, Your Affiliates, Your customers, service providers or subcontractors for any unlawful activity or in violation of the terms and conditions of the EULA. Services also do not cover matters which are expressly excluded or disclaimed by VAST Data under these terms and/or under the EULA terms and conditions (including Cloud Infrastructure Related Issues as set forth in section 1.6 above). VAST Data, at its sole discretion, may elect to provide Services (including updates) despite the existence of such additional unauthorized software modules, but may require the customer to remove such additional unauthorized software prior to VAST Data performing any such services and condition such performance on the payment of additional fees.
3.2. Customer will be pro-active in scheduling and implementing Software upgrades when made available by Vast Data on a regular basis, to maximize the inherent uptime and minimize the inherent time to resolution. Upon customer request, VAST Data will provide a determination as to whether a non-mandatory upgrade is advisable. Should VAST Data advise against performing a non-mandatory upgrade, the customer still has the option of engaging VAST Data for a fee to plan and perform the upgrade. Should the customer decide to perform any upgrades (or other portions of the services) without VAST Data’s assistance, then the customer assumes all liability and any issues or incidents resulting from that upgrade. In case of the VAST On Customer-Owned Cloud deployments, VAST Data’s support undertakings will apply to the then‑current version of the VAST Software and up to the two (2) immediately preceding versions. VAST Data reserves the right to deploy or make available software version updates automatically, provided that such updates do not materially interrupt the Services nor reduce the functionality of the Services and/or the VAST Software. You undertake not to disable or interfere with VAST Data‑provided version updates.
3.3. VAST Data reserves the right to engage third-parties to provide services, subject to customer’s prior written consent. VAST Data shall remain fully liable for all acts and omissions of any such authorized third parties.
4. CUSTOMER OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
4.1. The customer is obliged to understand and accept the risks that failure to implement all changes as designated in correction notices will render it impossible to implement changes subsequently provided by VAST DATA.
4.2. To receive services, customer must allow VAST Data access to the Software and to the Compatible Hardware (as related to VAST On-Prem deployment) or Customer-Owned cloud (as related to Customer-Owned Cloud deployment), and provide any information required by VAST Data regarding the location and configuration of the VAST Software and Compatible Hardware or Customer-Owned Cloud environment, as applicable, for which customer desires to receive support. Any such access shall be limited to what is strictly necessary for the provision of the Services, subject to customer’s security policies, the site’s policies where the Compatible Hardware is located and performed under customer supervision where required, provided that such security policies and site policies are provided by customer to VAST Data within a reasonable period of time prior to VAST Data’s personnel attending or accessing any premises where customer’s Compatible Hardware on which the VAST Software resides are located. VAST Data’s access to the VAST Software and Compatible Hardware or Customer-Owned Cloud environment, as applicable, may be refused in case of any proven non-compliance. VAST Data shall cooperate with customer to ensure the performance of the required support and business continuity.
4.3. Customer will make all reasonable efforts to support and cooperate with VAST Data in resolving the problem requiring service remotely, for example, starting and executing self-tests or diagnostic programs, providing all necessary information, or performing basic remedial activities upon VAST Data’s request. Customer’s obligations under this Section shall remain subject to customer’s internal policies and security requirements.
4.4. Should customer elect to use the VAST Services via Customer-Owned Cloud deployment, customer will maintain full administrative control of its cloud account(s) and is solely responsible for configuring, securing, and operating all required cloud services to support the Customer‑Owned Cloud deployment. This includes entering into and maintaining an appropriate Service Level Agreement(s) with the customer’s cloud provider, provisioning and updating all necessary resources, ensuring compliance with applicable security and regulatory requirements, managing access and integrations, monitoring performance and incidents, and bearing all associated cloud usage costs in a timely fashion. Customer shall notify VAST Data in writing and as soon as practicable of any material changes to the cloud environment that may affect the deployment or the VAST Software, or its operations in any manner.
4.5. Should VAST Data deem it necessary to have personnel on the customer site, and subject to customer’s prior written approval, customer will ensure that VAST Data personnel or a VAST third party approved by customer are provided with sufficient electrical power to perform necessary maintenance and supplies used during normal operation. VAST Data shall schedule such visits with reasonable advance notice and in coordination with customer’s site access and security procedures.
4.6. Customer is responsible for the security of its proprietary and confidential information and for maintaining a procedure external to the Solution for reconstruction of lost, or altered files, data, or programs. This responsibility shall not relieve VAST Data of its obligations relating to data integrity, security, backup features, and prevention of data loss, if any or applicable, arising from defects in the VAST Software or Services.
4.7. If remote support is available, customer will provide VAST Data with login access for the exclusive purpose of performing diagnostics. VAST Data shall not share such login access information with any third party.
5. VAST DATA OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
5.1. VAST Data provides the customer with the following VAST Data Zero Compromise Satisfaction Commitment
5.1.1. ALL-INCLUSIVE ACCESS TO FUTURE CLUSTER SOFTWARE COMMITMENT. When the customer purchases the rights to use the Services and the VAST Software, and for the VAST On-Prem deployment also the Compatible Hardware, and as long as the Services Term has not lapsed, VAST Data commits that the customer will have access to the newest and most updated functionality and features for the VAST Software that are made generally available by VAST Data for the VAST DataStore Operating System at no additional charge for such functionality or features. Future products or services (upgraded new material functionalities), however, may be licensed or sold separately.