VMware Software as a Service Support Policies

These VMware Software as a Service (“SaaS”) Support Policies apply to the support provided by VMware as part of a VMware SaaS license.  VMware's Terms of Service (including Technical Support and Subscription terms and conditions) for the applicable SaaS product can be found here: http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/index.html#tos. These SaaS Support Policies are subject to change at VMware’s discretion.

"SaaS Update" means a subsequent release of the SaaS product, which VMware generally makes available for its SaaS customers with an active SaaS license and support contract at no additional fee. SaaS Updates may contain, but are not limited to security fixes, critical patch updates, general maintenance releases, selected functionality, and documentation updates.

VMware will provide SaaS Updates when available and at its discretion. VMware is under no obligation to develop any future functionality or enhancements. If an update for a SaaS product is made available to you pursuant to these SaaS Support Policies, it shall automatically replace the previous version of the applicable SaaS product.

Where practical, VMware will schedule such SaaS Updates during non-business hours and will provide customers with advance notice on the SaaS Performance Dashboard.

You are required to establish and maintain an internal help desk for your employees and act as first-line support for the SaaS product. First-line support shall include, but not be limited to: (i) a direct response to users with respect to inquiries concerning the performance, functionality or operation of the SaaS product, (ii) a direct response to users with respect to problems or issues with the SaaS product, (iii) a diagnosis of problems or issues of the SaaS product, and (iv) a resolution of known problems or  issues with the SaaS product with the help of technical knowledge base articles, repositories and experience.

If after reasonable efforts you are unable to diagnose or resolve the SaaS product problems or issues, your identified VMware Support Administrators (SA) may contact VMware for technical support.

VMware Technical Support consists of (i) a diagnosis of problems or issues with the SaaS product, and (ii) reasonable efforts to resolve reported and verifiable errors in the SaaS product so that it performs materially as described in the online SaaS product documentation.

VMware may review Support Requests logged by your technical contacts, and may recommend specific organization and process changes to assist you with the practices described in these SaaS Support Policies.

Your Super Users are the sole liaisons between you and VMware for SaaS Technical Support. Only named Super Users may file Support Requests for the SaaS product via the telephone or the web. 

Your Super Users must be knowledgeable about the VMware SaaS product you have licensed and your technical environment in order to work with VMware to analyze and resolve Support Requests. They are responsible for engaging VMware technical support and monitoring the resolution of all Support Requests and escalated support issues.

Your Super Users assigned to monitor and administer your VMware SaaS product should have experience in network troubleshooting as well as browser knowledge & debugging skills, and depending on the SaaS product, Microsoft Active Directory knowledge and administrator rights. In addition, they should have experience troubleshooting third-party web application integration and working knowledge of Microsoft operating systems.

Super Users are responsible for checking VMware’s online resources (e.g. technical documentation, knowledge base solutions and community forum) and SaaS Performance Dashboard, if available before submitting a Support Request as the issue or problem may have already been reported. Status of service outages and SaaS product maintenance scheduling is updated on the SaaS Performance Dashboard.

VMware is committed to rapid response of all Support Requests. All Severities can be logged with VMware on a 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year basis via phone or web. All Support Requests can be tracked online by the Support Administrator who opened the Support Request.

Severity Level response times do not vary if you file your Support Request via the telephone or the web. VMware will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly respond to each Support Request within the published Service Level. VMware does not guarantee resolution time as that may vary on the nature of the problem.  A resolution may consist of a fix, workaround or other solution VMware deems reasonable.

VMware will use reasonable efforts to meet the Service Level Objectives stated in the table below. VMware will provide continuous efforts (24x7x365) to resolve Severity 1 SaaS service availability issues until a workaround or resolution can be provided or until the incident can be downgraded to a lower severity.

SaaS Support Service Level Objectives

Please refer to your SaaS Product Terms of Service for any additional SaaS product specific details.

Critical production issue affecting all users, including system unavailability and data integrity issues with no workaround available.

• Service is down or unavailable.
• A critical part of the Software as a Service infrastructure is unavailable or inaccessible, resulting in total disruption of work or critical business impact.
• Service crashes or hangs indefinitely causing unacceptable or indefinite delays for resources or response.
• Data corrupted or lost and must restore from backup.
• A critical documented feature / function is not available.

Severity 1 issues identified by the customer not related to a service interruption / outage require the customer to have dedicated resources available to work on the issue on an ongoing basis, during contractual hours.

Major functionality is impacted or significant performance degradation is experienced. Issue is persistent and affects many users and/or major functionality. No reasonable workaround available.

• Service is operational but highly degraded performance to the point of major impact on usage.
• Important features of the Software as a Service offering are unavailable with no acceptable workaround; however, operations can continue in a restricted fashion.
• Access to a particular third-party application or service provider deemed noncritical is impacted

System performance issue or bug affecting some but not all users. Short-term workaround is available, but not scalable.

• Service is operational but partially degraded for some or all customers, and an acceptable workaround or solution exists.
• Problem with non-critical feature or functionality

Inquiry regarding a routine technical issue; information requested on application capabilities, navigation, installation or configuration; bug affecting a small number of users. Acceptable workaround available.

• Minor problem not impacting service functionality.
• Enhancement requests, missing or erroneous documentation.
• Minor problem or question that does not affect delivery of service.

Support Requests are assigned a severity level based on the nature of your request. We highly recommend you familiarize yourself with the Severity definitions and response times defined above.

Severity 1 Problem Reporting– Please first check the SaaS Performance Dashboard ¹ to see if the outage has already been reported or if your issue is due to a scheduled SaaS product maintenance. If you do not see your issues reported, please report service outages/severity 1 problems via telephone or web.

Downgrade of Severity Level – If, during the Support Request process, the issue no longer warrants the severity level currently assigned based on its current impact on the production operation of the SaaS product, then the severity level will be downgraded to the severity level that most appropriately reflects its current impact.

Upgrade of Severity Levels – If, during the Support Request process, the issue warrants the assignment of a higher severity level than that currently assigned based on the current impact on the production operation of the SaaS product, then the severity level will be upgraded to the severity level that most appropriately reflects its current impact. In requesting any assignment of a higher severity level, you must provide VMware with sufficient information that demonstrates the increased impact of the issue on the production operation of the service.

Adherence to Severity Level Definitions – You shall ensure that the assignment and adjustment of any severity level designation is accurate based on the current impact on the production operation of the SaaS product. You acknowledge that VMware is not responsible for any failure to meet performance standards caused by your misuse or mis-assignment of severity level designations.

Your VMware support team always works to ensure that the appropriate resources and level of focus are applied to your request to ensure a timely resolution. If you are not satisfied with the progress of your Support Request, however, you can request an escalation. By invoking the escalation process, additional levels of VMware management attention, procedure reinforcement and resource prioritization are brought to bear on resolving your Support Request. To learn more, please visit the SaaS Life Cycle Policy.

If you decide to implement utility tools available for some SaaS products, you are responsible for the successful installation and implementation of these utility tools within your environment as specified in the specific SaaS product’s configuration and installation documentation.  Support Requests can be filed to ask questions regarding the configuration, installation, or usage of the utility tools. Version control is based on major, minor version definitions and these utility tools are made available in the VMware Download Center.  The SaaS Life Cycle Policy applies to these utility tools.

Contact information for VMware Technical Support can be found at: www.vmware.com/support/contacts/.

¹Where available : Horizon Application Manager, Socialcast, VMware Go

Effective Date:  Nov 1, 2011