Unsponsored TLD Agreement: Appendix E (.pro)
Posted: 29 December 2001

Service Level Agreement

1. Definitions. Capitalized terms used, but not defined, in this Appendix shall have the definitions ascribed to them in the Registry-Registrar Agreement.

1.1 "Available" means that a given Service is operational as described in Section 2 below.

1.2 "Billing Period" shall mean each single calendar month beginning and ending at 0000 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

1.3 "Current Pricing Level" refers to the total price charged by Registry Operator for all new and renewal registrations of Registered Names registered by Registrar during the Billing Period, divided by the total term of those new and renewal registrations.

1.4 "DNS Point of Presence" shall mean one or more DNS name servers in a single geographic location, all responding on one or more common IP addresses.

1.5 "DNS Queries" shall mean single UDP queries of either of the following types:

1.5.1 A (host address) or

1.5.2 NS (an authoritative name server)

with no more than one question section and must be made for domain names within the Registry TLD.

1.6 "DNS Service" shall mean the Domain Name Service as described in Appendix C of the Registry Agreement.

1.7 "Measured Transaction" shall mean queries or other transactions performed and monitored by Registry Operator explicitly for the purpose of determining whether or not a Service is Available.

1.8 "Planned Outage" means the periodic pre-announced occurrences when the Services will be taken out of service for maintenance or care. Planned Outages will not exceed four (4) hours per calendar week beginning at 0000 GMT Monday, nor total more than eight (8) hours per month. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Registry Operator may incur one (1) additional Planned Outage of up to eight (8) hrs per month in duration for major systems or software upgrades ("Extended Planned Outages"). In months in which Extended Planned Outages occur, no other Planned Outages may occur.

1.9 "Round-trip" means the amount of measured time that it takes for a measured query to make a complete trip from the sampling agent, to the system or process being tested and back again. Round-trip is usually measured in seconds or fractions of seconds.

1.10 "RRP Commands" shall mean requests to check, modify, add, or delete a domain name.

1.11 "RRP Service" shall mean the Shared Registry System as described in Exhibit C of the Registry Agreement.

1.12 "Sampling Period" shall mean any one-minute period in which measurements are taken to determine whether or not a Service is Available.

1.13 "Service Level Exception" means the number of minutes of Unplanned Outage Time for a given Service in excess of the limits defined in Section 3 below.

1.14 "Service Unavailability" means when, as a result of a failure of systems within Registry Operator's control, one or more of the Services is not operating as described in Section 2 below. Service Unavailability includes both Planned Outage and Unplanned Outage Time.

1.15 "Services" shall mean the list of components listed in Section 2 of this Appendix.

1.16 "SLA" means this service level agreement between Registry Operator and Registrar.

1.17 "SLA Credits" means those credits available to Registrar pursuant to the SLA.

1.18 "Unplanned Outage Time" shall mean the amount of time, other than during a Planned Outage, recorded between a trouble ticket first being opened by Registry Operator in response to a Registrar's claim of Service Unavailability for that Registrar through the time when the ticket has been closed. If Registry Operator determines that the incident described by the ticket was not the result of Service Unavailability, the time recorded by the ticket will not count towards Unplanned Outage Time. If multiple Services incur Service Unavailability simultaneously, for purposes of calculating SLA credits, only the Unplanned Outage corresponding to the Service Unavailability that results in the highest Service Level Exception for that month will be considered.

1.19 "Whois Queries" means queries for a single domain name in the Registry TLD.

1.20 "Whois Service" means the Whois Service described in Appendix O of the Registry Agreement.

2. Services

The following is the list of Services that can be measured by Registry Operator for performance and monitored to determine whether the Services are Available. For the purpose of SLA Credit calculations, only Services that can be actively measured are included below.

2.1 DNS Point of Presence – A DNS Point of Presence is considered to be Available during a Sampling Period if it responds to DNS Queries with a Round-trip time no greater than 300 milliseconds for 95% of all Measured Transactions within that Sampling Period.

2.2 DNS Service – The DNS Service is considered to be Available for a Sampling Period if over half of the System's DNS Points of Presence are Available for that Sampling Period.

2.3 Whois Service – The Whois Service is considered to be Available for a Sampling Period if it responds to Whois Queries with a Round-trip time no greater than 1500 milliseconds for 95% of all Measured Transactions within that Sampling Period.

2.4 RRP Service – The performance specification for RRP Commands is 1500 milliseconds for check commands and 3000 milliseconds per domain for add, modify, and delete commands. The RRP Service is considered to be Available for a Sampling Period if it responds to RRP Commands within the performance specification for 95% of all Measured Transactions within that Sampling Period.

3. Service Levels

The Service Levels for this SLA are as follows:

4. Measurement

For purposes of this SLA, Registry Operator will monitor the Services in accordance with the following principles.

4.1 Measurement applies only to the Services that are under Registry Operator's sole control.

4.2 Measurement of all Services shall be performed locally. Internet performance is specifically not measured.

5. Credits

5.1 Calculation of Credit – If Unplanned Outage Time for a Service exceeds the Service Levels described in Section 3 of this Appendix in any Billing Period, Registry Operator will credit Registrar according to this calculation:

C = (v / t) * e

Where:

C = credit due to Registrar

v = month's volume (total term in years of Registered Names registered (initially or for renewal) during the Billing Period)

t = time period, always equals 43200 minutes (30 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes)

e = Service Level Exception

Example 1: Registry Operator records 15 minutes of Unplanned Outage Time for the DNS Service. The current month's volume (v) is 30,000 total name-years registered. As such, Registry Operator will credit Registrar for 10.4 Registration-years at the then-Current Pricing Level.

Example 2: Registry Operator records 103 minutes of Unplanned Outage Time for the Whois Service. The current month's volume (v) is 30,000 total name-years registered. As such, the Service Level Exception is 13 minutes. Registry Operator will credit Registrar for 9.0 Registration-years at the then-Current Pricing Level.

Example 3: Registry Operator records 20 minutes of Unplanned Outage Time for the RRP Service. The current month's volume (v) is 30,000 total names registered. Because the Unplanned Outage Time does not exceed the service levels in Section 3, no credit is granted.

5.2 Receipt of Credits - In order for Registrar to claim SLA Credits, the following procedure must be followed:

5.2.1 Issue a Request for SLA Credit. Registrar must submit a request to Registry Operator that it experienced Service Unavailability in excess of the service levels is outlined in Section 3. The request must be submitted within 14 days after the conclusion of the Billing Period for which the SLA Credits are being claimed.

5.2.2 Provide documentation to indicate SLA violation. Registrar may provide documentation in the form of trouble ticket number(s) issued by the Registry Operator in response to Unplanned Outage Time.

5.2.3 Receipt of Credit. When the above steps have been completed to Registry Operator's satisfaction, Registry Operator shall notify Registrar of the SLA Credit to be issued. Credits shall be entered into Registrar's account balance and can be used immediately toward domain name registrations.

5.3 Maximum Credit - The total SLA Credits issued in any Billing Period shall not exceed twenty five percent of the dollar value of the total number of Registrations within that Billing Period.

5.4 Partial Credits - For the purposes of this SLA, any partial credit shall be rounded to the nearest tenth of a registration-year.

6. Obligations

6.1 Registrar must report each occurrence of alleged System Unavailability to Registry Operator customer service help desk in the manner required by Registry Operator (e.g., e-mail, fax, telephone) in order for an occurrence to be treated as System Unavailability for purposes of the SLA.

6.2 Both Registrar and Registry Operator agree to use commercially reasonable efforts to establish the cause of any alleged System Unavailability.

6.3 Registrars must inform the Registry Operator any time their estimated volume of transactions (excluding check domain commands) will exceed their previous Billing Period's volume by more than 25%. In the event that (a) a Registrar fails to inform Registry Operator of a forecasted increase of volume of transactions of 25% or more, (b) the Registrar's volume increases 25% or more over the previous Billing Period, and (c) the total volume of transactions (excluding check domain commands) experienced by the Registry Operator for all Registrars for that Billing Period exceeds the Registry Operator's actual volume of the previous Billing Period's transactions by more than 10%, then the Registrars failing to give such notice will not be eligible for any SLA Credits in that Billing Period. Registrars shall provide their forecasts at least 30 days prior to the first day of each Billing Period.

6.4 Registry Operator agrees to provide monthly transaction summary reports to Registrar starting no later than 120 days after the Commencement-of-Service Date.

6.5 Registry Operator will use commercially reasonable efforts to restore the critical components of the System within 48 hours in the case of a force majeure event. Outages due to a force majeure event will not be considered System Unavailability.

6.6 Registry Operator's obligations under this service level agreement are waived during the first 120 days after the Commencement-of-Service Date.

6.7 Registry Operator will perform monitoring from internally located systems as a means to verify that the conditions of the SLA are being met.

6.8 The SLA Credits will be reconciled on a quarterly basis.

6.9 The Registrar may, under reasonable terms and conditions, audit the reconciliation records for the purposes of verifying service level performance and availability. The frequency of these audits will be no more than once every six month period during the term of the Registry-Registrar Agreement.

6.10 Incident trouble tickets must be opened within a commercially reasonable period of time.

6.11 In the event that System Unavailability affects all Registrars, the Registry Operator is responsible for opening a blanket trouble ticket and immediately notifying all Registrars of the trouble ticket number and details.

6.12 The Registry Operator will notify Registrars regarding any scheduled maintenance and unavailability of the TLD root-servers.

6.13 Beginning no later than 120 days after the Commencement-of-Service Date, the Registry Operator will publish preliminary weekly Service performance and availability reports. Registry Operator will use best efforts to finalize these reports no later than 30 days after the preliminary reports are provided.

7. Miscellaneous

7.1 This Appendix is not intended to replace any term or condition in the Registry-Registrar Agreement.

7.2 Resolution of disputes under this Appendix between Registry Operator and any Registrar will be handled pursuant to the terms of Subsection 8.1 of the Registry-Registrar Agreement.

7.3 Registry Operator may make modifications to this SLA from time to time pursuant to Subsection 3.3 of the Registry Agreement.

Page Updated 27-Apr-2002
©2001  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. All rights reserved.