Network Uptime Policy

In order to operate in an efficient and secure manner, servers and network equipment require routine maintenance and upgrades; While this maintenance occurs rarely, during routine kernel and other system updates we may require a server to be taken off-line or rebooted; To minimize downtime during peak traffic hours on the Spark Rack network it is necessary for support to periodically take servers and network equipment off-line for routine maintenance during scheduled off-peak periods; This document defines Spark Rack’s policy regarding the scheduling of network and server outage (offline) periods so that routine maintenance can be performed.

Types of Maintenance Windows

Our hosting servers are held to the highest scrutiny of our network equipment, each server has been vigorously stress tested before it goes into production. Here we will define what types of outages and maintenance this agreement covers if a server happens to encounter an planned or unplanned outage:

– Routine Maintenance Window This type of maintenance is normally a short weekly type of maintenance consisting of software patches or updating the infrastructure of the server, such as Apache/IIS, Email Software, MySQL, etc.

– Comprehensive Maintenance Window This type of maintenance is normally much longer than the above mentioned maintenance consisting of a larger number of updates including Operating System updates (most of which require service restarts or reboots), this window also includes any form of schedule maintenance mentioned in our Network Status Centermarked as “Scheduled”.

– Emergency Maintenance This form of maintenance is any type of maintenance that impedes the normal functionality of the server or prohibits normally functionality of any service.

Shared Hosting Servers

Since shared hosting servers are used by many clients at one time, maintenance is periodic on these types of servers, most not requiring a system reboot. These types of maintenance are scheduled as follows:

• Routine Maintenance Window
  Shared Server Maintenance is scheduled on the First Sunday of every month between 1am and 3am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance will not be announced as it will not require a system reboot.
• Comprehensive Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is scheduled on the Last Sunday of every month between 1am and 5am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance does require a reboot and will be announced in our Network Status Center at least 3 days before the maintenance is performed.
• Emergency Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is not scheduled and takes precedence over other types of maintenance, and effects both physical hardware and system software. This maintenance is not scheduled unless otherwise stated and falls under our allotment for emergency downtime.

VPS Hosting Servers

• Routine Maintenance Window
  Shared Server Maintenance is scheduled on the First Sunday of every month between 1am and 3am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance will not be announced as it will not require a system reboot.
• Comprehensive Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is scheduled on the Last Sunday of every month between 1am and 5am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance does require a reboot and will be announced in our Network Status Center at least 3 days before the maintenance is performed.
• Emergency Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is not scheduled and takes precedence over other types of maintenance, and effects both physical hardware and system software. This maintenance is not scheduled unless otherwise stated and falls under our allotment for emergency downtime.

Dedicated Web Hosting Servers

• Routine Maintenance Window
  Shared Server Maintenance is scheduled on the First Sunday of every month between 1am and 3am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance will not be announced as it will not require a system reboot.
• Comprehensive Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is scheduled on the Last Sunday of every month between 1am and 5am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance does require a reboot and will be announced in our Network Status Center at least 3 days before the maintenance is performed.
• Emergency Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is not scheduled and takes precedence over other types of maintenance, and effects both physical hardware and system software. This maintenance is not scheduled unless otherwise stated and falls under our allotment for emergency downtime.

Streaming Media Hosting Servers (Shoutcast/Icecast)

• Routine Maintenance Window
  Shared Server Maintenance is scheduled on the First Sunday of every month between 1am and 3am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance will not be announced as it will not require a system reboot.
• Comprehensive Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is scheduled on the Last Sunday of every month between 1am and 5am Eastern Standard Time. This type of maintenance does require a reboot and will be announced in our Network Status Center at least 3 days before the maintenance is performed.
• Emergency Maintenance Window
  This type of maintenance is not scheduled and takes precedence over other types of maintenance, and effects both physical hardware and system software. This maintenance is not scheduled unless otherwise stated and falls under our allotment for emergency downtime.

Allotment for Emergency Downtime

Our Network Administrators have set aside 50 hours per year in which to deal with unscheduled maintenance issues such as hardware failures (hard drives, network adapters, etc), and software failures such as  (IIS/Apache, Mail Servers, MySQL/MSSQL, etc). Anything over the allotted time frame will prompt credits to our customers account for the amount of downtime affected.

Types of Outages

• External Factor Outage
  This type of outage is normally caused by forces or users outside of our control, such as a user changing something that shouldn’t be changed, crashing a system, or becoming locked out of any given server due to excessive login. This type of outage is NOT covered by the Network Uptime Guarantee and maintenance on it is subject to administrator availability. As a result, we recommend ALL users read, and research any changes that could possibly upset the balance of system and network infrastructure and only make changes to services, or software that you are familiar with.
• Service Outage
  * Applies to VPS and Dedicated Servers Only
  This type of outage is usually caused as a result of a service crashing due to changes made to it’s configuration file.