General Service Agreement Cinedeck

General Terms

1.1 Preface

All Cinedeck ZX, LX, RX2, Capture2Cloud, CD2 Software Ingest, cineXtools products including the standalone application cineXtools, cineXplugins and cineXmeta are subscription-based applications. As such, all active subscribers will receive support as outlined below. Details and Response Times tables.

1.2 Specifics

Product

Cinedeck ZX, RX, LX, CD2, Capture2Cloud, CD2 and cineXtools, cineXplugin, cineXmeta

Support Provider

Cinedeck

Contact

https://cinedeck.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/2/group/3/create/9

Working Hours

9am ~ 12pm / GMT, Monday ~ Friday

1.3 Response Times

Level

Response Time

Aim for Fix

Critical

Less than 1 day

Between 2 ~ 3 days

High

Less than 1 day

Within 2 weeks

Medium

1 Day

Next Major Release

Low

1 Day

Next Major Release

Feature Request

1 Day

Depending on feature will be included in Next Major Release

Scope

The scope of the support agreement covers the ongoing support of the Product supplied by Cinedeck to the customer.

It does not cover the support of the Environment, including but not limited to; the operating systems, hardware platform, standard software components (eg as Java RTE), networks, hardware or any other software or hardware products not supplied by Cinedeck which may be necessary for the Product to function or to which the Product is interfaced. Assistance from Cinedeck may be required, however, to diagnose related problems, where the problem is not caused by a fault in the Product.

Feature Requests are not Faults in the system for the purposes of determining Fix times.

Definitions

A Service Level Agreement is a two-way agreement between the provider of the service (Cinedeck) and the consumer (the BBC) of the service that details in quantifiable and measurable terms the services and responsibilities of each party. It identifies the responsibility of both parties for the achievement of the goals and objectives outlined in this document.

  1. ‘Product’ refers to supplied Cinedeck software as detailed in the original quote and documentation.
  2. ‘Working Hours’ are described in the Specifics table.
  3. A ‘Working Day’ is a normal weekday (Monday to Friday) excluding public holidays.
  4. A ‘Major Release’ is a primary level release, usually associated with new functionality.
  5. A ‘Minor Release’ is a secondary level release, usually associated with major modifications or bug fixes.
  6. ‘Help Desk’ is the Customer’s internal support system.
  7. ‘Service managers’ are the Customer’s and Cinedeck’s representatives for communications regarding issues.
  8. An ‘Issue’ is a problem, identified by the customer, where the Product does not appear to be functioning as expected.
  9. A ‘Feature Request’ is a customer request to change the behavior of the Product from that originally supplied by Cinedeck.
  10. ‘Environment’ means any software or hardware which the product interfaces to or that the Product relies upon, either directly as the platform for the product or indirectly as targets for interfaces for the product, as defined in the Product documentation including:
    1. Hardware Platform
    2. Operating System
    3. Network, hardware, protocols, and configuration

Compatibility

The product is qualified to operate in the environment as described in the Product’s documentation.

Non-qualified configurations or Environments will not be supported by Cinedeck except as a development work order subject to a separate charge outlined in section 4.

See our Knowledge Base articles that describe compatibility per product.

2.Issue Resolution

2.1 Severity Levels and Response Times.

The table on the cover page represents times for Cinedeck to initiate support and recovery activities after notification of a problem. They are NOT time for resolution, as this would be dependent on the size of the problem and the existence of any satisfactory workarounds.

Severity levels are defined in “Issue Severity”: see section 3.3.3 below.

2.2 Problem Management

The Customer’s Help Desk will escalate to Cinedeck Issues that are outside normal operation activity which they cannot resolve themselves.

The Customer will provide an initial point of contact for their Help Desk who will perform initial problem determinations.

Cinedeck will support the Customer Manager to diagnose and resolve a reported Product related Issue.

Where a problem is determined by either party to originate from the Environment, Cinedeck will assist the Customer in ensuring that the correction has no adverse impact on the Product. Cinedeck reserve the right, subject to prior agreement, to charge (at the agreed rates) for the resources required to specifically investigate and/or resolve a third-party issues.

2.2.1 Service Managers

Where an issue is of significant severity and cannot be resolved quickly both parties will appoint a senior point of contact; the Cinedeck Manager and the Customer Manager. Both parties shall be responsible for notifying any change in their appointed Service Manager.

These Managers will be responsible for ensuring that both parties comply with this agreement.

As necessary the Managers will agree to email regularly to monitor Issues and progress their resolution. They co-ordinate any materials or resources required and will be responsible for coordinating any actions arising from the progress reports.

These emails could include:

  • Level of service
  • Progress on Issues identified
  • Prioritization of Product Fixes
  • Change Requests, costs and progress

Cinedeck will provide support for the Product in line with the business requirements and processes outlined above; support to be separated into three categories:

2.3.1 On-site Support

On-site support for specific business requirements or implementations will be made available by Cinedeck, subject to 72 working hour’s notification by the Customer. On-site support will be charged at the agreed rate including travel from New York to the customer’s office.

2.3.2 Remote Support

Cinedeck shall provide support during Working Hours through contact details listed at the start of this document, in the Specific Details section.

Cinedeck shall only provide support to the customers qualified and trained support engineers. All other contacts received by Cinedeck from the Customer’s organization shall be referred to the Customer Manager.

Out of hours support can be arranged upon prior agreement.

2.3.3 Remote access

Remote access will allow Cinedeck to resolve Issues faster than can be achieved with a phone call or email and will often allow us to resolve an issue without the need for a site visit and the cost and delay that may incur.

Cinedeck will provide diagnosis and support via remote access (TeamViewer preferred).

In order to achieve the stated support objectives, Cinedeck require that this access is made available by the Customer and has an adequate performance.

3.Resolution Process

In all cases the support and resolution processes shall be agreed before commencement of operations and support.

If Cinedeck products are deployed via a Cinedeck channel partner, the channel partner may provide second line support in local language and local time zone. In this scenario Cinedeck provide third line support. In this case, the annual support renewal will also be managed and coordinated by the channel partner.

If Cinedeck products are not deployed via a Cinedeck channel partner or the channel partner does not have appropriate support delivery capability. In most cases Cinedeck will provide second- and third-line support as described below. In this case, the annual support renewal will be managed and coordinated by Cinedeck.

3.1 First Line Support

Initial Issue identification and attempted resolution is to be carried out by the Customer’s Help Desk/System Administrator All operational errors due to user error should be identified and resolved at this stage.

The Help Desk/System Administrator will provide a single point of contact and ownership for all basic issues and support for operators. The Help Desk/System Administrator is responsible for identifying the criticality of an incident being reported, classifying and prioritizing the incident accordingly.

Responsible for:

  1. Logging incident
  2. Prioritizing incident
  3. Triage incidents
  4. Provide first line diagnosis and questioning.
  5. Resolve desktop support and operator queries that can be resolved.
  6. Providing updates and information on major service affecting issues and outages
  7. Resolving incidents

3.2 Second Line Support

The investigation of an Issue beyond normal operational behavior should be carried out by the Customer’s Help Desk/System Administrator, and where this cannot resolve the Issue, Cinedeck’s online support ticket system.

The 2nd line team will offer a technical escalation point for the 1st line team; they will handle all incidents that have a more technical element. They will manage all incidents, including update information to the customers Help Desk/System Administrator. Responsible for:

  1. Providing technical escalation point for the first line (Help Desk)
  2. Owning any incidents that require more technical knowledge.
  3. Assigning identified product faults or change requests to the 3rd line.
  4. Assessing all incidents reported to ensure they are prioritized correctly.
  5. Provide technical support on the software and its environment.
  6. Implementing and offering advice on system changes (functionality or environment)
  7. Providing telephone, email and remote support to operators
  8. Logging 3rd party (other manufacturers) technical calls where necessary to resolve an incident

3.3 Third Line Support

Where neither the Help Desk/System Administrator, Cinedeck’s ticket system can resolve the issue, it should be escalated to Cinedeck support directly via phone or email.

The third line support will provide identified product fault assistance to the customer’s Help Desk and second line support. The third line support team (Cinedeck) are responsible for taking ownership of incidents requiring in depth diagnosis and resolution.

Responsible for:

  1. Incident management of complex technical issues
  2. Owning incidents that require constant management and monitoring.
  3. Providing technical support and information to third parties (other manufacturers) to resolve incidents.
  4. Technical ownership for Critical incidents
  5. Technical ownership of Problem Management
  6. Technical ownership of Change Management
  7. Technical ownership of software release and upgrades

3.3.1 Issue Identification

Issues will be communicated by the Customer to Cinedeck stating:

  1. Operator identifying the problem.
  2. Date problem identified.
  3. Problem severity: Critical, High, Medium or Low (see Section 3.3.3)
  4. A unique Customer reference number
  5. Major and Minor Version of the Product used when the Issue was identified.
  6. Major and Minor version of Operating system
    • Description of the Environment (SAN/NAS, network, etc)
  7. Problem description – a comprehensive description, product messages where possible to clearly show where the Issue has occurred together with screen shots/recordings if available and steps to reproduce.
  8. Business impact and any available workaround

Cinedeck will log the communication and assign a unique Issue reference number, which will be communicated to the customers Help Desk and second line support.

3.3.2 Target Problem Analysis and Resolution

Cinedeck will use all reasonable endeavors to deal with the Issue. Cinedeck and the customer may agree that a fault has a work-around which then reduces its severity.

3.3.3 Issue Severity Definition

Level

Business Impact

 

CRITICAL

(URGENT)

Stopped

Failure of the Product, which results in major impact to, or stoppage of, the business. There is no acceptable

workaround and the problem have a critical impact on the business.

HIGH

(IMPORTANT)

No Sustainable Workaround

A partial outage caused by a Product error resulting in a significant interruption of service to one or more users or batch processes.

MEDIUM

(NEEDED)

Sustainable Workaround

A workaround is available, but the problem still has an impact on the business.

LOW

(WANTED)

Manageable Workaround

Minimal or acceptable impact on the business.

Issue Resolution

Please review the table ‘Response Times

 

3.3.4 Problem Review Process

Cinedeck can provide statistics on the number and severity of Issues logged with Cinedeck, together with their status, which will be reviewed at the Service meetings. The customer will provide the same information for comparison.

Cinedeck will track problems through to resolution and then gain the Customer Manager’s acceptance that the problem is resolved.

3.4 Software Change Management Procedures

3.4.1 Overview

All changes to supported software installations shall have prior approval from Cinedeck’ and the Customer Manager.

Cinedeck will be responsible for the development, testing and delivery of the product and upgrades to the product.

The Customer will be responsible for installing, checking, and approving the system changed system. If required Cinedeck could carry out this work on behalf of the customer at the agreed rates.

3.4.2 Change Control

Cinedeck shall notify the Customer of all new developments to the product, indicating whether these are Issue resolution fixes which are to be supplied under the terms of this agreement or whether they are feature enhancement releases which may require separate commercial arrangements.

The Customer shall notify Cinedeck of any proposed changes to the Environment. Cinedeck will respond to the Customer, within a reasonable period of receiving notification of intended changes, indicating whether the existing Product will support the intended Environment, or whether further tests and/or development are required. If Cinedeck determine this is a Change Request, Cinedeck will provide a timescale and cost for this work.

No changes to the system (Product and Environment) shall be made without explicit agreement of both parties.

Following any engineering work Cinedeck shall notify the Customer of any changes made to the system.

The Customer shall notify Cinedeck of any changes made to their systems which may be pertinent to the function of the product.

3.4.3 Release Cycle

Cinedeck will deliver software to the Customer via specific release levels, which will incorporate all core Product functionality.

From time-to-time Cinedeck will supply the Customer’s Support Manager with new versions of the Product. These new versions shall be supplied with detailed release notes describing:

  1. Unique reference (Major Version. Minor Version. Build number)
  2. List of all components of the new version
  3. Details of supported environments, with emphasis on any required environment changes
  4. Installation and upgrade instructions
  5. Issues addressed.

New versions shall be supplied complete with all necessary components.

If Cinedeck supplies a new version that addresses issues raised by the customer, the customer shall be required to install and test the new version within 30 days of receipt. Following this 30-day period Cinedeck will not support the earlier version and will charge any time spent on attempting to support the earlier version at the agreed rate.

The Customer shall be responsible for installing and testing new versions of the Product in their system.

The customer shall be responsible for backing up all databases and user data before installing new versions.

3.4.4 Compatibility and Environment Changes

The customer will notify Cinedeck of any intended changes to the Product Environment.

Subject to the availability of the proposed Environment, Cinedeck will test the Product against the new proposed Environment.

Where the new Environment is only available at the Customer’s or a third-party site, Cinedeck reserves the right to charge for engineering time spent conducting tests away from Cinedeck’s premises.

The Customer should not assume any compatibility of the product other than with the qualified Environment unless Cinedeck has issued a revised compatibility qualification following testing.

Cinedeck will offer one of the following responses to a proposed change in Environment:

  1. Qualify the new Environment and provide support for the Product within that new Environment.
  2. Modify the Product to make it compatible with the new Environment and qualify the new version with the new Environment. Supply the new version of the Product to the Customer for installation and testing.
  3. Document the reasons why the new proposed Environment is not compatible with the existing Product. Cinedeck may then, at its discretion, provide a commercial proposition to implement a Change Request to make the Product compatible with the new proposed Environment.

3.5 Documentation

Cinedeck will provide the following documentation to support the Product:

  1. User manual and/or help files.
  2. Installation guide
  3. Release notes

The above documentation will be amended in line with new versions of the Product.

3.6 Recovery

The Customer will be responsible for ensuring regular backup of the Product data and the system software.

The Customer will be responsible for the recovery of the server or any application data in the event of a hardware or systems failure, including any business (disaster) recovery service.

3.7 Charges

Reasonable and appropriate travel, subsistence and accommodation expenses will be charged at cost plus 5% to cover administration when on site work is required.

Travel days will be charged at half the agreed daily rate.

For chargeable support work from the office, the first two hours or part thereof is to be charged at ¼ of the agreed daily rate, subsequent time spent on support will be charged in ½ day increments of the agreed daily rate.

Any work carried outside Working Hours may incur an additional charge depending on circumstances and prior agreement.

Support cover shall be available during the subscription period from the date of activation.

Support cover will be withdrawn if the subscription has lapsed beyond 30 days.

Changes of support costs will be notified to the Customer Managers in writing 30 days prior to the subscription renewal date.