TSTC Office of Information Technology (OIT) Cloud Initiative: AWS - CPT/WDD, CNS, & Cyber
Service Level Agreement (SLA)

 

What is a “SLA”? 

 What is an “SLA”?  A service-level agreement (SLA) is defined as an official commitment that prevails between a service provider (OIT Employees) and the customer (TSTC Employees & Students).  The most common component of SLA is that the services should be provided to the customer as agreed upon in the contract/governance. 

TSTC Staff/Faculty must contact the help desk so that a ticket can be created. The staff/faculty can send the ticket # via the chat so that the OIT Support Application Administrator is aware and can begin working on the issue and/or request.

OIT, in order to be in compliance, must respond in a timely manner, as well as the resolution times that fall within the priority 1, 2, and 3. Instructional, will need to submit* a ticket to the help desk, they (staff/faculty) can turnaround and notify the AWS TSTC Application Administrator via the chat of the ticket # so the support app admin can begin addressing and working the issue and/or request.

*Submitting a ticket can be accomplished in one of two ways, calling the TSTC Help Desk at 1.800.592.8784 (ext. 13375) and/or by emailing the TSTC Help Desk at tstchelpdesk@tstc.edu 

The intent for this document is to define the Internal SLA for TSTC OIT Department based on the priority of the ticket. The SLA applies equally to student, staff, and faculty tickets.

   

AWS SLAs (linked) & Department Breakdown

CNS

• AWS AppStream SLA

• AWS EC2

• Amazon WorkSpaces

• Bare Metal 

• CloudWatch

• ConFig

• Directory Services

• Okta (Instances)

• Secrets Manager

• Security HUB   

• VPC

 Cybersecurity

• AWS AppStream SLA

• AWS EC2

• CloudWatch

• ConFig

• GuardDuty

• VPC

CPT

• AWS EC2

• CloudWatch

• ConFig

• GuardDuty

• Security HUB 

• VPC

WDD

• CloudWatch

• LightSail

• Security HUB 

• VPC

 

AWS Support Plan: TSTC currently has the Business Support Plan

Priority is based on User Impact and Visibility as shown in the diagram shown below.

 

 

Priority Levels:

• High (Critical) - An issue or bug that impacts a large part of the site's functionality, userbase, classroom, labs, and/or the AWS environments. **Includes TSTC Campus classrooms, labs, instructional areas/offices, and AWS Offsite locations.

  • The AWS environments are down, fail to load, impacting students, faculty, classroom & lab instruction. High priority tickets require immediate response and resolution.

• Medium - A standard issue or bug that has a moderate impact on the user experience. 

  • Environments are semi-functional, some but not all faculty/students are unable to access the environments/labs, login issues, labs/exercises are down, and are  reporting errors. Medium priority tickets are not high priority, but are important as defined by the client. **Includes TSTC Campus classrooms, labs, instructional areas/offices, and AWS Offsite locations.

• Low - An issue may have an isolated impact and may also have workarounds. 

  • Login issues, account issues, credential issues. This also includes requests, such as *early semester environment/student account setups. **Includes TSTC Campus classrooms, labs,  instructional areas/offices, and AWS Offsite locations.

*Requires tickets be created 2 weeks prior to the new semester starting.

Priority 1 - High (Critical)

• OIT Response Time 

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator must respond to the end user within 30 minutes or less that he/she has received the ticket and is beginning to work it.

• OIT ETA to resolution 

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator will work the issue until the issue has been resolved, if a resolution is not possible, a workaround must be put in place and the end user must be made aware of the current situation and next steps.

• Follow-up frequency

  • Upon assignment of ticket - OIT Support AA will email the program instructor/student that  they have been assigned the ticket and give an approximate ETA

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator must communicate to the end user every 30 to 40 minutes until the issue has been resolved. Unless there is a *workaround in place until a resolution has been reached.

*If there is a workaround in place, the OIT Support AA does not need to update the end user every 30 minutes. The OIT Support AA must continue to update the end user with any new information.

Priority 1 - High (Critical) continued

• Anytime the approximate ETA is changed, an email will be sent to the program instructor/student with the new estimated ETA.

• Who will be onsite/first responder(s) 

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator will be the onsite/first responder for all tickets entered by the end user. There may be a time when a field technician may be called upon to assist an OIT Support AA, that would be at the OIT Support AA’s discretion.

• Who will communicate to the program instructors? 

  • All ticket communications will come from the OIT Support AA via the TDX ticketing system.

• Postmortem Report

  • The OIT Support AA will update & document the ticket with pertinent information in regards to the issue. If a post mortem meeting is required, please inform the OIT Support AA to schedule.

Priority 2 - Medium

• OIT Response Time

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator (OIT Support AA) must respond to the end user within 45 minutes or less that he/she has received the ticket and is beginning to work it.

• OIT ETA to resolution

  • The OIT Support AA has 3 business days, 72 hours, to resolve the issue. If a resolution is not readily possible, a workaround must be put in place and the end user must be made aware of the current situation and next steps.

• Follow-up frequency

  • Upon assignment of ticket - OIT Support AA will email the program instructor/student that  they have been assigned the ticket and give an approximate ETA

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator must communicate to the end user every 30 to 40 minutes until the issue has been resolved. Unless there is a *workaround in place until a resolution has been reached.

*If there is a workaround in place, the OIT Support AA does not need to update the end user every 30 minutes. The OIT Support AA must continue to update the end user with any new information.

• Anytime the approximate ETA is changed, an email will be sent to the program instructor/student with the new estimated ETA.

• Who will be onsite/first responder(s):

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator will be the onsite/first responder for all tickets entered by the end user. There may be a time when a field technician may be called upon to assist an OIT Support AA, that would be at the OIT Support AA’s discretion.

• Who will communicate to the program instructors/students? 

  • All ticket communications will come from the OIT Support AA via the TDX ticketing system.

• Postmortem Report

  • The OIT Support AA will update & document the ticket with pertinent information in regards to the issue. If a post mortem meeting is required, please inform the OIT Support AA to schedule.

Priority 3 - Minimal (Low)

• OIT Response Time

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator (OIT Support AA) must respond to the end user within 2 hours or less that he/she has received the ticket and is beginning to work it

• OIT ETA to resolution

  • The OIT Support AA has 5 business days  to resolve the issue. If a resolution is not readily possible, a workaround must be put in place and the end user must be made aware of the current situation and next steps.

• Follow-up frequency 

  • Upon assignment of ticket - OIT Support AA will email the program instructor/student that  they have been assigned the ticket and give an approximate ETA

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator will communicate to the end user every 4 hours until the issue has been resolved. Unless there is a *workaround in place until a resolution has been reached.

*If there is a workaround in place, the OIT Support AA must continue to update the end user with any new information.

• Anytime the approximate ETA is changed, an email will be sent to the program instructor/student with the new estimated ETA.

• Who will be onsite/first responder(s)

  • The OIT Support Application Administrator will be the onsite/first responder for all tickets entered by the end user. There may be a time when a field technician may be called upon to assist an OIT Support AA, that would be at the OIT Support AA’s discretion.

• Who will communicate to the program instructors/students? 

  • All ticket communications will come from the OIT Support AA via the TDX ticketing system

• Postmortem Report

  • The OIT Support AA will update & document the ticket with pertinent information in regards to the issue. If a post mortem meeting is required, please inform the OIT Support AA to schedule.

 

**TSTC Campus & Offsite Locations

• Campus Locations

  • Ft. Bend

  • Harlingen

  • Hutto (East Williamson County)

  • Marshall

  • New Braunfels

  • Red Oak (North Texas)

  • Waco

  • West Texas: Abilene, Breckenridge, Sweetwater

  • Offsite

    • AWS Environment areas