Chef Support Service Level Agreements

July 12, 2016(view archived version)

The purpose of this document is to outline the support included in your Chef Automate software subscription. There are two support options available: Chef Standard and Chef Premium.

1. CHEF STANDARD SUPPORT: Chef makes its team available to support you within specified support hours. The Standard Subscription Support provides you basic support and lets you know you’re not alone. The following table is our Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Chef Standard Support:

   1. Service Level Agreement (SLA)
      

      Severity	Response Time	Submission Method
      1	60 minutes 6 am – 6 pm Pacific Time Monday – Friday	Web-based ticketing system
      2	3 Hours 6 am – 6 pm Pacific Time Monday – Friday	Web-based ticketing system
      3	24 Hours 6 am – 6 pm Pacific Time Monday – Friday	Web-based ticketing system or email
      4	No SLA	Web-based ticketing system or email

   2. PLEASE NOTE: All tickets submitted by email will be classified as Severity 3 by default. Severity 4 issues are product feature requests and will be tracked in order to provide updates to customers but do not have a response SLA associated with them.
   3. The web interface at https://www.chef.io/support/tickets is the best method of submitting tickets to the Chef support team. From this interface, Customers may submit any severity level ticket, as well as view previously submitted tickets. To email a ticket, simply send an email to support@chef.io, and a new ticket will be generated.
   4. Minimum Requirements: Hardware sufficient to meet the minimum requirements of software installed per version of Chef Software. Operating Systems must not be EOL (End of Life) or in extended Life-cycle phase.
   5. Service requesters must have knowledge about the technical details associated with the service request, knowledge of the Operating System and configuration of the environment

2. CHEF PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION SUPPORT: If you are leveraging Chef for mission critical systems and need a higher level of support, then Chef Premium Subscription Support is the best choice for you. Chef provides a team of dedicated professionals to ensure that you receive support for mission critical problems 24x7x365. The following table is our Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Chef Premium Subscription Support:

   1. Service Level Agreement (SLA)
      

      Severity	Response Time	Submission Method
      1	30 minutes 24×7 Every day	Web-based ticketing system
      2	1 Hour 6 am – 6 pm Pacific Time Monday – Friday	Web-based ticketing system or email
      3	3 Hours 6 am – 6 pm Pacific Time Monday – Friday	Web-based ticketing system or email
      4	No SLA	Web-based ticketing system or email

   2. PLEASE NOTE: All tickets submitted by email will be classified as Severity 3 by default. Severity 4 issues are product feature requests and will be tracked in order to provide updates to customers but do not have a response SLA associated with them
   3. The web interface at https://www.chef.io/support/tickets is the best method of submitting tickets to the Chef support team. From this interface, Customers may submit any severity level ticket, as well as view previously submitted tickets. To email a ticket, simply send an email to support@chef.io, and a new ticket will be generated.
   4. Minimum Requirements: Hardware sufficient to meet the minimum requirements of software installed per version of Chef Software. Operating Systems must not be EOL (End of Life) or in extended Life-cycle phase.
   5. Service requesters must have knowledge about the technical details associated with the service request. Knowledge of the Operating System and configuration of the environment.

3. DEFINITIONS/GENERAL:

   1. “Business Day” means, any day which is not a Saturday, a Sunday or a United States public holiday 
   2. “Severity:” means the following for all levels of support: 
      1. Severity 1: Whole System outage of a production server product. Complete inability to service client requests
      2. Severity 2: Chef operations can continue in a restricted fashion, although long-term productivity might be adversely affected.
         • Severe degradation of server product services (e.g. one server in an HA cluster down, bulk of client runs failing, etc.).
         • Workflow tools failing (e.g. inability to push any cookbook changes over multiple cookbooks, etc.)
         • Core Chef API service functionality is available however other services are limited or inaccessible
      3. Severity 3: Partial, non-critical loss of Chef functionality. Impaired operations of some components, but allows the user to continue using Chef.
         • Chef API service functionality is available but there is a minor degradation in service.
         • Any other Chef server product, client, or workflow tool malfunction (e.g. one Chef client out of several failing repeatedly)
      4. Severity 4: General usage questions or product feature requests.
         • Errors in the documentation.
         • Assistance for server, client, or workflow tool installation.
         • Assistance with non Chef-produced cookbooks and Chef-related software.
         • Feature requests.

      * You acknowledge that not all Severity 3 problems will require a workaround. Chef may, in its reasonable discretion, respond to a Severity 3 problem by making the Error a feature request and downgrade the severity.

   3. “Release” means incremental revisions to Chef’s Versionless Software and made available in the “current” channel daily. Releases are selectively promoted from “current” to “stable” periodically and stable releases are published to https://downloads.chef.io/. 
   4. “Version” means a Major Version in the following format: Major Version.Minor Version.Patch Level 
   5. “Versionless Software” means, without limitation, the features of Chef Automate that are continuously delivered in a manner that does not follow the Major Version.Minor Version.Patch Level model 
   6. “Update” means updates, enhancements, bug fixes, patches, and other error corrections that Chef makes generally available free of charge to all customers then entitled to Support Services described herein. 

4. EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS:

   1. Changes/Derivatives. You may make derivatives of the Software for Your internal use. However, such derivatives may impact Chef’s ability to perform support. Chef reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to limit or refuse to support and maintain derivatives. 
   2. Limitations. Chef will not be responsible for correcting any errors not reproducible by Chef on the unmodified Software or errors caused by: (a) Your failure to implement all updates and upgrades provided by Chef under this Agreement; (b) changes by You to the operating system or environment which adversely affect the Software; (c) use of the Software in a manner for which it was not designed or other than as expressly authorized by this Agreement; (d) accident, negligence, or misuse of the Software; or (e) where the Software has versions, operation of a version of the Software older than the most current Version of the Software and the immediately preceding Version of the Software, but not any earlier Versions. 
   3. Versionless Software. For Versionless Software, Chef will make available Updates to the Chef downloads page at https://downloads.chef.io/. In the event a new Release of Versionless Software is required to address a customer defect, customer will be required to upgrade to the latest Release to receive the fix. 
   4. Updates. Chef may develop and provide Updates in its sole discretion, and You agree that Chef has no obligation to develop any Updates at all or for particular issues. You further agree that all Updates will be deemed Software and that Chef may provide some or all Updates via download from a website designated by Chef and you’re your receipt thereof will require an internet connection, which connection is Your sole responsibility. Chef has no obligation to provide Updates via any other media. Support services do not include any new Version or new Release of the Software that Chef may issue as a separate or new product, and Chef may determine whether any issuance qualifies as a new Version, new Release, or Update in its sole discretion. 

5. ESCALATION PROCEDURES: At Chef we pride ourselves on delivering world-class support to our customers. Your success is our success. When a ticket is submitted to our support staff, you will work with a highly skilled and trained Chef expert to resolve your issue as quickly as possible. If for some reason you are not satisfied with your support experience or do not think we are meeting the SLA criteria above, please escalate your concern to supportmanagement@chef.io.