LTS Support Hours & SLA Terms

Owned by Laura Morse
Last updated: Jul 14, 2023
2 min read

WORKING DRAFT.  See charter for more information about project.

Support Hours Classification

LTS systems are assigned supported hours based on outage impacts, as follows.

24 hours (12:00 am-12:00 pm), 7 days a week

Requires continuous availability. Breaks in service are intolerable and immediately/significantly damaging.

  • Significant impact on teaching and research and collateral impact on other schools/units
  • Significant damage to Harvard's reputation in the eyes of the Harvard community and/or general public
  • Services with demonstrably high usage levels
Extended business hours (7:00 am-9:00 pm), 7 days a week

Requires continuous availability, though short service outages are not catastrophic. Availability is required for effective business operation

  • Moderate impact on teaching and research
  • Moderate to significant damage to Harvard's reputation in the eyes of the Harvard community and/or general public
  • Availability is required for robust research activities
Extended business hours (7:00 am-9:00 pm), weekdays (excluding holidays)

Continuous availability ideal, though short service outages are tolerated. Contributes to efficient business operations.

  • Moderate impact on teaching and research
  • Moderate damage to Harvard's reputation in the eyes of the Harvard community and/or general public
  • Effects efficiency and/or cost of operation
Business hours (9:00 am-5:00 pm), weekdays (excluding holidays)

Contributes to efficient business operations. Service disruption may become critical some hours to days after the disruption has occurred.

  • Minor to no impact on teaching and research
  • Minor to no damage to Harvard's reputation in the eyes of the Harvard community and/or general public
  • Effects efficiency and/or cost of operation
  • Services with demonstrably low usage levels

Support Level Agreements

LTS systems are service level agreements for response targets during the system's supported hours.  The service level may be different for system down versus system degraded. 

RedResponse <= 30 min / Resolution plan <= 8 hrs
Yellow Response <= 2 hrs / Resolution plan <= next sprint
Green Response <= 1 bus.day / Resolution plan <= maintenance sprint