Virtual Server Hosting: EITS and Client Responsibilties

EITS responsibilities

• Responsible for configuration and updates to hardware, firmware, and the hypervisor
• Responsible for hardware and hypervisor troubleshooting, diagnosis, and resolution
• Responsible for performance and availability monitoring of underlying infrastructure
• Responsible for documentation of configuration and processes for infrastructure
• Provide support and proactive communications to clients.
  • Normal Support will be provided during standard business hours of 8:00am to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, excluding University-observed holidays and University closures.
  • Emergency Support will include a maximum one-hour response time during emergencies or service outages between standard business hours.
  • Extended Support outside of standard business hours will be on a best-effort response following the EITS on-call procedures.
• Delegating appropriate levels of access to clients for systems administration of the VM by client
• Maintaining the internal and external network connectivity of the virtual infrastructure
• Coordinate the setup and maintenance of any requested Virtual IP. 

Client responsibilities

• Provide EITS with a business contact for any billing changes or issues
• Provide EITS with a technical contact for any service changes or issues
• Inform EITS of any changes to business or technical contact information
• Responsible for backup and restore functionality to ensure continuity of data and restoration of service in the case of a disaster that impacts client’s VM(s).
  • If client pays for the Virtual Server Backup Service, the client would be responsible for initiating and validating restorations; EITS would own responsibilities for adding the server to the appropriate backup policy.
• Responsible for the installation of VMware tools and updates to it on all hosted VMs.
• Responsible for the application of all patches and updates to the guest operating system
• Responsible for the application of all patches and updates to any and all software installed on top of the guest operating system
• Responsible for the procurement and renewal of any licensing and support agreements for any operating system, applications, or tools used within the client VM
• Responsible for performance and availability monitoring including after-hours response to system outages related to guest server configuration problems or disruptions
• Responsible for documentation of configuration and maintenance procedures and processes concerning guest environment
• Responsible for timely response to all security concerns
• Initial and ongoing Firewall requests
• Initial and ongoing SSL security certificate requests
• Requesting initial and on-going network changes including load balancer Virtual IP (VIP) changes to be charged according to the published network support rate
• End user support for any users of applications or services provided by the client VM
• Clients should NOT retain any VMWare snapshots for longer than 7 days at any time.