Service Level Agreement

New Idea Hosting is proud to offer an exceptional level of performance, reliability, and service. That is why we are making commitments to our customers in the form of a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which provides certain rights and remedies regarding the performance of our network. 
We will note that in the entire year 2005 through current our network has been so stable as to have never fallen below any level of our uptime guarantee calculated on annual average!

Uptime Guarantee:
New Idea Hosting™ strives to maintain a 99.9% or better network and server uptime service level. This uptime percentage is a monthly figure, and is is calculated solely by New Idea Hosting™ monitoring systems or New Idea Hosting™ authorized/contracted outside monitoring services. If New Idea Hosting™ fails to meet it's 99.9% uptime guarantee, and it is not due to one of the exceptions below, credits will be made available to each client, upon request, on a case by case basis. New Idea Hosting™ does not credit a full month's service for minor downtime. This would not be financially healthy for New Idea Hosting™, and in turn would only negatively affect the service level New Idea Hosting™ provides to you. "Partial refunds for partial downtime" is our standard policy. In extreme circumstances, New Idea Hosting™ may distribute full month credits at rates greater than below, but this is dealt with on a case by case basis. Details on how credit amounts are normally calculated can be found below.

You pay us so that your site will be available. When it's not, you shouldn't have to pay for the time. It's that simple. We rarely have server issues that result in downtime, but any host may encounter an issue that may cause a brief service interruption. Many hosts offer "uptime guarantees" but make no mention of what you receive if they don't meet their "guaranteed" numbers. These type "guarantees" really have nothing to do with the actual reliability of their services.

In all but the most urgent cases, we will send out an email notifying customers of maintenance that is to be performed. When a notice is sent at least two hours prior to service interruption, the outage does not qualify for our uptime guarantee. We have had one since instance in the last 18 months lasting less than 45 minutes.

Guaranteed Uptime credits are calculated as follows:

• Between 0 minutes and 45 minutes downtime per month (100% - 99.9% uptime) : No credit
• Between 45 minutes and 3 hours 30 minutes downtime per month (99.9% - 99.5% uptime) : 25% credit
• Between 3 hours 30 minutes and 7 hours 15 minutes downtime per month (99.5% - 99% uptime) : 35% credit
• Between 7 hours 15 minutes and 14 hours 30 minutes downtime per month (99% - 98% uptime) : 50% credit
• Between 14 hours 30 minutes and 1.5 days downtime per month (less than 98% uptime): 100% credit

Contact our billing department to request a service credit  in accordance with our Uptime Guarantee.

Notes: Service credits issued for downtime are issued in the form of credits to your account, and will be automatically applied to future invoices. Cash refunds will not be issued as a result of downtime. Account must be in good standing & not in violation of our Terms of Service or Acceptable Use policies.

Exceptions:
Customer shall not receive any credits under this SLA in connection with any failure or deficiency of the New Idea Hosting™ network caused by or associated with:

• Circumstances beyond reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, "Acts of God" (i.e....fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, etc...), strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of the Service Level Agreement
• Telco Failure (i.e....Verizon™ cutting a fiber line somewhere)
• Backbone peering point issues (i.e....UUnet™ having a router go down in Virginia that wipes out internet service for the entire East Coast)
• Scheduled maintenance for hardware/software upgrades
• DNS issues not within the direct control of New Idea Hosting™
• Client’s acts or omissions, including without limitation, any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of New Idea Hosting™ service in breach of New Idea Hosting™ Terms of Service Guidelines, by Client or others authorized by Client.

Connectivity:
New Idea Hosting's™ goal is to make the New Idea Hosting™ network available to Client free of outages 99.9% of the time. An "outage” is defined as an instance in which Client is unable to transmit and receive IP packets due to a New Idea Hosting™ service failure for more than 30 consecutive minutes, excluding service failures relating to New Idea Hosting's™ scheduled maintenance and upgrades.
Our goal is to keep Average Round-Trip Latency on the New Idea Hosting™ network to 85 milliseconds or less. We define “Average Round-Trip Latency”, with respect to a given month, as the average time required for round-trip packet transfers between our network and major US backbone peering points during such month, as measured by New Idea Hosting™. Our goal is to keep Average Packet Loss on the New Idea Hosting™ network to 1% or less. New Idea Hosting™ defines “Average Packet Loss”, with respect to a given month, as the average percentage of IP packets transmitted on the New Idea Hosting™ network during such month that are not successfully delivered, as measured by New Idea Hosting™.

Measurement:
New Idea Hosting™ periodically (every 5 minutes) monitors our network and server availability using software and hardware components capable of measuring application traffic and responses. Client acknowledges that that such measurements may not measure the exact path traversed by Client’s internet connection, and that such measurements constitute measurements across the New Idea Hosting™ network but not other networks to which Client may connect. New Idea Hosting™ reserves the right to periodically change the measurement points and methodologies it uses without notice to Client.

Hardware Failure:
New Idea Hosting™ stands behind all equipment on our network. Faulty hardware is rare, but cannot be predicted nor avoided. New Idea Hosting™ utilizes only name brand hardware of the highest quality and performance. New Idea Hosting™ will replace all faulty hardware affecting performance levels of equipment within 48 hours, which includes hardware issues that cause server crashes or speed issues. Hardware failure resulting in complete network/server outage/downtime will be corrected within two hours of problem identification. Router failure is an exception to this SLA guarantee, and may require on-site Cisco™ engineers or backbone provider emergency personnel to correct the problem. Router failure is governed by current New Idea Hosting™ datacenter contracts with Cisco™ and backbone providers in regard to the emergency repair service in case of such an issue. 

Credits:
Credit requests must be made  by emailing to admin@newideahost.com . Each request in connection with network/server outages/downtime must be received by New Idea Hosting™ within five days of the occurrence. Each request in connection with Average Round-Trip Latency or Average Packet Loss in a calendar month must be received by New Idea Hosting™ within three days after the end of such month. The total amount credited to a Client for New Idea Hosting™ not meeting SLA service levels will not exceed the service fees paid by Client New Idea Hosting™ for such services for the period in question. Each validly requested credit will be applied to a Client invoice within 30 days after our receipt of such request. Upon Client’s request (in accordance with the procedure set forth below), New Idea Hosting™ will issue a credit to Client for network/server outages/downtime occurring during any calendar month that are reported by Client to New Idea Hosting™ and confirmed by our measurement reporting. Such credit will be equal to one MONTH’s worth of service. If Average Round-Trip Latency on the New Idea Hosting™ network for a calendar month exceeds 90 milliseconds, then upon Client's request, New Idea Hosting™ will issue a credit to Client equal to one MONTH’s worth of service. If Average Packet Loss exceeds 1% during a calendar month, then upon Client’s request, New Idea Hosting™ will issue a credit to Client equal to one MONTH’s worth of service.

Account cancellations
Your account can be cancelled ONLY by using the cancel link in your monthly invoice. Other methods of cancellation are not valid. Once you cancel the account will be terminated within 24 hours maximum. No pro-rated refunds are given for partial service periods.

General:
New Idea Hosting reserves the right to change or modify this SLA to benefit the Client, and will post changes to location currently housing this SLA at time of modification, which will be made available to Client. Any changes that might be construed as not in the benefit of the client will only be made after a minimum of a 60 day notification period for all clients.
Except as set forth in this SLA, New Idea Hosting™ makes no claims regarding the availability or performance of the New Idea Hosting™ network or servers. Specific terms/points of this SLA may be adjusted on a case by case basis by the specific Service Agreement signed/agreed by client. In case of difference terms/points in SLA and Service Agreement, the Service Agreement terms/points prevail over this general SLA policy. The Service Agreement signed/agreed by client, is above and beyond this SLA, and Service Agreement terms are in affect, including, but not limited to, limitations of liability.

Dependable performance all the time is our goal. Our network & hardware is monitored at 5 minute intervals and we have server administrators on call for any network or hardware problems 24/7/365.

Our current uptime average is 100% for all services for 2006.

Every site on our system is monitored at 5 minute intervals and all sites are backed up nightly.
Added "off-system" backups are also available on request at different levels to suit your needs and you may download your own backups easily from your control panel at any time.