Service level agreement (SLA) – VTS online

This document defines the service level commitments SCHUHFRIED makes to VTS online customers, covering availability guarantees, planned maintenance windows, and incident response times.

Availability guarantee

SCHUHFRIED guarantees an availability of VTS online of 99.5% per calendar quarter.

  • Calculation basis: Availability refers to the accessibility of the test platform for end users, measured as the percentage of available minutes within the calendar quarter. Calendar quarters are defined as Q1 (January – March), Q2 (April – June), Q3 (July – September), and Q4 (October – December).

  • Covered functionality:

    • Creating test persons

    • Conducting tests

    • View results

  • Exclusions: Unplanned outages demonstrably caused by external factors (e.g. Internet backbone disruptions, cloud infrastructure provider outages, or force majeure), as well as planned maintenance windows, are not counted as downtime in the availability calculation.

  • Compensation: Should the guaranteed availability not be met, SCHUHFRIED will, upon request, grant the customer the following service credits against the quarterly fee for the affected quarter:

    • Availability < 99.5%: 3% credit

    • Availability < 99.0%: 5% credit

    Credits are applied against the next invoice. No entitlement to cash payment exists. Credit requests must be submitted within 30 days of the end of the affected quarter.

Outages caused by external factors (third parties) or announced maintenance windows are excluded from the calculation. Quarterly fee means the amount invoiced for test licenses consumed in the affected calendar quarter. SCHUHFRIED's monitoring and logging infrastructure is the sole source of truth for determining whether it has met the guaranteed availability.

Planned maintenance windows

To ensure the security and performance of the VTS, SCHUHFRIED carries out regular system maintenance.

  • Notification: Maintenance windows are announced at least 10 days in advance in writing (by email or system notification).

  • Timing: Maintenance work is consistently scheduled during off-peak hours with low user traffic or at weekends to minimize disruption to test operations.

  • Scope: Approximately 4–6 maintenance windows per calendar year are planned, with the cumulative duration typically not exceeding 30 hours per year.

Incident response times

Incoming reports are classified by their criticality. SCHUHFRIED aims for the following response times within support hours:

  • Critical incidents (e.g. complete system outage):

    • Response time: Within 2 hours during support hours.

  • Standard requests (e.g. functional questions or cosmetic issues):

    • Response time: Within 24 hours during support hours.

More information about the working hours of hour technical support can be found on the page Contact us.