Home /

Data Center SLA

Quicklinks

  1. SLA Overview
  2. General Overview
  3. Physical Data Center Hosting Service Description
  4. Roles and Responsibilies
  5. Requesting Service
  6. Hours of Coverage, Response Time
  7. Other Requests
  8. Maintenance and Service Changes
  9. Pricing
  10. Reviewing and Reporting

Campus and Off-Site Colocation Facilities

Updated 2024

1. SLA Overview

This is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the campus community and the Information Technology Services Division (ITS) to document:

  • The suite of services provided by the Data Center Physcial Hosting
  • The general levels of response, availability, and  maintenance associated with these services
  • The responsibilities of ITS as a provider of these services
  • The responsibilities of the clients receiving these services
  • Deviations from the standard processes documented in the ITS and Campus SLA

2. General Overview

UC Santa Cruz provides on-campus and off-site colocation data center facilities to host physical computing and storage equipment.

Given our campus's physical and environmental challenges (e.g., limited space, insufficient power and cooling infrastructure, fire, and seismic activity), it is imperative that our campus has an off-premise compute and storage mindset.

  • The colocation data center is located in Quincy, Washington, and is managed in collaboration with the UC Office of the President.
  • On-campus hosting is currently in the Communications Building Data Center. Provided by exception only.

More information about the two facilities

3. Physical Data Center Hosting Service Description

ITS provides infrastructure, physical monitoring, support, and services to secure the campus mission-critical servers, data, and applications.

  • ITS provides and maintains Data Center facilities including secure locations, rack space, power, cooling, network connectivity, firewalls, and other basic infrastructure.
  • Data Center hardware service and support include
    • Installation and Removal of equipment
      • Physical installation and removal
    • Hardware status updates and general hands-on hardware troubleshooting assistance
    • Campus and Colocation Standard Network Services

3.1. Standards and Hardware Requirements

This is the baseline for purchasing hardware, based on campus ARB standards

  • Baseline (purchased by Customer)
    • Minimum of 2 SFP+/SFP28 (or in multiples of twos)
    • ILOM
    • Power supplies are purchased in multiples of two. Minimum two power supplies.
  • Highly Recommended
    • ZFS or RAID disc drive technology
  • Provided by Data Center Ops
    • Power cords
    • Passive Twinax Copper cables or Active AOC cables
    • Cat6 Cables only for console/ILOM purposes and not for general networking.
  • Not Supported
    • Cat6 (RJ45) Cables only for console/ILOM purposes and not for general networking
    • CAT 6A/8 cables are not supported
    • Single power supply servers. Example: Mac Minis are not supported
    • Servers without a console port (eg ILOM)
    • Servers/devices that are not rack-mountable in a 19” cabinet. Deskside computers are not rack-mountable
  • Campus Main Data Center: Hardware Depth
    • 30” Depth limit for servers/storage/devices in the Campus Data Center

3.2. Service Scope

ITS Data Center Services provides physical server hosting in support of UCSC-related business, education, and research. ITS Data Center Operations (DCO) team provides infrastructure, people, and processes to support the following suite of services:

Data Center Facilities Space, Power, and Cooling

  • Colocation Facility:
    • Capacity (Space and Power): Flexible and dependent on demand
    • Generator backed redundant power
    • Cooling
    • Racks/Cabinets
  • On-Campus Facility (Communications Data Center)
    • Power Capacity: 200kW
    • 100kW Generator backed power
    • Cooling
    • Racks/Cabinets

3.2.2. Physical Infrastructure monitoring, modifications, and maintenance (for both locations)

  • UPS infrastructure
  • Batteries
  • Generator
  • HVAC

3.2.3. Equipment Installation/Removal and Troubleshooting

  • Hands-On Services for both on-campus and the Colocation facility
    • 3.2.3.•.1. In Scope
      • Hardware installs/de-installs
      • Swap hard drives
      • Swap memory
      • Port activation
      • Hardware status updates and general hands-on hardware troubleshooting assistance
    • 3.2.3.•.2. Out of Scope
      • System and application level monitoring
      • Debugging Operating System issues
      • Debugging application issues
      • General hardware support
      • Networking issues
      • Hostname allocation
      • Firewall rules
      • Application Support
      • Databases Support
      • Web support
      • AWS support
      • Information Security

3.2.4. Network Connectivity

  • Equipment maintenance schedule
  • Network cabling

4. Roles and Responsibilities

4.1. ITS Physical Hosting Responsibilities

ITS will provide the infrastructure, technology, people, processes, and physical/environmental monitoring tools necessary for campus and colocation data center services: 

  • Meet response times associated with the priority assigned to incidents and service requests.
  • Provide appropriate notification to the campus community for scheduled maintenance or issues via email, the Maintenance Calendar, and/or communication to campus via the ITS Communication Manager.

4.2. Customer Physical Hosting Responsibilities

Adhere to UC, UCSC, and ITS policy; this includes

Client responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this Agreement include

  • Adhering to UCSC Architecture Review Board (ARB) standards
  • Utilizing the ITS Support Center for incidents
  • Contacting the IT Service or Relations Manager for additions or changes in established service level

4.2.1. Adhere to the UCSC Acceptable Use Policy

4.2.2. Adhere to the UCSC Implementation of the UC Electronic Communications Policy

4.2.3. Adhere to the UC Minimum Security Standard

4.2.4. Adhere to the ITS Data Center Access Policies and Procedures 

5. Requesting Service

5.1. How to Request Hosting

Academic/Research Faculty/Staff: contact your Divisional Liaison for more information about hosting options

ITS Staff: create a ServiceNow ticket from the Physical Server Hosting Request Form

5.2 Service Support

Standard methods of contacting ITS for service.

Online / ServiceNow: https://ucsc.service-now.com/
Phone: 831-459-4357 (HELP)
Email: help@ucsc.edu

 

6. Hours of Coverage, Response Times

The Campus Data Center Operations services are provided

  • Sunday - Monday 2pm - 10:30pm
  • Tuesday - Thursday 5:30am - 10:30pm
  • Friday - Saturday 5:30am - 2pm

Campus priorities may require exceptions to this goal during certain times of the Academic year.

6.1. Response time

For support requests submitted through the ServiceNow ticket system, first-response times and resolution times are tracked and reported as part of the ITS and Campus SLA.

  • On Campus Assistance: Response time in less than 4 business hours.
  • Colocation Facility Assistance (Smarthands): Response time is less than 6hrs. An expedited response is available upon request
Note: service can be limited by the supporting staff hours, check with your divisional liaison, or ITS technical lead
 

7. Other Requests

Requests for service features and functions not yet implemented can be submitted to the ITS Support Center through the online ticket system.

8. Maintenance and Service Changes

Some Data Center services have pre-scheduled maintenance windows. Most maintenance will not impact service; in the event, that maintenance is expected to result in a service outage. These pre-scheduled maintenance windows are listed on the Data Center service web pages and on the ITS Maintenance Calendar.

9. Pricing

Data Center Physical Hosting is provided without charge to customers through the campus Information User (IU) funding. ITS covers the costs relating to these services in order to encourage members of the UCSC community to use the central computing facilities and to take advantage of the secure and power-protected environment. These include the following services:

  • Physical Server Hosting
  • Data Center Operations
  • Network/Firewall
     

10 Reviewing and Reporting

10.1. System Performance and Availability Reporting

Support response time will be tracked and reported separately as part of the ITS and Campus SLA.

10.2. SLA Reviews

The Designated Review Owner (Document Owner) is responsible for facilitating regular reviews of this document.

This SLA will be posted to the following location and will be made accessible to all stakeholders:

Document Location: http://its.ucsc.edu/sla/